What We Have Done by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Apr 29, 1875

What We Have Done.

By James White

TO-MORROW we take the Overland train for Chicago, accompanied by Mrs. W. We design to return to our Oakland, Cal., home before the cold of another eastern winter. And as we are about to leave this desirable field of labor for the present, we take a hasty glance at the past three months.

We reached Oakland from the East, Feb. 2, 1875, very much rested by our six days' journey, and were ready for immediate active service. We were very happy to find in Oakland and San Francisco two active and well united churches of about seventy-five members each. In our younger days Mrs. W. always attended the same services with us, at which we would take turns in speaking; but the situation of things in the two cities seemed to demand that we should divide our efforts, so that we have generally occupied both stands, alternating, when not laboring in other churches. We have both labored at Petaluma, Napa, and Santa Clara, and Mrs. W., with our son W. C. W., has spent one week with the church at Woodland. It is with great pleasure that we state that our efforts, also Mrs. W.'s, at Oakland and San Francisco the last Sabbath, and evening after first-day, were marked with great freedom in the Lord.

Besides speaking we have had the general care of the Signs Office, and have written considerable for our papers. Add to this the labors of the principal duties which called us to this coast last winter, to assist in forming a Publishing Association and locating and putting up a publishing house—and one can see at a glance how our time could be well employed.

The Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association is complete, a body corporate, according to the laws of the State of California, that can sue and be sued, and its officers entered upon their duties with flattering prospects. The site, 80 feet front by 100 feet deep, on west side of Castro, between eleventh and twelfth, is purchased and paid for. Part of the lumber for the publishing house is on the ground, and Bro. O. B. Jones commences to build about the middle of May. He would be very glad to employ every good carpenter among our people in the State if means could be furnished immediately to purchase all the material and push the job to a speedy completion.

But it is feared that for want of means the work will have to be delayed with few hands upon it. A very strong effort should be made to get the new press moving in the new building by the first of October. But we fear that it will be delayed. If pledges are paid sufficient to pay for material, a dozen men could work on the job, or at least all those good carpenters who wish to pay pledges in work on the building.

Having seen this enterprise in good working condition, we leave the work of building and of managing the affairs of the Association in able hands, and make a tour East to attend to more urgent and arduous labors. In every measure we have taken, we believe that we are fully sustained by the California Conference Committee, and now, with the consent of the Committee that called us to the State, we take our departure, and leave the special workings of the cause we have tried to serve in their hands.

Our plans have been to return to the California Camp-meeting, and assist in an effort with the big tent in San Francisco during the months of October and November, and advertise largely from our own press in Oakland. It will require great promptness on the part of the friends in California to carry forward all these plans, so dependent one upon another. A failure of any one might affect the whole, so that we might not see duty to leave important meetings in Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas to return in early fall. We have paid $1,000 to the Pacific Publishing Association, and will advance another $1,000 without interest until our poorer brethren can pay their pledges, if brethren and sisters who can command means will pay their pledges, and advance an amount equal to their pledge without interest. If the friends will come right up to the work it can move forward without delay, and plans which have been laid well may be executed to greatly advance the cause.

J. W.