Showers of Blessing

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 9, 1908

Showers of Blessing

WRITING under date of June 29 from the Velva (N. D.) camp-ground, Elder G. B. Thompson reports some features of the meeting which will be of great interest to all our readers. Other reports already received indicate that the camp-meetings thus far held have been of unusual power and profit. From Brother Thompson's letter we make the following extract:—

Friday a special work began among the young people, and after the services in the evening, some of the ministers began working for some of the German young people who were not converted. This effort spread to various tents, and finally a large number of them gathered again in the large tent, and continued seeking God till nearly morning. This same work went forward in the various tents on the Sabbath. The Lord wrought greatly among the Germans and Russians, and also among the English and Scandinavians. In the English tent, some began to keep the Sabbath for the first time. It looked like the latter rain.

At 6 A. M. to-day, I spoke to the Germans and Russians on the needs of our missions, and the ten-cent-a-week plan. After breakfast we had another meeting in the German and English tent, and took up an offering in cash and pledges for the foreign work. God wrought greatly. Men stood up with tears in their eyes and began to make pledges. Some gave one hundred sixty acres of land, worth from twenty-five hundred to three thousand dollars. Some gave eighty acres, some forty, and some gave one thousand dollars, and some five hundred dollars, in cash. A number gave one hundred dollars, and others gave a number of acres of wheat, flax, etc.

The whole amount given, counting the land at the selling price, amounted in cash and pledges to about twenty-five thousand dollars. It will take some time to realize on all this, but the most of it will come in likely this year. This was indeed a wonderful meeting. I never saw a people more happy.

We can not buy salvation with money, and the debt of sin can not be canceled by large donations, but genuine conversion means the consecration of means as well as of all the powers of the being. Those who have any adequate appreciation of the present situation will certainly be moved to supply the means for sending the final proclamation of “the everlasting gospel” to the ends of the earth with all haste. We hope the experience at the North Dakota meeting may be repeated in many other places.