The General Conference
By Arthur G. Daniells
By the time this number of the REVIEW reaches its readers, another session of the General Conference will be about to open. The first meeting of the session will be held Friday evening, March 27. The conference is to continue until April 13. These will be eventful days. At the present writing the list of delegates who are to attend numbers one hundred and thirty. Of course many more people will be in attendance. Owing to the many sessions of the union conferences that have been held since the last General Conference, and also the great distance of our missionaries in foreign lands, it has been thought best to make the attendance at the coming conference light. This will save much time and means, which can be devoted to the work in the fields. But though the attendance may not be as large as on some previous occasions, the conference will be none the less important. The importance, and especially the value of a gathering of this kind, does not depend primarily upon the number present. It depends upon the work done, the decisions made, and the plans formed for the development of the work. The coming conference will have very weighty and far-reaching problems to deal with. Since the last session important changes have been made in our conference organizations. Eight union conferences have been organized in North America, four in Europe, and one in South Africa. Over twenty new local conferences have been organized, and several local mission boards brought into existence. Those in charge of these new organizations will report visible results. The whole question of organization will no doubt be dealt with, and the work already begun, more fully perfected. Gospel finance will no doubt be a live question. How can we best raise the means required to carry forward this work as rapidly as we should? What success has attended the steady, laborious efforts of the last two years to roll away the reproach of debt? Shall the committees and boards of management in charge of the various departments of work create debts, as in past years, or shall this plan be repudiated? Shall we make the tithe of the Lord the basis of the support of our missionaries in foreign lands, or continue to use the tithe in the conferences where it is paid, and make the donations of the people the basis of support for the gospel workers who go to distant lands? Shall we aim to double our expenditure in mission fields, where so many millions of people sit in the region and shadow of death, calling for the light that shines upon us? Has not the time come for this denomination to make definite and efficient arrangements for the support of aged and sick ministers, and for the widows and orphans of those who fall in the battle? If so, what plan can be adopted that will work justly and equitably for all? Shall plans be laid for a great forward movement during the next two years in what we call the home field? Are our churches willing to let our ministers go into new places in the conference and devote their time to people who have not heard this message? Shall special efforts be made to reach our large cities? Shall we continue our tract and missionary campaign until every family in our land shall be supplied with our literature? In short, shall this conference lead to the greatest movement ever known by this people to give the advent message to the world in this generation, and so finish the work? But above and beyond all, will the coming conference mark the beginning of a new life and spiritual experience? Let us make no mistake; this is the greatest need of this people to-day. A revival and a reform must come, or the most serious consequences will follow. This consideration towers above all the rest we shall deal with. A new baptism for service must come upon God’s ambassadors. Absolute surrender must be made to Christ. Power must attend the preaching of this message. Shall the coming conference mark the beginning of a new era in this respect? This point fully gained, all other benefits will follow. How strange and unaccountable that the most important and vital needs should be neglected more than almost anything else, when the supply is so freely offered by our great Leader. Dear brethren and sisters in this great work, will you pray earnestly for this conference? The first few days of the session will be very apt to mark the character of the whole conference. We shall be gathering for the meeting when you read these lines. I shall not make an official announcement for the committee nor conference, but I do, as a brother who is deeply burdened for this approaching meeting, ask you to pray earnestly that a special blessing may come to the cause of God. How much may be gained if all the churches, Sabbath, March 28, would offer earnest, importunate prayers to the Lord that he will visit his people at this time. “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.” A. G. DANIELLS.