This conference includes Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, the islands of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia; the East Indies, and the Philippine Archipelago.
From east to west, this field reaches over one third of the distance around the world, and within its borders are found over fifty million people.
There are seven organized local conferences in the Australasian Union—one in each of the five States of Australia, and one each in New Zealand and Tasmania.
The conference has ten missions under its care, and dependent on it for support; namely, North Queensland, Fiji, Pitcairn, Norfolk Island, Rarotonga, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, Sumatra, and Singapore. The last two have but recently been established, but give promise of soon developing into prosperous missions.
The first camp-meeting ever held in the southern hemisphere was held in Napier, New Zealand, in the year 1893. Since that time, forty-seven camp-meetings have been held in Australia, but no two on the same ground.
A fair degree of prosperity has attended the work of this conference for the past two years. In Sabbath-keepers there has been a gain of 577, making a total number of 3,435, 407 of whom belong to the island missions. Eighteen new churches have been organized, and fourteen new church buildings erected.
Our present working force consists of twenty-eight ministers, fourteen licensed preachers, forty-three mission and Bible workers, and eighty-eight canvassers. The total tithe received during the biennial period amounts to $77,477.55, an increase of $5,487.38 in the two years. The total Sabbath-school donations amount to $9,444.50, and of this amount $7,390.29 was devoted to foreign missions. Total tithe and offerings devoted to evangelistic and mission work, $86,922.05.
Book Sales
More books have been sold during this biennial period than in the preceding one, but the proportion of expensive books has been less, which makes the total amount received in dollars and cents a few thousand less, the total amount received being $128,705.04. Since the first subscription books were sold in Australia in the year 1885, there have been 1887,243 books sold, the retail value being about $752,840.
AVONDALE CHURCH
Publishing Work
At the time of our last report, the Echo Publishing Company was operating a branch office in Durban, Natal, South Africa. This branch, with most of its stock, has since been sold, and turned over to the South African Conference. During the past two years a constant effort has been put forth upon the part of the managers of the Echo Company to sell their plant in the city of Melbourne and buy a piece of land in some quiet place in the country, and build a new plant just large enough to handle our own denominational work. While we have not as yet succeeded in selling the old plant, we have succeeded in finding and purchasing a beautiful site for the new office and buildings. The location is in the mountains, near the village of Warburton, which is located on the headwaters of the Yarra River, forty-eight miles from the city of Melbourne. In addition to healthful climate, fertile soil, and beautiful scenery, there is a never-failing water privilege of sufficient power to operate the plant. Feeling assured that this location met the specifications named in the Testimonies, and that the Lord would be pleased to7have us secure this property and make this the headquarters of our publishing work, we started a subscription among our brethren, at the beginning of this year, and have already secured nearly two thirds of the amount to purchase the land and put up the necessary buildings, work upon which will be begun as soon as the manager returns from this conference.
A new company has been formed, by which the property will be held and operated, and the denomination in general will be represented by the executive committee of the union conference and the local conferences, composing the union. Those holding stock in the old company have agreed to donate to the new, so that when the old plant is sold, the proceeds can all be used to liquidate the debt, and leave the new plant free from encumbrance.
BUILDING SITE FOR THE NEW PRINTING PLANT
While business of all kinds has been dull in the city of Melbourne, and several printing firms have been compelled either to shut down or to reduce their employees to one-half their usual number, our office has been fairly busy. The balance sheets showed a gain of $1,810 over and above all expenses. Owing to the long delays so frequently met in shipping bound books from the States or Great Britain, and the consequent loss and discouragement to canvassers, the company has increased its facilities for binding, and, in general, producing books on short notice.
The Signs of the Times, our general missionary paper, is published by the Echo Company, and was carried by it for several years at a considerable loss each year. But for the past two years the paper has been a little more than self-sustaining. Its latest reported circulation is 9,883. The indebtedness of the Echo Company has been reduced $1,180.43, and its property increased $664.35, leaving its present worth $26,583.52, a gain of $1,844.77 in the past two years.
Educational Work
The prospering hand of the Lord is still over the Avondale School for Christian Workers, our principal educational institution. Largely through the sale of "Christ’s Object Lessons," the debt has been reduced in three years from $25,000 to $6,494.65. In its regular work the school has in the past two years come out with a credit balance of $5,823.93, after paying all accrued interest, taxes, and keeping the buildings and grounds in good repair. The present enrolment (one hundred and ninety-one) is the largest in the history of the school. All the rooms in the dormitories are occupied, some having three students, while one of the cottages contains sixteen girls. More rooming facilities will have to be provided before another school year opens. Our brethren in Australia are becoming alive to the importance of Christian education, when they see what it is doing for their children and the work of the Lord. A large per cent of the young people now engaged in the work in Australia and the islands of the sea have received some part, if not all, of their training at the Avondale School.
A good spirit prevails in the school and in the field toward it.
Through the farm and the various industries connected with the estate, a large number of young people are enabled to attend the school who otherwise would be deprived of the privilege. Since our last General Conference, by action of the Australasian Union Conference Committee, the health food factory and business, and the Avondale press, have been connected with the school, and are now a part of its industries. The business of the food factory is steadily increasing, so that for some time the interest on the debt has been promptly met, and since Nov. 1, 1904, $3,896 has been paid on the principal.
The one thing needful to make this a paying and prosperous business is the proper appliances, and a man competent to manufacture the different lines of nut foods now imported from America at great expense.
The Avondale press occupies an important place in connection with the school and mission work. It publishes the Australasian Good Health—our health journal—and the Union Conference Record—our church paper—besides health and educational leaflets, and books and tracts in different island languages. By means of this agency, a number of students each year receive employment and training.
With the management of so many industrial students, and the care of so large an estate with its varied industries, the principal and faculty of the Avondale School are heavily loaded, especially since being compelled to divide the Bible work among themselves, because no one could be spared from our small number of field laborers to fill the position of Bible teacher. I hear no complaints either from students or from teachers, but, in behalf of both faculty and school, I ask that this conference supply at least a Bible teacher for their next school year.
Medical Work
Our medical work at present consists of three institutions: the Sydney Sanitarium, located at Wahroonga, New South Wales; the Christchurch Sanitarium, located at Papanui, Christchurch, New Zealand; and the Hydropathic Institute, located in Adelaide, South Australia. While the two last named are filling important places and exerting a good influence in their respective fields, the Sydney Sanitarium is the central, and by far the most important of all, since it is there that nurses are trained for the other institutions, as well as for other branches of the work. Of the ten thousand dollars raised in the United States by the July offering of 1903, nearly seven thousand dollars was appropriated to that sanitarium, and applied in finishing some portions of the building, and in paying some of the most pressing obligations. Since the formal opening of the institution for patients, Jan. 1, 1903, up to June 30, 1904, the institution has made a net gain, over and above all expenses, of $2,045.40. Since that time the gains have been larger, so that within the past year over two thousand dollars has been applied on the indebtedness from the earnings, besides making some necessary improvements, chief among which was the erection of a gymnasium for exercise and meeting purposes, at a cost of one thousand dollars.
No special effort has been made to advertise the sanitarium, but patrons who have returned to their homes benefited are sending others, so that the institution is rapidly being filled to its full capacity. At the last report there were sixty patients. An excellent Christian spirit prevails in the institution. A number of people of moral worth have accepted the truth, and are using their means and influence to help advance the message. As at present managed, the8sanitarium is an important factor in advancing our evangelistic work in Australasia. The greatest need of the institution at the present time is another competent gentleman and lady physician. This would give sufficient help, so that more time could be devoted to educational work along health lines in the field, by means of public lectures, health schools, etc.
READY FOR WORK AT THE AVONDALE SCHOOL
General Summary
The Australasian Good Health, a journal devoted to the exposition of health principles, is edited by the physicians of the Sydney Sanitarium. It now has a circulation of ten thousand, and is exerting an influence for good throughout Australia, and even reaching as far as the islands of the sea.
Since a general statement of statistics of each conference has already been published in the REVIEW, it will not be necessary for me to enter into details. But before closing, I would like to call attention to the fact that in summing up the obligations of our various institutions, conferences, and societies, I find there has been a decrease in our indebtedness of $15,915.17, an increase in our property of $26,490.52, and an increase in our net worth of $36,387.52, thus increasing our total net worth, above all indebtedness and deficit to $126,546.77. This reduction in our indebtedness, in view of the hard times through which Australia has been passing, is very gratifying to us, especially when we know that it has not been accomplished by a falling off of our missionary offerings, or by a neglect of aggressive field work, but by careful management upon the part of those in charge of our institutions and conferences. June 30, 1904—the end of our conference year—there was a credit balance in our conference treasury of $2,225.66. Whatever of success has attended the work in this conference is all due to the prospering hand of our Heavenly Father, to whom all glory belongs.
Island Work
Our island work is no longer a small part of the work of this conference, since fifteen of the seventy-seven laborers on the conference pay-roll are in this field. The Lord is blessing the efforts of the faithful men and women who are laboring among the ignorant peoples of the South Sea and East India Islands. Four hundred and seven persons are now keeping the Sabbath in this field, the greatest number in any one place—133—being in the Fiji group. Church-schools have been established, and are being maintained in most of the island missions.
Owing to the difficulties encountered in attempting to bring students from these islands to our school in Australia, ground has recently been secured, and preliminary arrangements made to establish a training-school for natives in the Fiji group. Teachers and assistance in other ways will be supplied by the Avondale School. A similar school is already in operation in Raiatea, to accommodate the students in the Eastern Polynesian Mission field. Our hope is to educate these young men and women to be missionaries among their own people.
Of our work in the East Indies, and especially in Singapore, I would be pleased to speak at length. But this report has even now gone beyond the limit, hence I will close, with the hope that time will be given me to present the needs of this field in open conference. In closing, I would remind this body once more of the needs of this field, and the scarcity of laborers and means with which to prosecute the work, in the hope that some hearts may be touched by the need, and respond not only in the language, but in the spirit of the motto on this platform: “Here am I, send me.”
