Prepare for Comfort at Our Camp-Meetings by William Covert

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 4, 1907

Prepare for Comfort at Our Camp-Meetings

By William Covert

WILLIAM COVERT

OUR camp-meetings are important auxiliaries connected with the work of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, and all who attend these convocations should regard themselves as tributaries to their success. In getting ready for the camp-meeting there are essential considerations that demand proper attention. The tent and its equipments, the food supplies and their preparation, the clothing to be worn and the care that should be given to it, articles to take, and things that should not go—all may be studied with profit.

Our camp-meetings usually continue from ten days to two weeks, a period of sufficient length to subject campers to a variety of conditions in the matter of weather and health; be sure, therefore, to secure a good and spacious tent for the occasion. Either rent or buy one that will keep out the rain and afford ample room for the occupants. In the majority of cases it is best to floor the tent, yet if the ground is dry and covered with grass, a tent may be made comfortable without a floor of boards, but even then rugs are necessary to guard against colds and other discomforts. All tent floors should be laid on some kind of joists, so as to admit the air beneath.

Take your rubbers, your wraps, and an abundant supply of bedclothes, because the chances are that all these will be needed at times during your stay in the camp. Provide well for rest, so that when the time comes for retiring, you may lie down on a bed with bedstead, mattress, and springs arranged as home-like as possible. Sufficient space for two beds or four cots can be found in a twelve-by-fourteen-foot tent. Sleeping apartments should be separated from each other, and also from the sitting apartment of the tent by curtains or screens.

All details in regard to convenience, comfort, good taste, and propriety should receive attention, in order that our camp-meetings may prove to be occasions of helpfulness and good schooling to us. While these gatherings are not the places to display gaudy apparel, all should try to wear substantial clothing which has been made up in good form. The clothing should be well kept. In fact, it should be religiously clean. Anciently, when the Lord advised his people regarding their sanctification and readiness to meet him, he said, “Sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their clothes.” Ex. 19: 10, 14.

Though we do not go to our meetings in order to feast, yet we must eat food of good quality that has been properly cooked, else we can not get the benefit from these occasions that the Lord desires us to receive. We should eat for strength, clearness of mind, and sweetness of disposition. If the camp boarding tent furnishes such food, it is better to patronize it than to take the time and be at the trouble of providing meals in the family tents. However, this question should be left for the various families and companies attending the meetings to settle for themselves. The details of preparation are many, and of course these will need to be considered by the many who prepare to go. It should therefore be understood that some careful forethought is necessary if only sweet memories of the camp-meeting are to abide in the mind.

Take to the camp Bibles, hymn-books, Sabbath-school helps, and such other books as may be needed for reference while there. Provide the camp home with chairs, tables, rugs, lamps, cups, pails, basins, toilet supplies, pins, needles, thread, scissors, mirrors, and various other articles that persons and conditions may demand.

Take as many members of the family and as many friends and neighbors as may be induced to go. But worldly cares, perplexities, criticisms, unbelief, hardness of heart, and such like have no right to a place where God's people convene.

Attend these meetings with courage in the heart, and with confidence in the third angel's message. Before going decide to be present at as many services as possible, and to have good words for every good thing. Be assured that those who do these things will become fruitful in good works, and in due time have a home in the kingdom of God.