Your ShelfYour Projects

Mount Vernon Academy

11%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 17, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 24.

Read the full edition

Mount Vernon Academy

By J. W. Loughhead

J. W. LOUGHHEAD
Several years ago the managers and teachers of this school were convinced that a change must be made respecting the class of students drawn to it, and that efforts must be made to interest an older and more mature class of young people. Plans were carefully made and earnestly and steadily carried forward until it is now possible to see something of the fruit of this change of policy, the year just closing having been an especially successful one.
Our students are not only older and more mature, but also more thoroughly in earnest in the matter of preparation for God's work, than formerly; and while we believe that the Lord has given this spirit of earnestness, so that the glory is all his, it is also a fact that he has in a large measure given to the youth a realization of their ambition, both in personal experience and also in opportunity for engaging in the work of helping others. While the young people have been imbued with a desire to prepare to take a place in the Master's vineyard, they have also realized that here and now opportunities are presenting themselves which they should in no wise fail to improve; and while seeing this, they have believed that the best way of laboring for their unconverted associates was to live the life of Christ, rather than personally to importune them to make a profession of religion. This idea has borne excellent fruit, not alone in the influence exerted on the unconverted, but just as truly in the lives of the young men and women who have been desirous of doing something for the Master, so that those who are Christians have been privileged to drink more deeply of the waters of salvation, while a large number of those who came to the school out of Christ have yielded their hearts to him, and are now rejoicing in his service.
Perhaps the most marked feature of our school work during the present year has been the missionary spirit which has been with us practically from the beginning of the year, and which has deepened from week to week as time has advanced. The fact that Professor Field was called from the school to engage in the work in Japan naturally caused the attention of many of the students who had known him to be fixed upon the foreign fields, with the result that they began studying mission effort and outlook; and the more recent call of Elder Wakeham to the work in Egypt has accentuated this spirit in a large degree. While we have all regretted losing these two men from our faculty, we believe that their call to these foreign fields has been blessed of God to the deepening of the missionary spirit in the school. Now that the year is drawing to a close, many of the students are inquiring earnestly what they can do for the Lord during the vacation or in their future lives, as quite a proportion of the students will not be back another year; and having reached that time in life when their maturity is such as to enable them not only to hold the attention of the people, but also to command their respect, they are able to engage in different lines of denominational effort, some going into the ministry, others into the Bible work, some into the canvassing work, others into the medical work and the church schools.
One of the most interesting and promising features of the school this year has been the organization of two self-improvement societies, one for the young women, the other for the young men, the object being to afford opportunity for the study and public presentation of Biblical truth. The societies meet each Sabbath afternoon, and every third Sabbath hold a union service, the result being most pleasing in the development of ability to stand before an audience and present such lessons as the Lord has impressed upon their own hearts. The interest in these societies has been developed and maintained in a very gratifying manner, and the membership has increased as the year advanced, although the work of the societies has been taxing, and of such a nature as to cause one to shrink from it unless under the influence of the overmastering purpose to prepare for such labor.
The Tuesday and Friday evening prayer meetings have been seasons of great refreshing, and it has been no uncommon experience in these meetings for a student who made no profession to express a desire to have the life and power of God bestowed upon him, and to ask that the prayers of all might be offered in his behalf. Not one who has so moved out has gone backward, and all have moved steadily forward in the service of the Lord. It has been felt that there was a constant and upward influence pervading the school all through the year, which we who have had more experience in the work of the Lord recognize as the result of the abiding presence of the Spirit of God.
The Lord has spoken good concerning this school, and the history of several years past has demonstrated the fact that he is working out his plans and purposes; and as we have stood face to face with this manifest purpose, it has been the desire of all humbly and reverently to say, "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth," not simply that we may be blessed by hearing, but that we may have a part in the more blessed work of doing his will; and while he has wrought marvelously for the school far beyond what we had hoped, we as workers in the school can only unite in ascribing praise and thanksgiving to him who is the author of it all.