The Cause | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 18, 1871

The Cause.

THE general aspect of the cause throughout the wide field, at the present time, is good. Our western camp-meetings were all excellent. The advancement of the cause in Iowa has been greater the past year than at any previous year. The Illinois Conference, though small, has done well. Wisconsin is improving. May God greatly bless Brn. Sanborn and Downer in their labors in that State. And our brethren in Minnesota, at their late camp-meeting, took fresh courage. That was one of our best western meetings. We feel a deep interest in the cause in Minnesota.

And our people in the other States are calling for camp-meetings. This is as it should be. An especial blessing attends these meetings, making them a means of very much good to our people and their children, and affording a favorable opportunity of impressing the crowd with the power of divine truth. Every family should have a tent on the ground, if possible, of sufficient size for themselves, and their friends. This work should be entered upon liberally, and not with a stingy spirit. Brethren and sisters should invite their relations and candid neighbors and friends to spend a week with them in camp-meeting.

We are also cheered with the prompt action of the brethren in California. The cause is still onward in that distant State. The brethren there may well regard themselves favored to enjoy the efficient labors of Brn. Loughborough and Cornell.

And what we might notice of good omens in the progress of matters and things, last, but not least, is the fact that the no-Sabbath men seem to be stirred to oppose. This is especially the case with the World's Crisis. This is always a sign of progress.

But their manner of warfare should be noticed. They seldom undertake to disprove the Sabbath by Scripture arguments. Such men as the editor of the Crisis will use the best arguments they have. Not being able to meet the question fairly with the word of God, they resort to misrepresentation in order to create prejudice. Statements in the Crisis for July 5, 1871, are a remarkable instance of this smut and blacking warfare. But God lives and reigns, and he can turn the wrath of man to his praise and the advancement of his cause.