An Appeal in Behalf of the Large Cities
By Stephen N. Haskell
THEN you may say, What do we want in this city?—First: we need a general manager, and enough representative men to form a committee,—men who are liberal-minded,—men who live here, and are acquainted with the peculiar conditions of things. A committee a thousand miles away can never direct in the detail of the work. Neither should the committee consist of men who are loaded down with other responsibilities and burdens. Second: there should be many restaurants established here to represent our work. There should be individuals who can instruct those who are trying to do something in that work,—those who are willing and ready to devote their means to this end if they can be properly educated. We want educators in every department of the work. Third: we need small sanitariums in the suburbs,—not one mammoth concern, but many small ones. Greater New York is a world in itself. There are more people in a ten-mile radius than in any one State in the Union, except Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and the State of New York, where we are. No one mammoth sanitarium can fill the bill. We need a dozen of them in different locations. The nurses, the restaurants, the treatment rooms, and the sanitariums will pay financially. We say, Give us the consecrated men and women, and with the blessing of God, the work will sustain itself. Fourth: we should have a training-school that can educate men and women in the Bible and in the health principles. We should have those who can raise the standard according to the mind of God. All should be educators, so that the work6will not be belittled. If we are consecrated, God will add wherein we are deficient. A volume might be said upon this point. Fifth: these restaurants should be located where there can be permanent cooking schools connected with them. Then individuals will be moved upon by the Spirit of God to go forth and impart to others. They will open restaurants of a high order, which will represent our work. So it should be with the health schools, and every other enterprise connected with our work. A hundred such enterprises would be established in New York to-day if the real situation were taken in by our brethren and sisters. Thousands of dollars would be devoted to these enterprises. There is also wealth upon the ground that would flow into the treasury. But how can this be done? — Not by any one conference, nor by any one union conference. The work should be conducted under some more general management, and funds should be called for from all parts of the country. It is and should be a training-school in no sense local. It should be general in its character. There has been a general call for funds to pay for a meeting-house in Washington, D. C., the capital of our nation. This was right, and every cent of indebtedness should be paid. But has any one considered that Washington is the fifteenth city in the United States as to population? Have our people considered that if the work was done in the leading cities of America, the representative men who go to Washington would be reached in their social relations, where the chances to do them good are a hundredfold more than in the city full of bribery and corruption, where the inducement to sin is far greater than at their homes? If there is one reason why help should be rendered to Washington, there are ten why there should be a general call and general support for New York. We have been here eighteen months. We have tried to work on the lines I have mentioned. We have held several cooking schools and health schools, have furnished free health dinners, and expect to do more of this work in time to come. We have carried on our Bible instruction in the home with our workers. We have two Bible classes each day. Over thirty workers have been in attendance at the training-school, and most of them are in the field to-day as successful workers. Over fifty have decided to observe the Sabbath as the result of our efforts. We have raised the money with which to do this work, except our first month's rent (sixty dollars), which the union conference paid, and eighty-three dollars, which the Atlantic Conference gave us before Greater New York was set off by itself. We have never had a single conference appropriation to our work. Ohio and New England paid the expenses of the workers that they sent to us, but with this exception we have raised our own money. We have picked up our own laborers from Dakota, Nebraska, Florida, and other parts of the country. We have paid their railroad fares ($246.33), besides supporting our workers and paying our rents. But you may say, Where did you get your money? Our answer is, God gave it to us. It has come from different parts of the country. Men and women, moved upon by the Spirit of God, have sent us various sums. Men, whom we did not know, have come to us and have given us fifty dollars. They said that the Lord moved upon them to come and do it. To God be all the praise. Since coming to New York we have paid over $2,859.74 for the support of our workers. One man, who had never heard of present truth until one of our workers brought it to him, is now laboring as a minister in another conference. The workers who have gone out from us are scattered in different parts of the country. Now, in conclusion, we want to say that while you are considering far-off fields, remember the Saviour said, Begin at Jerusalem, begin at home; for they would not pass over the cities of Israel until the Son of man should come. He also tells them to go into all the world, but they were to work Jerusalem until it was surrounded with armies, then they were to flee. So to-day the signal has been given when to leave the large cities. It is no time to move into the cities, and purchase homes for your children, but come into them and work, knowing that your time is short, very short. And there is no city from which the truth can be sent to all the world better than from New York City. My dear brethren in the General Conference, we appeal to you in the name of Christ, who died for souls that are in darkness in our cities, especially New York, for this is the largest city in this country. We appeal to you in behalf of a city which the Spirit of God has said is ripe for the harvest, and already the judgments of God are hanging over it. We appeal to you in behalf of a city which the Spirit of God has encouraged us to believe contains men of wealth who will devote their means to the cause of present truth. We appeal to you in behalf of a people to whom God has sent special messages. The angel of mercy still hovers over this city, but will not long wait. We appeal to you as believers in present truth, in the name of reason, to do something, and to do it now. Come upon the ground and investigate for yourselves. We are not coveting the work in this great metropolis. Several times we have left, intending not to return to enter the work again; but when we saw this neglected field, we returned, and began work again. We appeal to you from the standpoint of a foreign field, where there are a million Germans, eighty thousand Scandinavians, and more than one hundred thousand Jews. Come upon the ground and establish some general work, so you can bring men of experience here who can act as a committee and prevent steps being taken that will not advance the work. And we appeal to you in behalf of New York as a field where hundreds of thousands of periodicals can be sent to all parts of the world by proper persons visiting the docks, and furnishing reading-matter to the hundreds of thousands of people who are going to foreign lands, and also to those who are landing upon our shores. Why should we not have the ground before Satan occupies it? He has already stepped in some open doors, and will enter more of them unless we do something soon. With this we leave it with you. May the Lord bless you in all your deliberations, and may we see from this General Conference such an impetus given to the work as we have never seen in the past.