Report of the Northern Union Conference
By R. A. UNDERWOOD
R. A. UNDERWOOD, PRESIDENT To the delegates and others assembled in General Conference the Northern Union delegation bring greeting. We can report some progress since the last General Conference. Four years ago the Northern Union Conference territory was composed of Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and a growing mission field of three large provinces of Canada,—Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. At the General Conference Council held at Gland, Switzerland, two years ago, it was recommended that we9release the above-named provinces in Canada to be organized with British Columbia into the Western Canadian Union Conference. This request was granted, and in the fall of the same year the Western Canadian Union Conference was organized, which you have by vote accepted as one of the sister union conferences composing the General Conference now in session. The same council recommended that the Central Union Conference release the Iowa Conference, that it might become a part of the Northern Union Conference. This recommendation was also carried into effect. Owing to the necessary changes thus involved in the Northern Union Conference, I shall not undertake to give a report of this union as it now is, for the past four years, but will speak more of the past year and the present condition. The present church-membership of the Northern Union, as reported by the various conferences, is 5,980, with 545 scattered Sabbath-keepers who are not church-members, making a total of 6,525 Sabbath-keepers in the conference. It is but due to the conferences in the Northern Union that I speak of what will appear as a falling off in membership during the past three or four years in the territory now comprising the Northern Union Conference. By a comparison of the reports during the last three years there will appear a loss instead of a gain. This falling off in membership is seen in Iowa and Minnesota. These conferences have reported each year from one to two hundred additions to their churches. As reported in the Year Book for 1906, Iowa's membership was 3,736. The secretary and president of the Iowa Conference report that after a very careful effort to obtain the facts, they find that there are only 2,428 church-members in the conference at present. This shows a loss of membership to the Iowa Conference of 1,308 in three years, while Minnesota shows a loss of membership of 399 in the same time, or a total loss in membership in the two conferences of 1,707, notwithstanding the fact that during this time about one thousand Sabbath-keepers have been added to the churches in these two conferences. Several reasons are given for this condition. Those who have thoroughly canvassed the Iowa Conference assign as the greatest reason for the apparent loss in numbers the fact that the former accredited membership, as published for some years past, showed a much larger number of Sabbath-keepers than were actually in the State. Another reason is that the Northern Union Conference territory has been seized by a spirit of moving, which has caused an exodus of Sabbath-keepers to the West, to the North, and to the South. Whole churches, parts of churches, and families have gone one after another, and keep going. One church sold a church building, and took the proceeds with them to build a church in their new location. During the past year a company left one conference, and it required a township six miles square to provide them homes where they settled. These conditions, with our efforts to respond to the calls for men and means to supply the fields beyond, have placed some of our conferences at a disadvantage in their home work. Two of our conferences have had at times only one active minister laboring in the English language. We have fifty-one ordained ministers in the Northern Union Conference. Of this number six are engaged in school work, and about a dozen who, because of age and poor health, are able to do little or no work, are justly entitled to support; still others might be called "farmer preachers," and are engaged in conference work only part of the time. We have, including ministers, office help, canvassers, and others, two hundred eighteen on our list of laborers. We have four conference academies, with twenty-eight instructors, and an attendance during the past school year of two hundred eighty-eight students. The industrial, intellectual, and spiritual training has been combined. The revival spirit has been such that in some schools every student has been converted. One hundred thirty-eight students from the Northern Union Conference have attended Union College the past year. There are thirty-nine church-schools in the Northern Union, with 455 students in attendance. The number of church-schools would have been largely increased could we have found suitable teachers for the work. We have had eight hundred eighty-one students in training during 1908, besides students at Madison, Tenn., Washington, D. C., and elsewhere. In view of the crowded condition of Union College, and counsel received from Sister White favoring the establishment of an advanced training-school in the Northern Union Conference, members of the General Conference Committee and the Northern Union Committee have had under advisement the question of establishing a union school doing advanced work. Our attention was called to some advantages in the United States Indian school property at Chamberlain, S. D., and we were advised to secure it. This property consists of one hundred sixty acres of land, twelve or more buildings, and fixtures, which had cost the United States considerably over one hundred thousand dollars, but being no longer needed by the government in its educational work for the Indians, had been placed on the market. Bill H. R. 26916 passed Congress at its last regular session, offering this property to the State of South Dakota on condition that the State maintain a school in which the Indians should have free education. The legislature of South Dakota, then in session, declined to accept the property from the United States, and this action received the governor's approval. The bill further provided that should the State of South Dakota decline to accept the property, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to dispose of it for not less than twenty-six thousand dollars for school purposes, with a provision that Indians who comply with the same requirements as whites may attend without tuition, but are to pay for their board and room. On March 3, 1909, we made a final offer of twenty-six thousand dollars for the property at Chamberlain to the Secretary of the Interior. We were led to hope that a definite answer would be made to our bid by March 15. But in the effort to secure more for the property, the government representatives delayed an answer. We have notified the commissioner of Indian affairs that unless our bid is accepted, and we are notified to that effect on or before May 25, 1909, this bid for the property will be thereby withdrawn. The initial expense of purchase of the Chamberlain property, based upon our bid, with the necessary changes in the buildings and a suitable equipment, will cost about fifty thousand dollars. If the property is secured, and these changes are made, and the equipment for college and industrial work is secured, the property will be quite well adapted for school work. We much desire the counsel of this Conference in this important undertaking. We have one conference sanitarium at Des Moines, Iowa, which has been doing good work, but is about to be moved from the city to Nevada, and occupy new and better quarters. This sanitarium has thirty or more physicians, nurses, and helpers. Drs. Farnsworth and Lindsay have a sanitarium at Chamberlain, S. D., which is doing excellent work, and has about the same capacity as the Iowa Sanitarium. There are also located in Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota several small sanitariums and treatment-rooms doing good work, conducted by individuals. The tithe of the Northern Union Conference for 1908 was $99,842.80, which is $16.69 per capita for each church-member, or $15.30 per capita for the total number of Sabbath-keepers in the union. One conference paid $21.65 tithe per capita for its membership, and $18.47 per capita for the entire number of Sabbath-keepers in its territory. I am fully convinced that if all our Sabbath-keepers paid a full tithe, our funds would be greatly increased. Each conference in the Northern Union met its full quota, per capita, on the $150,000 fund. The union as a whole exceeded its quota with a creditable surplus. Only one union conference, which has a much larger constituency, paid more into this fund than the Northern Union Conference. The local conferences have voted to raise for foreign missions an amount equal to ten cents a week for each church-member. This vote was not taken until about the middle of 1908. However, during that year there was sent to the Mission Board $34,299.11, or a fraction over ten cents a week for each church-member in the union. In addition to this amount there has been sent out of the union to other fields $17,890.06 in tithes, making a total of $52,189.17 given to aid the general evangelistic work in 1908. This is a little over $8.72 per capita (or 16¾ cents per week) for our entire membership, or an amount more than equal to one half of the entire tithe of the union. For some years, over forty per cent of all funds raised for evangelistic work has been sent from our field into the regions beyond. This does not include the $20,555.87 raised on the $150,000 fund, nor other large donations given to institutional work in the South and elsewhere.10 A General Awakening in the Northern Union Conference
More than two hundred precious souls were converted at the camp-meetings last season, and over $47,000 was raised in pledges and cash for various enterprises, the larger part being for foreign missions. A considerable portion of this amount is in land yet to be sold. There is a revival in the distribution of our literature, in the sale of books and periodicals, and in the circulation of tracts. About $36,000 worth of our publications were sold in the Northern Union during 1908. This is a large increase over any year in the recent past. Parents are awakening to the importance of Christian education, and a spirit of loyalty to the work at home and abroad is seen in all our conferences. We are reminded by the few pioneers present at this conference that it is little more than half a century since a small company of believers in the cause of reform, launched what had been long foretold in prophecy,—the threefold message of Revelation 14. In the love of Christ with united effort this band of believers labored and sacrificed to spread the gospel message world-wide with the hope of seeing the end come. Most of this advance guard have fallen in battle, while a few are still with us to counsel and labor with their old-time devotion, and to encourage younger men upon whom the heavier burdens must rest. It behooves all to rededicate their lives to the cause thus far so successfully advanced, which is destined to certain victory at the soon appearing of our King. To-day the delegates of the Northern Union, with you that are gathered from many lands, are imbued with the same faith, purpose, and hope which possessed the pioneers in this cause. We meet to plan for the extension of this gospel of the kingdom to all the world in this generation. When face to face with men of faith, there is no East nor West, no North nor South, no national lines nor race; we see everywhere only sinful, blood-bought men, as subjects of divine grace. To bear this heaven-born message to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, we as delegates and as a united people are committed.