Important Meetings in Battle Creek
By A. G. DANIELLS
Reports that have gone out from Battle Creek about the meetings recently held with our church in that place, have led our brethren in different parts of the country to write us for an accurate statement of the facts. As such a statement will be appreciated by our people generally, it is thought best to make it through the REVIEW. While attending the Medical Missionary Convention at College View, we received from Sister White a number of Testimonies regarding our medical missionary work, the conditions existing in Battle Creek, and the question of sending our young people to that place to secure an education. In a few days after the convention closed, we received at Washington a solemn message addressed to the Battle Creek church. As none of the communications referred to above were private, and as they were sent with instruction to place them before our people generally, it was advised by the members of the General Conference Committee residing in Washington that Elder Irwin and the writer should go to Battle Creek and read these Testimonies to the church. We arrived in that city Thursday morning, December 14. During the day arrangements were made to meet the church board in the evening. This board was composed of about twenty of the leading brethren in the church, and included the elders of the church. These brethren received us kindly, and after hearing from us a statement of the object of our presence among them, they arranged to have the Testimonies read, first to the board, and then to the church. When it became known that we had important messages to read, there was an earnest desire on the part of some, and a curiosity on the part of others, to hear them. Consequently the Tabernacle was well filled at all the readings. The messages were read with little or no comment by the readers. They made a profound impression. Never in all my experience in this cause have I seen the Testimonies of the spirit of prophecy lay hold of the hearts of men and women as these did. The Spirit of God accompanied the messages, and sent deep conviction to the hearts of hundreds who6heard them. In some of the meetings there was a solemnity that could be felt by all present. The power of God that attended these fresh messages from the servant of the Lord, was a fitting rebuke to those who are influenced by the reports that the one who writes these communications is now so old and childish and is so influenced by designing men that we can not rely upon what is written as we could at one time. Notwithstanding all the rumors put in circulation to destroy the force and authority of the Testimonies, a far greater power attends them than accompanies the words, backed by the personal influence, of those who demerit the Testimonies. As soon as we began to read the Testimonies, many persons present came and requested personal interviews with us. These interviews revealed the fact that large numbers of our people in Battle Creek were greatly confused and perplexed concerning the Testimonies. They had heard so much about the mistakes, the contradictions, and the “human side” of the Testimonies, also the inconsistencies of the one who writes them, and the human influences used in producing them, that their confidence was greatly shaken. We visited many, but those only who requested us to do so. The burden of our work was to answer, with the information in our possession, the damaging reports being circulated against the Testimonies. From the questions asked and the difficulties related, we could not wonder that these people who have so little acquaintance with the general facts were confused, bewildered, and shaken. It was our privilege to see many come out of the mists and fog of doubt and declare their firm confidence in the spirit of prophecy as exercised at the present time, and also their determination to obey the counsels given. When we had been in Battle Creek a week, Sister White telegraphed us to remain until the arrival of important manuscripts just mailed. A great congregation was present Tuesday night, December 26, to hear these messages. They so graphically described the situation just as it is beneath the surface that a number of men came forward at the close of the reading and declared these must remove the last lingering doubts from every candid mind regarding the source of such writings. The call of these messages is to our people in Battle Creek to come out just as soon as their duties will possibly permit. The warning to our brethren out of Battle Creek is not to go there to secure their education and training for service in this cause. Many who are now there intend to heed the counsel to come away. No effort was made to stampede the people. No excitement was created. There was a careful, sober, determined decision made that will cause them to move as the providence of God opens the way. A careful study of conditions shows that all the warnings given by the spirit of prophecy were full of meaning, and that serious evils and losses would have been avoided if the warnings had been heeded. Many of our old loyal Adventists in Battle Creek testify to this, and stand with unshaken faith in this message and in the spirit of prophecy, which has been a guide to this people for more than half a century.