Progress of the Cause by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · May 6, 1875

Progress of the Cause.

By James White

In July, 1849, we carried the first edition of our little paper, entitled The Present Truth, to old Middletown, Conn., Postoffice, in a common carpet-bag. And when the press was established at Rochester, N. Y., in 1852, we could put all the copies of the Review (then nearly as large as the SIGNS) that we sent west of Buffalo, N. Y., in the crown of our hat. Now Michigan alone, to which State the press was removed in 1855, is one-fourth of our entire denominational strength.

Seven years since, word reached our General Conference, then in session at Battle Creek, Michigan, that there were four or five Seventh-day Adventists in the State of California, and with this information came a request to our Conference to send a minister to the Pacific Coast. Soon Elders Loughborough and Bourdeau were on board a steamer from New York to San Francisco with a sixty-foot tent, and a quantity of our good publications. Up to this writing not less than seven tons of our books have been sold in California, and the denominational strength gained upon the coast is such as to warrant the publication of THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES, the legal institution of the Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, and the immediate investment of $25,000 in a publishing house and steam printing office complete, located at Oakland, California.

And while the work has been moving westward the cause has been perfecting a healthy growth at almost every point where it has obtained a footing, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. About twenty-five large congregation tents will be manned the present season, which will move from town to town, and from city to city, and offer free seats and a free gospel to the people. And there will be held not less than fifteen general gatherings of our people in camp, which are regarded by all our friends from ocean to ocean, as grand feasts of tabernacles.

And besides what has been done on this continent the principles of the Third Angel's Message are taking strong hold in Europe. After a church of more than sixty intelligent believers had been raised up in Switzerland, through the labors of Elder M. B. Czechowski, (an educated Pole, who received the word with all gladness in America and returned to Europe ten or more years since,) two young Swiss were sent to this country to be educated in the English language and to return to labor in Europe. One of them, James Ertzenberger, mentioned by Elder J. N. Andrews in his reports from Europe, was a member of our family for nine months. God bless him and keep him. We may need him some day to speak through as interpreter to the German and French friends in Europe.

The field is the world, and the ripening harvest calls for the sickle of the laborers, and everywhere the truth for this time is preached, souls are being gathered. May great success attend the labors of Elder Andrews in Europe, and may he see a strong force raised up to help him carry forward the work. As in America, he will find that the right arm of the strength of the cause in Europe will be publications adapted to the capacity and wants of the common people. We should prize very highly duplicate electrotype plates from Europe of pure translations of our tracts in German and French. God help Bro. Andrews and the friends of the cause there to lay broad plans, and execute them with faith and energy. Our American people have had a Foreign Mission fund waiting in the Treasury for four or five years. As fast as needed let the funds be drawn out to give room for more to be thrown in. All our deliberations upon matters of vital interest to the cause should be with much earnest prayer, and due caution. But the vastness of the work and the providence of God evidently opening our way, and inviting us out into the field of labor, demands broader plans, and energy in their execution. Let earnest prayer go up to the God of all grace for divine guidance. And may the servants of the Lord have faith, hope, courage, and well-tempered energy in their labors to urge on the work and build up the cause.

J. W.