THE MINNESOTA MEETING by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 27, 1878

THE MINNESOTA MEETING.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

BY request of Eld. Grant, we appointed to spend one week on the Minnesota camp-ground before the regular camp-meeting, in a sort of school for ministers, officers of the various societies, and all who wish to attend. We arrived here Wednesday, June 12. The brethren have selected a very lovely grove for their camp,

it being just at the edge of the village of Hutchinson, and near the bank of the Crow river. It seems to be exactly fitted for a camp-meeting. We found about seventy-five persons already on the ground, with a dozen tents pitched and things well prepared. Every day new ones came, and by Sabbath about one hundred and fifty were present. All the preachers of the Conference and many of the leading brethren were here. All seemed to be in good spirits. The grasshoppers have left them, and the crops look most promising.

Thus far the weather has been just right. We have spent each day in hard work in our school, but have had a prayer-meeting each morning and a sermon each evening. We dwelt at considerable length on the necessary qualifications of ministers, their duties and the best mode of labor. After speaking an hour, others made remarks and asked questions. All expressed themselves as greatly benefited. Then we spent a whole day in learning how properly to conduct a business meeting, and the right form of recording it. We found that there is great need of such instruction among our brethren.

We also spent a day on the church records, one on S. B. records, and another on T. and M. work. These meetings have been an experiment thus far, but I believe they will be of great practical use. Each one of them develops the fact that even our preachers and officers in the churches have paid but little attention to the proper mode of transacting and recording business. We hope to see good results from these efforts. Our new blank books are already proving a great benefit in this direction. We shall soon have uniformity in all our business transactions.

When I came to this State some six years ago, there was not an acting minister in the Conference. Now I am surprised to find a larger number of comparatively able speakers here than in any other Conference I know of, Michigan not excepted. All these men have come up in the last five years from common farm laborers. A number more are entering the work, and others are preparing to do so.

Up to this date, Tuesday night, June 18, though it is one day before the regular time for the camp-meeting, there are sixty-one tents pitched on the ground, containing some four hundred campers, and strings of teams are constantly arriving, some after a journey of four or five days. Our meetings have begun well, and we hope for a successful camp-meeting.

D. M. CANRIGHT.