MISSOURI CAMP-MEETING by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 15, 1876

MISSOURI CAMP-MEETING.

By James White

The Missouri Camp-meeting is now past. With the exception of rain on sixth-day, the weather has been cool and fine. The location was very pleasant—on a mound covered with second growth of sufficient size—when it was reached from Kingsville depot by a long and difficult road. Here our friends made a similar mistake in locating their annual camp-meeting to that made by our good people in Kansas. In both cases these meetings were located away from the railroads, in thinly settled parts of the country, and where the carriage roads to them are very bad.

But we were greatly disappointed in the attendance, especially on Sunday, it being much larger than could be reasonably expected. This was very remarkable in Missouri. The audience was very large. Some estimated it as high as two thousand. There were probably fifteen hundred persons present; and these were the very best people in the country. The liberal attendance and good hearing under the circumstances show what might have been accomplished at a proper location on the railroad. We might have reached five or ten thousand people with the voice of truth as easily as fifteen hundred, had the meetings been properly located.

And then these country people are so frequently behind time. In both cases, in leaving the Kansas and Missouri meetings, the time of the departure of the trains was reported by mistake too late, and in both cases we were just in time to see the trains move off and leave us. And in both cases we were detained just twenty-four hours when moments were the finest gold to us. In the last case circumstances were somewhat trying. We had spoken three times on second-day, were laboring with cases too unreasonable to mention until midnight, then in the morning took down our tent and packed our trunks while the good brethren were in prayer-meeting, rushed things together, and off to the depot, when we were too weary to sit up, drove our horses over a rough road three miles, to be just one minute too late. Well, as trying and wrong as these things are, they cannot be helped only in one way; that is, by locating the meetings properly next year, and having a care not to make the tedious travels and arduous labors of those who are worn in battle unnecessarily severe.

There were on the ground seventeen family tents, besides the large congregation tent, and another large tent divided into family rooms, and several covered wagons in which families lived in true emigrant style. Mrs. W. and the writer took “turn about,” as the Missourians say, in preaching, and generally had freedom. The labor to move the people was harder in Missouri than in Kansas, yet by earnest appeals a goodly number came forward, the church was much revived, and thirteen were baptized.

One event of the meeting deserves especial attention. We refer to the ordination of Brn. Chaffee and Wood, in which Elders Rogers and Long took part. The occasion was impressive. The Missouri Conference now has four ordained ministers, besides several who receive papers from the Conference to improve their gifts as speakers.

The executive committee, including the president, are taken from the brethren outside of the ministry, and are men of prompt, executive ability. This takes a burden from the ministers, and lets important responsibilities rest where they properly belong.

It is proper that we should here express thanks for the attentions we received on the Missouri Camp-ground. What we have said concerning locating the meeting, and some other things which seemed to follow as a consequence, we note for future benefit. We cannot attend camp-meetings each week at a distance from railroads. And the time has come to let our light shine before the crowds in a manner to favorably impress the public. J. W.