p. 6 | The Pacific Union Conference by Arthur G. Daniells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 26, 1908

The Pacific Union Conference

By Arthur G. Daniells

THE third biennial session of the Pacific Union Conference was held in the St. Helena Sanitarium chapel at Sanitarium, Cal., January 17-25. The delegates numbered about fifty, but the meetings were attended by many of our people who were living in the vicinity of the sanitarium.

As I was detained at the Southern Union Conference at Nashville until after the Pacific Union meeting opened, I was permitted to attend only the latter part of this meeting. I had not met with the Pacific Union brethren since 1904, and it was a real pleasure to meet these workers from all parts of this union on this occasion. In all the meetings that were held after my arrival, there was present the good spirit of brotherly love and union. This spirit I was told had characterized the conference from the opening service.

The meeting devoted to the discussion and adoption of resolutions in behalf of raising funds for foreign missions was one of the most encouraging and uplifting I have attended in my visits to the union conferences this year. The delegates gave the great needy mission fields earnest, sympathetic consideration, and adopted plans which, if carried out by all our union and local conferences, will increase the contributions to missions two hundred thousand dollars a year. The delegates at this conference said the plans were feasible, and gave hearty assurances that they would do their best to carry them out.

The report from the various conferences and institutions were, on the whole, very encouraging. Some of the conferences showed remarkable gains in tithes and offerings. The tithe of the Southern California Conference for the biennial period ending Dec. 30, 1907, was $63,236.45, the second tithe was $21,000, and the contributions for missions reached $67,892.70. The tithe of the California Conference for the same period amounted to $133,040.17. This is $16.57 per capita for the conference membership. The donations to missions for the two years were $40,826.08.

In view of these figures, it is needless to say that the receipts of the Pacific Union for the last two years have been very encouraging. The balance sheet showed that after settling all accounts for the biennial period, the tithe still on hand amounted to about twenty thousand dollars. A comparison of the reports for 1902 and 1907 shows that with every division of the territory and reorganization of the conferences on the Pacific Coast the receipts in tithes and offerings have mounted higher and higher each year.

As I placed the large sums paid by these conferences by the side of the few thousands received by many of our weak conferences in the South and in foreign fields, I was deeply impressed with the splendid help it is in the power of the Pacific Union Conferences to render to many of our weak conferences that are struggling in their deep poverty to make headway. Until our work is done, our brethren and our conferences that are blessed with large resources must constantly share their abundance with the destitute fields.

The details of the conference will no doubt be furnished the readers by the conference secretary. The regular officers were re-elected. As all who are connected with the large work of this important conference take up their duties for another period, they should have the earnest prayers and hearty co-operation of our brethren. How vain and useless are the activities of men without the presence of the Holy Spirit.

A. G. DANIELLS.