The General Conference

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 22, 1913

The General Conference

Thirty-Eighth Session, May 15 to June 8, 1913

First Meeting

May 15, 10 A. M.

The first meeting of the thirty-eighth session of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists was called in the large tent, at Takoma Park, Washington, D. C., 10 A. M., May 15, 1913; Elder A. G. Daniells, president, in the chair.

After a song of welcome from the choir, the congregation joined in singing the Doxology. Elder O. A. Olsen read as a Scripture lesson the sixty-sixth psalm. Elder J. N. Loughborough, who was a delegate at the organization of the General Conference fifty years ago, offered the opening prayer.

A. G. Daniells: I am glad to be associated with this body of workers. I am glad to be connected with a people who have a conscience, who fear God, who want to do right and to serve him in this world. I would rather be joined with this people and this movement than to be connected with anything in the wide world, and I feel that all that surrounds me, and all that I am associated with, calls for the full surrender of my life to God the rest of my days, and I feel to make it, and to give it.

And I am exceedingly grateful to our God for caring for these brethren who have come from the ends of the earth, and from our own land; and, brethren, I believe that right now, at the beginning of this meeting, we should ask God what he would have us do, with the purpose and the intention of obeying the word he may speak to us, wherever he may call us, whatever he may have for us to do. Whatever the sacrifice may be, if we know he requires it, we should make the full surrender of life to him today; then I believe we can consistently expect his blessing in full measure during this Conference,—not only can we expect it, but it will be given.

We are going to spend some time at the opening in giving opportunity for expressions of gratitude and praise and thanksgiving by those who feel this in their hearts. We desire that the time will be occupied with short, brief words, telling how you stand with God, and what appeals to you this morning as we open this meeting.

O. A. Olsen: I certainly wish to join in the utterance of praise and thanksgiving to God this morning for what we have seen and experienced of his wonderful leadings from the very beginning of this great work. I am glad today for the privilege of having spent fifty-five years of my life in connection with this precious truth, and it rejoices my heart today to see the foundation, and the great principles upon which this message started out, stronger and firmer and more solid than at any time in the past. It has weathered the storms and the opposition that have come, and God has given most wonderful victory in every effort; and today we see representatives from all the leading parts of the earth here, representing the work among these nations.

I thank God, too, that it was my privilege to be among the early ones of foreign nationalities that accepted this truth and have had a part in it. I am thankful today to meet my brethren from all parts of the earth. I rejoice in this message. Brethren and sisters, there is nothing else to me in this world but the finishing of this work, and to this I dedicate all the remaining powers of my being, to his glory, through Jesus, my Lord.

J. N. Loughborough: My experience in the third angel’s message goes back farther than that. I remember when we did not have a conference at all. A few days more it will be sixty-one years since I began preaching the third angel’s message. It so happened that the first day that I ever saw Sister White—thirty minutes after I was introduced to her—I saw her in heavenly vision, and that was the first I ever heard of it. As I have said many times, it was wonderful that God introduced me to this thing as he did, and there has not been a man among Seventh-day Adventists aside from Elder James White, who has had as many privileges along this line as I had in the earlier years of the message. For this I am profoundly grateful to God.

In those earlier years I had no thought that God would let me live to be a boy again, but in his providence he has permitted me to live to be over eighty-two years of age. I am living on God’s time now, and I want this time spent just as he wants it spent.

They told me long ago, when I was traveling with Sister White, and we taught that the message would go into all the world, into the different nations and nationalities, “Why, prejudice will come up between you, and you will all go to pieces.” Well, I went around and saw some of the pieces, about four or five years ago. I saw the Basutos in Africa, and the Germans, and other nations. And today, bless your heart, there are about seventy different pieces in the different parts of the world, and they are most wonderfully stuck together. There are lots of pieces, and I tell you they are very useful for this message. There is no disunion among these pieces, and, by the grace of God, there will be none here.

S. N. Haskell: I did not know before that Brother Loughborough began to keep the Sabbath a year before I did. I thought he began to keep it the same year I did, but he has kept it for sixty-one years and I have kept it for sixty. I am very thankful for what we see here this morning. While we were sitting here and Brother Olsen was speaking, I was thinking of the time when there was not a single German Sabbath-keeper in our ranks, and there was not a French Sabbath-keeper either. There may have been some, but I did not know of any. There were two girls here in the East who began to study one French and the other German, in order that they might correspond with the French and with the German, and so open up the work with these nationalities. Both of these sisters sleep in Jesus today; but before they had fairly begun to learn the language the Lord had gone out before us, and individuals from the German, and from the French, and the Danes, and the Norwegians, and the Swedes, began to embrace the truth. And now what do we see?

Now the truth that began so small and was apparently so feeble, has encircled the earth, and it has been demonstrated that God can do something, that he has done something. The nations of the earth are to be lighted up with the glory of the third angel’s message; and the end is not yet.

A. C. Bourdeau: I very well remember when I could count all the ministers in the cause of present truth on the fingers of my hands, and now what do I see? O, what hath God wrought!

I well remember, when I embraced the truth, our brethren thought that the proclamation of the third angel’s message would be confined largely to the United States. And so when, in those days, I met with a well-educated gentleman from France who assured me that he knew of some in that land keeping the seventh day and believing in the soon coming of the Lord, I rejoiced, and wrote an article for the Review, suggesting that the truth for this time would be proclaimed in many lands. Good old Brother Hutchins, who is now sleeping in Jesus, upon reading this article, said, “How could you write this way,—that the message is going to many lands?” Said I, “I believe it will!” and brethren, I thank God today for what is being accomplished in all parts of the world. I praise his name that we are all well able to go up and possess the goodly land.

L. R. Conradi: I am thankful to tell you that there are some thirty thousand of our people today in the European Division who are praying for this Conference. Years ago we hardly dared to hope that there would be so many. Today they do not come by hundreds, but they come by thousands. [Voices: Thank the Lord!]

I am so pleased today to tell you that we have indeed a gospel, a message, that is not of men, but it has in it the power of God. Within the last few months it has been my privilege to meet not only Protestants who have been brought to this truth, and to greater light, but also Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics, and even Mohammedans. I was present but a few months ago at a baptism down in heathen Africa. One Sabbath we baptized fifty-one. I thought, as the fifty-one men were baptized—they were mostly young men—that our brethren had done pretty well for that quarter; but this morning news reached me that since then twenty-four more have been baptized in the same quarter, making seventy-five young people converted and brought to the knowledge of this truth direct from heathenism; and they are not only brought to a knowledge of this truth, but more than this. When I was talking to some twenty-five teachers, I asked how many of them would be willing to go into the interior hundreds of miles farther and preach this message, and every hand went up. They were all ready to go as missionaries. I thank the Lord that whether our faces are black or white our hearts are touched by the same Holy Spirit, we are cleansed by the same blood of Jesus Christ, we are united into one body by the same faith and by the same love and the same power of this message, and it is this united power that is helping us to carry the truth to the very ends of the earth.

I. H. Evans: I am glad to bring to this Conference the greetings of our brethren in the Asiatic Division of the General Conference. We have a mixed multitude over there of about six hundred twenty-five millions of heathen. Among them we have a very few brethren and sisters scattered among the various nationalities; but when they accept this message, they become what we are—one in Christ—and they believe the very truths that have called us together here. If our brethren from Korea and Japan and China, the Philippines and the East Indies, could be here, and you could hear what they would say, they would tell you how much God has done for them, how glad they are that they have found this precious truth, how it has made them better men and better women, how it has opened up to them a new life, and how they are trying to get ready for the coming of the Lord.

W. T. Knox: The progress of the work has certainly been far beyond the expectation of his people. He has done more than we in those days asked or thought. As we take up the writings of the people in those days and see what their plans and purposes and ambitions and desires were concerning this work, what they planned in giving this message to the world, we can see that God has gone far beyond their highest expectations, and one of the results is this meeting here this morning. I am so glad that God has gathered out a people from almost every nation, kindred, tribe, and people that today are rejoicing in the third angel’s message. I feel to thank him for the many ways in which he is making it possible for this people to give this truth to the world, for the multiplying of open doors that are being reported to us by our brethren in foreign fields.

R. W. Munson: Fifteen years ago, I went to Battle Creek to find health. I had been a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church for fourteen years, and the first two weeks I spent in Battle Creek I took no interest whatever in the doctrinal teachings of this people. But the Lord used Sister S. M. I. Henry to open my eyes to the truth. She told me her experience, how she had been a Methodist for more than fifty years, how Bishop Fowler and Dr. Edwards, and many others, had failed to convince her that Sunday was the Sabbath. She had been led to investigate, and she could not find in the New Testament any authority for keeping Sunday. After she told me her experience, I went away, and I thought, “Now Sunday either is or is not the New Testament Sabbath.” Well, in two weeks I was satisfied on the question. Dr. Kellogg invited me to act as assistant chaplain of the sanitarium, and a very happy year it was. My family was with me. I had five children. After a year I was so much better that I was able to go back to the East Indies, to Sumatra. We have all of us been in the very jaws of death many times during the last fourteen years.

I will close with one word more. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord, in this message, than to have the highest honors that the world can give me. I want you to pray that the Lord will use me in some humble way in leading hungry souls to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus. I can testify that he is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto him.

J. O. Corliss: I had the privilege of laboring with Father Bates. This I shall never forget. He taught me how to pray. I had prayed a good deal before that, but I had never learned how to talk with the Lord as I did after I had been with Father Bates. That good old soul would bow down in my presence and talk with the Lord just as if he was a friend of his and had hold of his hand. Brethren, I love to think of those days and my association with such men as Joseph Bates and J. N. Andrews. Although my hair has grown white in this message, my heart is just as young as it ever was. If there is one purpose in my heart today, it is that I may be faithful to the end. I do long to live until the Master shall come. I have had visions of that time, and of the glory when the Lord shall come and gather his people home. How I long to be with those who shall meet him with joy when he comes!

W. C. White: I bring you greetings from mother, and from her helpers. Her last words to me with reference to the Conference were: “Tell our brethren to be of good cheer. Tell them to have faith in God and to expect great things, to undertake great things, and in his strength to go forward. Tell them not to fear nor to look back. My prayers will be with them. Tell our brethren I feel perfectly clear that it is God’s will that I shall remain at home and reserve what strength I have to help in the work of bringing my writings into book form, so that they can be published for the people.”

As father’s and mother’s names have been mentioned here several times this morning, I thought it proper to bring you this word of greeting, and to answer the question which a thousand will ask me, “How is Sister White’s health?” Mother is eighty-five years old. She feels the infirmities of age, but she is not suffering with sickness. She is comfortably well. Almost every pleasant day she rides out for an hour or two. Usually she devotes an hour or two to reading and writing, from day to day. Very frequently, as I visit her in the morning, I find the REVIEW in her hands, and she says, “What a wonderful paper! what an interesting report of our work!” and in connection with various reports in the REVIEW she often comments on the progress of the work in many lands.

Mother’s courage is good. She has no fear of the future. She expects to rest in the grave a little while before the Lord comes, but she has no dread. Her only anxiety is to use day by day what strength God gives her, in a way most acceptable to her Master.

After these cheering words from the brethren, the Conference proceeded to organize. The roll was called, and it was found that there were 356 delegates present, 225 of whom represented the American conferences, 105 the conferences outside of the United States and Canada, and 26 the mission fields.

One thing which indicated the progress of the work and the definite organization that is being effected in different parts of the world, was the request from newly organized conferences and mission fields for representation in the General Conference.

First Meeting

(Concluded from page 5)

This was presented as follows:—

East German Union Conference, H. F. Schuberth president, with a membership of 600, organized in 1909.

West German Union Conference, J. G. Oblaender president, with a membership of 5,000, organized in 1909.

Central European Union Conference, O. E. Reinke president, with a membership of 3,031, organized in 1912.

Danube Union Conference, G. F. Huenergardt president, with a membership of 1,425, organized in 1912.

The Siberian Union Mission field, Elder G. Perk president, with a membership of 1,100, organized in 1912.

Brazilian Union Conference, F. W. Spies president, with a membership of 1,512, organized in 1910.

The India Union Mission field, J. L. Shaw superintendent, with a membership upward of 500.

Levant Union Mission field, with a membership of 363, organized in 1911.

These conferences and mission fields were heartily accorded membership in the General Conference organization.

By vote of the Conference the president and three vice-presidents—namely, Elders A. G. Daniells, I. H. Evans, L. R. Conradi, and W. T. Knox—were constituted the presiding officers for the session.

The following-named persons were made a pastoral committee for the session, to arrange for the order of meetings: A. G. Daniells, I. H. Evans, L. R. Conradi, E. W. Farnsworth, G. B. Thompson, J. W. Westphal, E. E. Andross, J. E. Fulton, R. C. Porter, and W. C. White.