My Recent Trip to the North-western Camp-Meetings
By Smith Sharp
AFTER corresponding with, and receiving cordial invitations from, the presidents of the Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Nebraska Conferences to attend their camp-meetings in the interests of the colored work in the Southern Union Conference, I left home, August 17, and spent the three last days of the Missouri camp-meeting on the camp-ground at Columbia. Earlier in the meeting the several different interests connected with our cause had been presented, and liberal contributions had been made to them. I was told by leading brethren that under such circumstances I need not expect to receive much. Instead of these circumstances being a discouragement, they were an encouragement to me. Should I go near the close of a meeting where needy enterprises had been presented and no response been made, I should feel differently. But when the hearts of the brethren and sisters have been touched, and their pocket-books have been opened to these needy fields, they will not fail to respond when such a theme as our work among the colored people of the South is presented. I found this to be the case on the Missouri camp-ground, and felt that, under all the circumstances, the brethren responded liberally. In company with Professor Kern, I left the Missouri camp-ground Sunday morning, and reached the Colorado camp-ground at Longmont, Monday night just before the evening services began. The meeting had been in progress several days, and the circumstances were much the same as they were on the Missouri camp-ground, only the camp was much larger, and the camp and grove were as beautiful as anything I have seen in the history of camp-meetings among our people. I was not disappointed when I presented the needs of the colored school at Huntsville. I spent but two days, and left early Thursday morning for the Oklahoma camp-meeting at Guthrie. I reached their camp-ground just before noon, on Friday, where I remained until the following Wednesday. It would not have been possible for me to receive a more cordial reception, and the response to my appeal in behalf of the colored work was most encouraging. I left Guthrie Wednesday morning, and arrived at the Kansas camp-ground, at Wichita, that afternoon. It had been many years since I had attended a camp-meeting in Kansas, and but comparatively few of those with whom I had been associated in former years were at the meeting. I found a large number of our people on the encampment. I do not know the number, perhaps from eight20hundred to one thousand. I was cordially received, and every opportunity was given me to present the interests of the cause for which I had come. The meeting had been in progress for a number of days, and not only had the general interests of our different enterprises been presented, but Kansas was building a sanitarium about two miles from the camp-ground. The frame was already up, the corner-stone was laid the day before my arrival, and nearly three thousand dollars had been pledged and donated to this institution, yet the appeal to the Southern work was perhaps as liberally responded to as it would have been had this been the first call. I left the Wichita camp-ground Sunday night, in company with several of the leading brethren, and arrived on the Omaha ground on Monday afternoon. This, I think, was as large a camp-meeting as I ever attended among Seventh-day Adventists, and perhaps the largest. I do not know the number on the ground, but it seemed to me that the meeting was too large, and yet it was so organized and so conducted that all branches and all departments received due attention. I do not know that I can say that I was more cordially received here than at the other meetings, but I can say the same cordial reception was extended to me that I had received everywhere. I could not ask for a more hearty welcome. It almost seemed to me at times that the different conferences vied with one another to show their interest in, and their sympathy for, the work in the great Southern field. At the close of the Nebraska meeting it was my privilege to attend the fall council at College View. In company with Elder Butler and Brother Ford, I left College View, September 20, and reached my home at Graysville the twenty-second, having been gone about five weeks. During this time I received between six hundred and seven hundred dollars in cash, and over eighteen hundred dollars in pledges. I felt very much encouraged, and I desire through our good REVIEW to express to the brethren and sisters of the different conferences that I visited, the hearty thanks of the brethren and friends of the Southern Union Conference.