The Thirty-Eighth Session Closed

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 19, 1913

The Thirty-Eighth Session Closed

The thirty-eighth session of the General Conference has passed forever. The three thousand delegates and visitors who were in attendance are now scattered. Some of them have already reached home, many of them are still on their way. We can no longer look forward with fond anticipation to this season of communion with heaven and with our brethren. But while we cannot anticipate the occasion, we can recall it with most pleasant memories; for surely it was a blessed meeting. God wrought in behalf of his people.

The religious services of the gathering were not attended with any spectacular features. There was no great demonstration, but one had only to enter the place of meeting to feel at once the distinctive thrill of the Spirit of God, which was present with his people. This was particularly marked in the early morning meetings and in the Sabbath services. The words of the lesson appealed with thrilling power. No worldly, eloquent discourses were delivered. Somehow we rarely find God using such discourses very effectively. The sermon of Peter on the day of Pentecost, from the standpoint of an orator and rhetorician, was a very weak effort. It was the simple story of the cross of Christ; but that story, simply told by the humble fisherman of Galilee, carried with it the mighty power of God to convict men of sin and to draw them to Christ. We believe that many felt something of that same divine influence stirring their hearts in connection with the Scripture lessons given at the recent Conference. It is not by might nor by power, but by the gentle influence of the Spirit of God, that changes are wrought in human character.

If the good impressions made, if the convictions created in many minds, if the new purposes born in many hearts, are carried into effect in the days to come, we believe that the last session of the General Conference will go down in the history of this church as one where God most signally met with his people. Shall we not make it such in our experience?