Autumn Council of the General Conference Committee by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 9, 1911

Autumn Council of the General Conference Committee

By William Ambrose Spicer

First Report

The usual autumn council of the General Conference Committee met in Takoma Park, Washington, D. C., October 25. The meetings of the council were held in the chapel of the Foreign Mission Seminary, the visiting representatives present being entertained in the Seminary and the Sanitarium, and in the homes of the people.

The chairman, A. G. Daniells, remarked that again a large amount of work had accumulated for attention. It has often seemed, after clearing away business by a council, that not so much business would need to be done next time; but this is a growing work. Its boundaries are extending month by month. New conditions and forward moves call continually for renewed counsel and planning to meet the situation; and the agenda paper, or list of matters for consideration, showed that this council would have to keep very busily at work during the time of the meeting.

There were present at the council the following:—

GENERAL CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS: A. G. Daniells, W. T. Knox, O. A. Olsen, G. A. Irwin, I. H. Evans, W. B. White, A. Moon, Chas. Thompson, B. G. Wilkinson, C. W. Flaiz, C. F. McVagh, Wm. Guthrie, H. S. Shaw, W. W. Prescott, R. A. Underwood, K. C. Russell, H. R. Salisbury, Dr. Geo. Thomason, M. E. Kern, G. B. Thompson, A. J. Haysmer, C. H. Jones, E. R. Palmer, W. A. Spicer, W. C. White, F. Griggs.

OTHER REPRESENTATIVES: J. H. Schilling, G. F. Haffner, W. J. Stone, R. D. Quinn, W. H. Heckman, E. K. Slade, F. H. Robbins, B. F. Kneeland, A. R. Sandborn, J. L. McElhany, S. M. Butler, T. E. Bowen, N. Z. Town, E. R. Numbers, C. B. Haynes, L. A. Hansen, J. G. Bigelow, R. T. Baer, C. H. Edwards, H. E. Rogers, R. T. Dowsett, E. R. Brown, F. M. Wilcox, A. J. S. Bourdeau, J. A. Ford, H. C. Hartwell, S. B. Horton, D. W. Reavis, S. Mortenson, C. M. Snow, S. N. Curtiss, H. H. Hall, F. F. Byington, R. Hook, Jr.

It was arranged that the sessions of the council should be as follows: 9 A. M. to 12 M.; 2:30 P. M. to 5 P. M.; 6:30 P. M. to 8:30 P. M.

Save for certain executive sessions that might be called for, the Foreign Mission Seminary students under appointment to the fields were invited to be present at the meetings.

Treasurer’s Report

W. T. Knox, treasurer, presented a report of the receipts and disbursements for missions during the nine months of the current year, to October 1. The receipts for missions during this time were $277,238. The disbursements have been $286,132. This shows the need of special activity in gifts for missions during the remaining months of the year.

The report of the ten-cent-a-week fund, which hereafter is to be the fifteen-cent-a-week fund, showed that to October 1 the fund had fallen short of the full ten cents per week per member by $45,181.

The treasurer reported receipts of surplus tithe from the conferences to the amount of $67,301, during these nine months. This, he said, was fully up to the estimate made one year ago, and shows how earnestly the conferences are working to share the tithe with the needy fields abroad and the mission fields at home, which means the great work among the colored people of the South, and the work for the vast foreign and American populations in the Eastern cities.

On the $300,000 Fund, $119,594 had been received up to October 1. Union conference representatives reported, however, that large pledges had been made on this account, which would be gathered in during the closing months of the year and the first months of 1912.

The financial report was examined in detail, and was a cheering one, though the estimate of needs showed clearly enough that we must not for a moment cease bringing in the gifts for the missionary advance.

Ingathering Campaign

Encouraging reports were presented

by C. H. Jones and H. H. Hall, of the Pacific Press, as to the enthusiasm in the ordering of the special Ingathering number of the Signs. The orders have been thus far largely in excess of those for the same time last year. Representatives related interesting experiences in last year’s campaign, both regarding gifts for missions from the public and concerning the splendid missionary work being done in this campaign of visiting the people. It was the mind of the council that the Ingathering campaign should be considered a permanent feature of our work, and it was—

Voted, That we instruct the officers of the General Conference to plan for material from the mission fields for the regular Ingathering Campaign for Missions in 1912.

Spanish Book Work

Reports before the council showed the most encouraging growth of our work in Spanish fields. Actions relating especially to the publishing work in these fields were taken as follows:—

Two members were added to the advisory committee on Spanish publications, making the committee to consist of the following representatives: N. Z. Town, E. R. Palmer, H. H. Hall (America), E. Forga (England), G. W. Caviness (Mexico), W. Bond (Spain), E. W. Thomann (Argentina).

The matter of getting out a Spanish hymn-book was referred to this committee on Spanish publications.

In response to the call from Porto Rico, the Publishing Department was requested to select another bookman for that field, in counsel with the West Indian Union.

The Publishing Department was asked to secure, if possible, two bookmen from Mexico for the Central American field, and to select two men in the States to take up the book work in Mexico.

It was agreed that N. Z. Town, of the Publishing Department, should respond to the call from Mexico to join the brethren in their annual meeting and book convention; also to aid the canvassers to be secured for Central America in opening their work, if he finds that time will allow him to accompany them.

The manager of the Pacific Press stated that that house has purposed that H. H. Hall, representative of their Spanish publishing work, shall also attend this Mexican meeting.

The splendid development of the book work in Mexico is one of the cheering signs of the times, and it is hoped that the Mexican field will be a training-ground for Spanish workers.

It was voted that we ask the European Division to supply, if possible, from Germany a general bookman to take charge of the field book work in the South American republic of Brazil.

Press Bureau

The importance of more general use of the public press in our work was discussed. Elder C. B. Haynes, of Baltimore, by request, read a paper on the subject, and spoke of the large use that had been made of the press in Baltimore during the last tent-meeting season. Of fifty-four sermons preached in that city, fifty-one had been reported in the papers. Brethren K. C. Russell and S. B. Horton, of the Religious Liberty Department, also brought before the council the large work which has been done from the department office in the way of duplicating articles on special features of the message, which have been placed in the hands of our people throughout the country for insertion in the country press. Feeling that this line of work should be further developed, the council took the following action:—

Recognizing the power and value of the public press as an influential medium for conveying information, molding public sentiment, and educating the masses, and appreciating the openings universally existing, whereby the gospel message may go to millions of readers; and,—

Whereas, Encouraging results have already attended efforts put forth in that direction,—

We recommend, That the General Conference employ a man to take charge of and to operate a general press bureau.

Resolution of Sympathy

By standing vote, the council adopted the following resolution of sympathy for Sister Davis, whose husband, Elder O. E. Davis, lost his life in the visit recently made to the far interior of British Guiana, to plant the standard of truth among Indian tribes who were calling for help:—

Resolved, That the General Conference Committee council express its sympathy for Sister O. E. Davis in the great sacrifice she has been called upon to make in behalf of souls in South America’s “regions beyond,” registering also the committee’s appreciation of the loyal service of Elder and Sister Davis in the British Guiana field.

Orphanage for Colored Children

A. J. Haysmer, secretary of the Negro Department, presented for consideration the need of support for the orphanage for destitute colored children, which has been established in connection with the Oakwood Manual Training School, in Alabama. The following recommendation was made:—

Voted, That as a provision of support for the orphanage for colored children at the Oakwood Manual Training School, Huntsville, Ala., we invite the Southern, Southeastern, and Southwestern union conferences to appropriate fifty per cent of their April offering for orphanage work to the Oakwood orphanage, and that we invite the other unions or conferences in America to appropriate twenty-five per cent of their funds from the April orphanage collection to this same purpose.

On Care of Health in the Tropics

It was voted that a manuscript prepared by Dr. Selmon, of China, giving hints on care of health in the tropics, be passed to the secretary of the Medical Department for examination, with a view to issuing it as a leaflet for circulation among our missionaries in all tropical lands.

Rome’s Plans and the Call for Protestant Activity

The hearts of the brethren in the council were stirred as various brethren presented the renewed and definite campaign on the part of the Roman Catholic Church to win back in Protestant lands the prestige that she has lost in the Catholic countries. A representative committee was appointed to give study to the situation, which made a report as follows:—

We view with deep interest the avowed purpose of the Roman Catholic hierarchy “to make America Catholic,” and regard this definite movement to convert the United States to the Catholic faith as a further and an emphatic testimony to the correctness of our interpretation of the prophecies relating to the work of the Papacy in this country.

We note the increasing number of these public functions, skilfully planned by the representatives of the Roman Church, at which are brought together the dignitaries of that church and the highest officials of the state; and we recognize in them the working of that political diplomacy so characteristic of the history of the Papacy which seeks to secure the powerful influence of the government in furthering its aims.

We consider the many national organizations within the Roman Catholic Church, some of which are armed and drilled as military bodies, and the recent affiliation of nearly all these organizations into the American Federation of Catholic Societies, as evidences of a definite preparation to resist any future opposition to the encroachments of the Roman hierarchy upon the liberties of the people of America; and we look upon the boycott, already employed by the federation in its warfare upon publications unfriendly to the Papacy, as an un-American and unchristian weapon, suitable for the Inquisition, but absolutely destructive of freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.

We sincerely regret the wide-spread apostasy from those principles of truth which were vindicated at such cost in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and we greatly deplore the fact that this apostasy gives so much plausibility to the oft-repeated claim by the Roman hierarchy that Protestantism is dead, and that in Romanism alone does Christianity survive.

We regard what has been designated as “the invasion of Protestant lands by Rome in a spirit of fierce aggressiveness” as a summons to renewed activity in behalf of the message of truth that we are bearing to the world; and we therefore recommend:—

1. That an earnest effort be made during the coming year to increase the circulation of the Protestant Magazine to one hundred thousand copies per issue; and that, as one means of accomplishing this, special attention be given in the sessions of the union conferences to the present status of the controversy with Rome.

2. That a series of pamphlets and leaflets dealing with special phases of the Roman question be prepared and

printed in cheap form for wide circulation.

3. That persons of such ability and training as would render them capable of undertaking this work be encouraged to prepare and to deliver in the cities and upon lecture platforms, as the way may open, addresses upon Protestantism and Romanism, with special reference to the fulfilment of prophecy, and with a distinct purpose to revive the pure principles of Protestantism.

4. That we invite the cooperation of all who are in sympathy with such a movement and who are willing to join us in advocating the same principles of truth.

The report was adopted by the council in the belief that this trumpet-call to service will meet a response in the hearts and activities of our people everywhere.

Further reports must be deferred for the next issue. W. A. SPICER. Secretary.