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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 4, 1903

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 80, No. 31.

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Washington, D. C.

By J. S. Washburn

TEN thousand four hundred dollars has now been paid on the Washington Memorial Church, and the debt is now $2,500. There is to-day (July 24) $400 in hand toward another payment, so that the debt really stands at $2,100. The interest has been paid up to July 6, the date of the last payment. The total interest from Nov. 1, 1902, to this day is $309.80, and now stands at thirty-eight cents a day. If we had been able to pay the whole amount, $12,900, November 1, we should have saved to the work $309.80.
Yet we have been greatly encouraged and cheered by the deep interest manifested by our people, not only in every State and Territory of the United States, but also in Honolulu, the West Indies, Canada, British Columbia, England, and New Zealand.
A recent Testimony, dated July 5, which was published in last week's REVIEW, contains, with other matter of thrilling and vital importance, the following statements: “If there is any place in the world that should have the full rays of present truth, it is Washington, the city that is the very heart of this nation. Those who act a prominent part in framing laws for the nation should understand what is written in the law of God, which lies at the foundation of all right laws. There has been on the part of our people a great neglect of stewardship. God has looked with displeasure on the neglect that has been shown to this city.”
Again: “In the days of the apostles,Jerusalem was a great center of influence, and in this place light from heaven was to shine in its most powerful rays upon the Lord’s witnesses who were to bear the gospel message.
“Read the whole of the second chapter of Acts, and see if you are not convinced that there has been a decided failure to understand that one of our first duties is to make at the nation's capital a special representation of the truth for this time. Why did we so long pass by Washington, neglecting to establish one signal memorial in this city? Let us determine that we will no longer be unfaithful stewards of this part of the Lord's vineyard.”
“Our brethren in Washington have been favored in finding properties suitable to use in carrying on various lines of our work. This is a fulfillment of the light given me, that in different sections of the country we should be able to secure, at low prices, properties that could be utilized for our institutional work. In Washington a few months ago a meeting-house, in good condition, and admirably adapted to the needs of our work, was offered for sale at a price much below its first cost, and was purchased by our people there. I am glad that this church is so nearly paid for.”
We are unspeakably thankful to God for his wonderful providence and his direct leadings in the work here in Washington, where the difficulties to be met, and the vital importance of having our work rightly represented, have been so little understood. We are deeply grateful to God that he has spoken to his people so directly and positively in regard to the work in the nation's capital. We rejoice in the substantial interest manifested by our people; and now that a little over five sixths of the debt is paid, and we are in the best season of the year to raise money, or about to enter that season, for farmers at least, we trust that all will unite in a last effort to pay this whole amount immediately. If a second call has come to you, after you have already given, I am sure you will gladly help again; for surely you do not desire to see a cause in which you have already invested means in any other condition than absolute freedom from any financial weight. Several individuals, and at least one conference, have promised to continue to help, over and over again, until this memorial for God in the nation's capital stands clear and free, and the light shines forth from this city set on a hill, from the nation's pinnacle, as a lamp that burneth.
A crisis is upon us. We have been startled to see evidence that the National Reform work is not dead; but in the silence, while we have slept, it has tunneled its way into the very heart of the nation's citadel. O, let us awake to the awful needs of the hour! Let us finish this work at once, and be ready for the greater things in the immediate future.
Are there not twenty readers of this paper who will send us one hundred dollars, or at least fifty? and will not every tract society having any money in hand on this fund forward the same, at once, and every individual who is able and willing send in contributions, great or small, to the office of this paper, to the General Conference Treasurer, or directly to the writer? J. S. WASHBURN.
1728 14th St., N. W., Washington, D. C.