CONFERENCE ADDRESS by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 4, 1876

CONFERENCE ADDRESS.

By James White

Progress and Wants of the Cause.

It was voted at the recent extra session of the General Conference, that an address should be prepared on the subjects introduced at that meeting. Last week a portion of that address was given, in which our mission in Europe, and the establishment of the press there, was considered. We also noticed the favorable openings in the South, and progress of the work in several of the Southern States. But we called especial attention to the present condition and wants of

THE BATTLE CREEK COLLEGE.

We are fully prepared to speak in the most unqualified terms of the advantages of this school above any other of which we have any knowledge. We have now spent several weeks at Battle Creek and have had a favorable opportunity of learning facts relative to our important institutions located here. We have enjoyed great freedom in speaking to the people on the Sabbath day. Our congregations have been large and attentive. Our commodious house and gallery are usually crowded. And the students at our College constitute a very interesting portion of the assembly. Several features of our school are worthy of especial notice.

1. The correct deportment of the students. This does not seem to be so much the result of stringent rules as of a high sense of duty on the part of the pupils, combined with mutual respect of teachers and students for each other. Under these circumstances, progress in study is secured.

2. There is a constant revival spirit in our school. Conversions are frequent. Sabbath, April 29th, eight students were baptized. And no persons in our large congregation are moved more by the word spoken than these dear young people. We are very happy to be able to make this favorable record of the moral and religious standing of our school.

3. Most of these students are conforming to hygienic rules of living, and, as a consequence, sicknesses are almost unknown among them, and they are able to make greater progress in their studies. The Boarders Club, an organization embracing nearly fifty persons, is working out a problem of great importance to our school. These have one eating house. One of their number makes all the purchases of the raw material for nutritious, healthful food, and each member pays a certain sum per week to meet the expenses of cooking and keeping the house.

As they have fully adopted the two-meal system, they assemble at the eating house only twice each day, where order and sobriety are observed as if assembling for a religious service. When they have enjoyed the healthful meal they return to their rooms in different directions not far from the College building. Several students, more or less, occupy one room according to its size. The entire expenses of meals and room are not far from $1.25 per week. Add washing, fuel, lights, and tuition, and one year's expenses to the poor young man at our College, excepting clothing and books, need not exceed $75, or $80. And this very sum he can nearly earn during vacation.

The true friends of the health reformation will be gratified to know that the experiment of the Hygienic Boarding Club of our good school is proving a perfect success. Some may be ready to cry “starvation” when we state that butter, milk, and sugar are excluded. But the writer looks back thirty-five years when thirsting for education, and grappling with poverty, he and his room-mate, now Judge Smith, lived three months on corn-meal pudding and molasses with raw apples, and flour-cakes for each Sunday morning. But these young gentlemen and ladies of the Hygienic Boarding Club of the Battle Creek College feast twice each day on the best breads, fruits, and vegetables, at a cost of less than one dollar a week. With them the keen relish of healthful appetite, secured by their restricted diet, far exceeds the gustatory enjoyment of sweetened, spiced, salted and buttered fixings of fashionable living. Thank God for health reform. It is a mighty lever to lift up the student to physical, mental, and moral improvement. The miserable shattered nervous dyspeptic who is forever whining and fretting about what he shall eat deserves but very little credit for restricting his diet to simple and healthful food.

With him it is a necessity. He must restrict his appetite in point of quantity as well as quality, or suffer worse than death. But when our youth who know nothing of enfeebled digestion and its consequences adopt unfashionable and restricted diet from principle and choice, it is then that the friends of health reform may shout victory. Appetite is the strongest power on earth. He who can control his appetite from choice and not necessity becomes a triumphant conqueror. But appetite in the ascendency enfeebles moral power as it strengthens its hold upon strong and brave men. Officers upon the field of battle who would lead on their men to the fight, to the very cannon's mouth without moving a muscle, would surrender upon their knees before a glass of whisky, a plug of tobacco, or a roasted turkey.

When young Christian gentlemen and ladies in the pursuit of education and true knowledge eat to live, rather than live to eat, it is then that appetite is an agreeable servant, and not a debasing tyrant.

The School Board will labor to the point to make it an object for our people everywhere to patronize the Battle Creek College. After laying out the grounds, and fencing, and opening a street on two sides, there remain seventeen lots of the original purchase, lying on two sides of the College ground, with a road between. The Board will immediately commence building on these lots. They design to put up neat cottages which will cost not to exceed one thousand dollars each. Including the expense of the lot, these neat and commodious homes will be offered to those who may be induced to move to Battle Creek, in order to educate their children, for about $1300. This will ever be the most valuable property in the city so long as our school may prosper, of the success of which there can be no doubt.

Teachers are united with the Board to make our school the very best in the country. And the church co-operates in maintaining a pure moral and religious influence, which is the strongest safe-guard of the youth. Our greatest embarrassment at present is the want of cash to pay the debt upon the building, and to fully support the school. The simple item of tuition, which must be put at a reasonable figure to secure large attendance, can but little more than meet the expenses of fuel, janitor, and other incidentals. Our faithful professors and teachers must be paid from funds raised from sources nearly independent of tuition.

The Supplement to last week's REVIEW sets forth the matter of means quite fully, and the plan by which the stock of our Educational Society is to be raised to $100,000. We have taken hold of the handles of the plow, and shall not look back until furrow after furrow is turned over, and the $100,000 is raised.

We do not ask the poor man to give one dollar. But we shall give the wealthy, who have a double competency, no rest upon this subject until they come up to the help of the Lord in the matter of our school with a liberal portion of that cash which they can spare without realizing any real want. We ask those who have taken stock, and who are able to take more to report without delay. We ask those who are able to pay their pledges, and have neglected to pay them, to report themselves at once at this Office. If they cannot pay them now, we wish to know when they will pay them. And we ask that not less than 3,000 Seventh-day Adventists in our country take stock in the College from one share, which is put at $10, up to one hundred shares. The means will come, and we shall keep on plowing until it does come.

Will the officers of all our churches, and Tract and Missionary Societies immediately act as canvassers for the new monthly, entitled the Battle Creek College, and send us 5,000 subscribers, at 10 cents a year? We hope to issue the first number for June. More next week relative to the progress and wants of the cause in other departments. J. W.