p. 3 | Editorial Letter by William W. Prescott

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 5, 1907

Editorial Letter

By William W. Prescott

Jottings from the Editor’s Note-Book

It seemed very pleasant and much like coming home to be in London again after an absence of six years. The greeting from friends old and new was extremely cordial, and there was a satisfaction in being among a people whose language I could understand, after hearing strange tongues so many months. Now I could speak directly to the people without the intervention of an interpreter, and those who have had the experience know how much this means in dealing with gospel truth, especially along new lines.

As soon as possible after our arrival we visited Watford, the place selected as the new headquarters for the work in Great Britain. Here we found a fine old estate of over fifty acres situated on elevated ground overlooking a wide stretch of country, and with most attractive local surroundings. In company with Brother W. C. Sisley, under whose general superintendence the new buildings are being constructed, we made a thorough inspection of the whole place. The printing plant to be occupied by the International Tract Society Ltd., now at 451 Holloway Road, London N., is a plain but substantial structure well adapted to the purpose for which it is intended. The workrooms are all on the ground floor, directly connected with the offices and editorial rooms which occupy two floors. Electricity for power and light is generated on the premises by a gas-producer plant very similar to the one in use at the Review and Herald Office at Washington. All the buildings will be lighted from the same station.

The food business now carried on at Birmingham will be removed to Watford as soon as the factory building is ready for occupancy, which will be almost immediately. This new building is well adapted to its intended use, and will be a wonderful improvement upon the present quarters. No money has been expended for the ornamentation of either of these buildings, but they are modest and neat in appearance, well lighted and comfortable, and will meet satisfactorily the needs of the work. Being located in the country, entirely apart from any other buildings, it was possible to follow plans which might not be so well adapted to some other locations.

The large and well-built mansion on the estate will serve as a place for the training college, which will open its first term in the new quarters this fall. As soon as the funds can be raised, a suitable building will be erected upon a site already selected on a beautiful part of the estate, and thus the college, which has already done such efficient work, will be provided with a permanent home.

The brethren in Great Britain are certainly to be congratulated upon securing such a pleasant and desirable location for their headquarters. It is a long step in advance.

After three or four busy days in London, we went to Nottingham, where the annual meeting of the British Union Conference was held. We found the meeting and dining tents pitched in an open field directly adjoining a densely populated portion of the city and near the Victoria Embankment on the River Trent, a favorite promenade where throngs of people are found evenings and Sundays. Rooms were secured in the neighboring homes for those attending the meetings, a plan which has a double advantage of providing warm and dry quarters for the visitors, and of making it easy and natural to give personal invitations to the people to attend the meetings. The meeting opened with the large tent well filled with representatives from the different conferences and mission fields in the union, and the total number in attendance was, I was told, larger than at any previous gathering of this kind. The interest among the people in that part of Nottingham was excellent from the beginning, and many were in attendance every evening.

It was the design of those in charge of this meeting that the special message committed to this people should be made prominent in the sermons preached, and the program was arranged with that purpose in view. On the first Sunday evening I spoke to a very large and attentive audience on “The Second Coming of Christ,” and Elder Andross in the second service immediately following presented “The Signs of the Times.” During the week such topics as “Waymarks to the Kingdom,” “The Four Great Empires of Prophecy,” “Our Paradise Home,” “The Millennium,” and “The Eastern Question,” were considered, and on Friday evening I spoke again on “The Heavenly Sanctuary,” laying special stress upon the priesthood of Christ in the sanctuary above as the climax of the work of the gospel, and incidentally touching upon the Sabbath and the law of the new covenant. At the close of this talk a man remained behind for counsel with reference to closing his place of business in the city the next day, and as the result he decided to observe the Lord’s Sabbath, and joined us in our services the following day. The closing Sabbath was a specially profitable one, a goodly number responding to the invitation to give themselves to the service of God, and all being strengthened in their experience. In the afternoon four brethren who had given proof of their fitness for the calling were set apart to the work of the gospel ministry.

The theme of the four preaching services on the last Sunday of the meeting was the Sabbath question, and I led out in the forenoon by dwelling upon “God’s Standard of Righteousness.” Others presented the following topics: “Creation’s Memorial,” “Is Sunday the Sabbath?” and “Who Changed the Sabbath?” Much interest was created by the consideration of this subject, and many seemed desirous of studying it further. Brethren Harry Armstrong and J. J. Gilliatt continued the services each evening after the close of the regular meeting, and I learned that the attendance was good, and the outlook was favorable for a goodly number of additions to the company of believers at Nottingham.

Personally it was a privilege to me to attend this meeting, and to greet again so many with whom I became acquainted

during my four years’ sojourn in the British field in 1897-1901. The large number of believers whom I had not seen before testified to the growth of the work during the last six years.

In the business sessions of the conference the varied interests of the field were considered, and such actions taken as would tend to the advancement of the work, but a full report of this part of the meeting will be prepared by some one else, and so I need not speak of it here.

After my return to London I responded to an invitation to visit our sanitarium at Caterham, and to speak to the patients and helpers concerning the peoples of the far East and missionary work among them. This was the first time I had been at Caterham, and I was much pleased both with the sanitarium and its facilities and with the work being done. The institution was well filled with patients, and a nice audience gathered in the evening to listen to my address. A clergyman who was a patient in the house presided and conducted the devotional exercises, and there seemed to be much interest in the subject presented. In the morning before our return to London, Dr. A. B. Olsen, the medical superintendent, showed us over the institution and its grounds, and told us of their experiences in the work. We carry with us very pleasant recollections of this visit to Caterham.

The last Sabbath of our stay in London I spoke in the morning to the North London church, and in the afternoon to the Kensington church. In both places I met some whom I had known in former days, but who were not able to attend the meeting at Nottingham. This was a privilege which I appreciated.

This last letter of my series in which I have given some account of my missionary trip around the world is written en route from London to New York, and we are now drawing near to the American coast. My long journey is nearly at an end. I have visited Japan, Korea, China, the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and England. To find this message established in these countries, and with a large constituency in several of them, is a testimony to the rapid advancement of this advent movement, and is, in itself, a sign of the times. I return with an enlarged sense of the world-wide nature of this movement, a more intelligent view of our work in “the regions beyond,” and a greatly stimulated desire to arouse all the believers in the home land to accept the responsibility laid upon them to provide workers and means for quickly finishing this work in all lands.

There can be no mistake about it. The prophecies have been fulfilled or are being fulfilled. The closing scenes are just upon us. The mystery of God will soon be finished. The most important thing in the world now is to realize these things and to give ourselves unreservedly to the spread of this last message. The fields are white already to the harvest. O that an intelligent missionary zeal might be kindled in the heart of every professed Seventh-day Adventist which would manifest itself in a united concert of prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all our workers and in an inflow of means into the treasury so that there might be no lack of what is required to send forward the volunteers to the distant fields. During the past few months the situation in many waiting fields has been set before our people through the columns of the REVIEW. If the facts presented by eye-witnesses do not arouse our people, what can be done? My soul is greatly stirred, and I would that I had a trumpet voice with which I could say to every believer, “Awake! Lift up your eyes and look on the fields! Let your heart be moved by the appeals for funds for the mission work! Think of the lone workers on the frontier calling for re-enforcements! Think of those who are willingly giving their lives that this message may be planted in the dark parts of the earth! How can you go on adding house to house and farm to farm when the cause of God is languishing for means? How can you who have tens of thousands listen unmoved to the piteous appeals which come from nigh and from far off? May God help you!”

In closing it seems fitting to call attention to the fact that those who have visited the different parts of the world at the request of the General Conference Committee have all been preserved amid many dangers, and have all returned to their work again in safety. For this we should acknowledge the goodness of God. To him be the glory forever.

W. W. P.