p. 576 | Closing Conference Days by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 12, 1913

Closing Conference Days

By Editor

As we go to press, the thirty-eighth session of the General Conference is nearing its close. Already some of the delegates are returning to their homes. Soon the camp will be deserted, the tents taken down, and but little in a material way remain to remind us of this occasion. The influence of this Conference, however, we believe will be world-wide and everlasting. The editor can truthfully say that, so far as his own personal experience is concerned, it is absolutely the best general meeting that he ever attended. With him, as with hundreds of others who were present, it was an occasion for prayer, for heart searching, for seeking a closer nearness to God and a greater fulness of the divine Spirit.

The preaching was excellent and intensely spiritual in its character. It had in it the old-time ring which belongs to the true advent message. The words of the speakers found entrance to many hearts, and as in the various meetings for adults and youth and children appeals were made for a deeper consecration to God, hundreds responded. Some gave themselves to God for the first time; how many others experienced a new consecration; many consecrated themselves in behalf of their unconverted friends and relatives. The tremulous tones, the tearful eyes, attested to the sincerity of the consecration thus made. The books of heaven bear record to many earnest purposes, which we believe will be incorporated into life action in the days to come.

The reports from foreign fields were most inspiring. Verily our hearts burned within us as we listened to the missionary experiences of the noble, heroic men and women who, as representatives of the church of God, have been away out on the firing line surrounded by the depressing influences of heathenism and Catholicism, and meeting at every turn the open assaults and subtle snares of the enemy.

We talked with one shrewd, practical business man, a Seventh-day Adventist, who had come to the meeting. He had come, on his own confession, with some cynical feelings in his heart. He had felt little faith in the missionary operations of this people, believing that the work in other lands was largely superficial in its character, and that the men and women who had been sent out were mere boys and girls. This good brother experienced a genuine conversion of heart regarding this matter. When he heard the earnest testimonies borne, when he listened to the experiences of these heralds of the cross and came to realize how God had gone, before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, how by providential interpositions their lives had been spared and mountain-like obstacles had been removed from before them, and how God had wrought in behalf of his own blessed gospel, this good brother rejoiced in the stability of our work in other lands as well as in this, and realized that God indeed is in this world-wide work.

This General Conference has been attended by large expense in time and labor. Scores have come thousands of miles to attend it. Was it worth while? Was all this exertion and expense warranted?— Yea, verily. With new courage in their hearts, with new songs in their mouths, the believers return to their lonely fields, realizing that they are a part of a great concerted plan that is being carried forward; that there is a concert of prayer and sympathy and love going out continually from the thousands of believers scattered throughout the great harvest-field.

Policies and methods have been discussed; better plans of cooperation have been secured; interests have been cemented; the representatives of a world-wide church stand united heart and soul in a common faith, in common plans, in Christian love.

May God grant that the next quadrennial term, above any preceding four years in the history of this movement, may be rich to every soul in Christian experience in gospel service and in soul-saving effort.