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After Camp Meeting

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 1, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 41.

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After Camp Meeting

By M. E. K.

“THAT’S a pretty way to do! You had better go to camp meeting and get converted over again.”
Shame that such words should ever be spoken, and especially by a professedly Christian parent. Little do you know, dear parents, how hard were the struggles of your children who made a start to serve God at camp meeting this year. And little do some of you realize, perhaps, that some of the struggles were over this very question of the possibility of living a Christian life in the unsympathetic atmosphere of your home, and under the fire of such criticism as the above. But they were persuaded that you, too, were opening your heart to receive the camp meeting blessings, and they expected that things would be different at home.
But how has it been? Your work on the farm or in the shop was behind when you returned home, of course, and there were other things to annoy. But these perplexities and temptations are the common lot of us all; and it is for the conquest of ourselves at such times that the Spirit of God is promised.
Besides, did it make things run smoother, or help you or the child over any difficulty, to shoot such an arrow? — O, no! It made matters worse and worse. And many boys and girls have thrown overboard their whole experience because of just such cruel thrusts.
“They had not much to throw over, if it went that easy,” you say. “True, they had not much. But what they had was no less genuine.”
Some young people at camp meetings I have attended this year have given themselves to God at our last young people’s meeting. The battle had waged for days, and Jesus won at last. If anybody ever needed help, it is such. They have made a start, only a start; but it is a start for the kingdom of God. And with kindness, sympathy, and love, their parents and the older Christians of their church should put their arms about them and help them to gain the victory, and “when they err, deal with them tenderly.”
The instruction given to parents is that they should “guard their children with wise, pleasant instruction. As the very best friends of these inexperienced ones, they should help them in the work of overcoming; for it means everything to them to be victorious. With loving interest they should teach them day by day what it means to be children of God and to yield the will in obedience to him.” — “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, page 94.
Our camp meetings this year have been a great blessing to all our people who attended. Whether or not our boys and girls retain the blessing they have gained depends very largely upon the wisdom, constancy, and consecration of parents and church officers. At the camp meeting the burden was more largely upon the ministers and young people’s workers; now it is upon you, dear brethren and sisters. How will you discharge your responsibility? What a misfortune if some dear boy or girl should give up for want of helpful sympathy, and never start again.
“A tender child of summers three,   Seeking her little bed at night,   Paused on the dark stair timidly.   ‘O mother! take my hand,’ said she,   ‘And then the dark will all be light.’”
Our older boys and girls, though they may not be so conscious of it, are nevertheless in need of guidance in the spiritual darkness of this world just as much as this “tender child of summers three” in the physical darkness.
May all our parents and church elders, when asked that searching question, “Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?” be able to answer, “Behold I and the children which God hath given me.” M. E. K.