OWOSSO CAMP-MEETING by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 31, 1869

OWOSSO CAMP-MEETING.

By James White

The location of this meeting was central and accessible for that part of the Michigan and Indiana Conference, and the ground was good. There were thirteen good-sized family tents upon the ground, besides the two sixty-feet, circular tents, in which a very large number lodged.

The weather was good, excepting a very heavy rain one night, which furnished the best of proofs that common factory-cloth tents are not reliable in a storm.

The brethren at Battle Creek kindly let me have the use of a heavy duck, army tent, for this meeting. Under it all our books, clothing, and ourselves, were kept perfectly dry, while others, in common cloth tents, suffered from having everything badly wet.

Up to Sunday the attendance of the citizens of Owosso and vicinity was small. On Sunday the congregation of earnest listeners was large and very orderly. Mrs. W. spoke in the morning, the writer in the afternoon, and Bro. Andrews in the evening. A good and deep impression was made.

There was not all that good accomplished at this meeting that we hoped. Much might have been done if our people generally, and younger preachers, had been in the work. Bro. Andrews was much worn with traveling, preaching, and writing nights; I was very hoarse; and Mrs. W. arose from a sick bed, and came all the way by faith, and although much better, could sit up but little. We did what we could; but for want of a readiness to receive the word pointing out our present position and duty, and active co-operation, sinners and backsliders went home from that meeting unconverted.

No doubt that much good will result from this meeting. The brethren will learn this, that simply the camp-meeting will not do the work for themselves and for theirs without an effort on their part to consecrate all to the Lord. These meetings are designed to be a great blessing to those who attend them. They are a special effort, requiring special consecration, the sure result of which in this case will be an especial blessing.

Our brethren at the Owosso camp-meeting were just from the harvest field, worn down with hard labor, and in this respect were poorly prepared to enter upon such a meeting. Many of them have so much of this world, so much love of it, and so many cares, they do not find time nor heart to consecrate themselves and what they have to God. What will become of them? Then many make this an occasion of feasting instead of fasting, which stupefies and makes many sick. If fasting is ever a Christian duty, it is at camp-meeting. Most of our tent companies set a table which is not equaled by one in ten of the hotels in our country. Good bread, a few vegetables, and one or two kinds of fruit or sauce, is sufficient for those in health.

More devotion is wanted. There must be more earnest pleading with God, and labor for backsliders and sinners in the tents.

God wonderfully blessed Mrs. W. at this meeting. When the time came for the family to leave home for the meeting, she was not able to go with them. I was then in Jackson. She urged all off to the meeting except Willie. She shut up the house, and went to Bro. Maynard’s, where she could have care. After all were gone, she went before the Lord for duty, and the evidence seemed clear to start for Boston by way of the Owosso camp-meeting. Willie took his feeble mother in the carriage alone, and drove twenty miles to Ionia, where she took the cars for Owosso, while Willie and the little son of Bro. Olmstead drove sixty miles to the camp ground.

Mrs. W. was weary, but rested in the tent each night better than usual. She improved each day. She spoke three times with freedom, about an hour each time, on Friday, Sabbath, and Sunday. She came on to Detroit with us Monday, where she rested well at Bro. Carr’s. We reached Rochester Tuesday night, and rested well at Bro. Lamson’s. And we are now, Wednesday, twenty minutes of four P. M., as I write, within ten miles of Albany, and Mrs. W. seems strong, cheerful, and happy. We design to stop at Springfield to-night.

JAMES WHITE.