Untitled article by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, October 15, 1867

FromThe Advent Review & Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 18

EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE, NO. 4.

By Editor

Our last report closed with a meeting in prospect in Southern Iowa. After a pleasant ride of twenty-eight miles across the beautiful prairies, Oct. 2, with pleasant company, pleasant weather, and pleasant scenery, our journey reached its end and climax together in the town of Mount Pleasant, a thrifty and enterprising place of about 6000 inhabitants—a place which we found very appropriately named, if we take the “Mount” in a somewhat accommodated sense, it being a prairie but slightly elevated above the surrounding country. Here is a church of S. D. Adventists of fifty-four members. The tent had been transported from Pilot Grove, for the purpose of meetings here; but owing to unfavorable weather Thursday and Friday, could not be pitched before the Sabbath. Halls were therefore used on that day, in the forenoon the hall owned by the church, which proving too small for the congregation, the meeting was moved in the afternoon to Union hall where a good assembly listened to sister White. After the Sabbath the tent was erected, and seated Sunday morning in season for meeting at 10. The fact of the tent not being up on the Sabbath, and there being several funerals on first-day, operated unfavorably for a large congregation; yet a good representation of the citizens of the place came out, the congregation at one point in the afternoon amounting to about one thousand persons, to whom sister White spoke with much freedom, and apparently to good acceptance. Bro. White spoke three times. The brethren of the place, who, of course, best understood the conditions and wants of the cause there, expressed themselves as well pleased with the effort. The meetings can but result favorably to the interests of the truth there. There is a good foundation to build to, a spirit of honest inquiry seems to exist in many hearts, and we confidently expect substantial and permanent progress in the work in that section. A feature of especial interest was the readiness with which books were purchased from the stand by those desirous of investigating our views. The meeting throughout seemed quite like a second edition of the good Convocation Meeting at Pilot Grove.

Monday forenoon we visited the chief feature of the place, the Insane Asylum. This is a magnificent building, the largest west of the Mississippi. It stands in a lot of one hundred and seventy-three acres, presents a front of five hundred and twelve feet, while the outside line of the building gives an actual circumference of half a mile. Through the courtesy of the gentlemanly supervisor, Mr. Ashby, though our visit was outside of the hours designated by the regulations of the institution for the reception of visitors, we had the privilege of examining many features of this noble asylum. Of these we cannot here speak particularly. A grand, double stair-case ascends the rotunda, in the central portion of the building, to the height of three stories. From thence we ascended by spiral steps to the cupola, one hundred and thirty-seven feet from the ground. The view from so elevated a position in so level a country, the reader can well imagine, would be almost boundless. All the beauties which can be condensed into prairie landscape through the combined effort of nature and art are here presented at one view. But alas! we find in earth’s fairest spots, there is still need of the grave-yard; we are reminded that the curse is here, and “the trail of the serpent is over it all.” So we turn our eyes forward to the times of restitution when a redeemed earth relieved of the curse and all its blight, shall be given in everlasting possession to a redeemed people. Hence, as we are but pilgrims and strangers here, it matters but little in what portion of this world we make our brief sojourn. We long for the inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away; and we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” where men will no longer have occasion to build asylums for the unfortunate of their race, whose reason is dethroned, and where attendants for the dying and dead, will be needed no more.

At 2:48 p. m. we took the cars for Michigan, reaching Battle Creek at a little past noon the next day. Bro. and sister White have endured their arduous labors in the West, and the fatigues of the journey, without any apparent detriment to strength or health.

We now return to familiar Office duties, grateful to those who have so cheerfully taken upon themselves these duties in our absence, feeling also rested and refreshed by the brief relaxation we have enjoyed. We have seen much in our visit west calculated to give us new strength and courage in the great work of the third message. The spirit of love and union among the brethren that we witnessed at all the meetings, and their devotion to the cause of truth, were truly cheering. We have seen how highly they valued these truths, and what they have been willing to sacrifice to embrace them; and as we have seen this, we have felt a new sense of the responsibility that rests upon those who have important positions to fill in this work, that it be not marred by any wrongs or unfaithfulness on their part. The Lord give us all new consecration to his work, and bless and prosper his cause in all its departments.