Ministerial Labor by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 1, 1872

Ministerial Labor.

By James White

With feelings of tenderest love to all our fellow-laborers, and to all interested in the cause, we wish to say some plain things. During the spring, and the summer just past, we have been separated from the work in consequence of constant hard labor, and wearing care, and have had a good opportunity for reflection, and to observe the workings of the cause.

The intelligence brought to us by the REVIEW of the triumph of the truth in different parts of the field, especially that resulting from tent labor, has cheered and comforted us beyond expression. And one important feature to which we call attention with great pleasure is, that the success has not so much depended upon ability, and on years of experience, as earnest labor and humble trust in God to move the minds and hearts of the people.

Those who watch the providence of God in the workings of the cause will not fail to be instructed by many important lessons. And it should be a matter of the greatest encouragement to young men who feel called to give themselves to the ministry of the word to see that God is taking striplings to accomplish the greatest amount of good.

Maine has been calling for help. She has needed help, and has had much help from our most efficient laborers. And had it not been for the poisonous influence of certain men in Maine who had been in the ministry a score of years, and who came in among us with a feeling that their experience in the ministry had qualified them to lead off in the cause, the membership and real strength in Maine might be fourfold what it now is. In fact, very much of the most efficient labor in Maine for the past few years has been to counteract the miserable, scattering influence of certain ministers in the State.

Maine is a good field of labor. And we have been very much cheered in reading the accounts of the success of Brn. Goodrich and Blaisdell with the tent. And there are others in Maine, who, if they will take hold of the work with a teachable spirit, will also see the hand of God working with them, and souls being rescued from the darkness and errors of this time.

We were very much encouraged for the New York Conference in reading of the interest attending the labors of Brn. Reynolds and Saunders with the tent. These men, comparatively young in the cause, can be strong in God, if they are humble, and may prove a great blessing to the cause in that State.

Michigan seems to be a field of deep interest. Michigan has liberally sent her most efficient ministers east and west and south, and has been for several years almost destitute of laborers. But this State has the present season had two tent companies in the field, which have labored with unparalleled success. And it is a fact that, with the exception of Eld. Van Horn, these laborers have been young men, striplings in the cause, several of them unordained. It is with pleasure that we mention the names of Lamson, E. B. and S. H. Lane, and Kenyon. There is room in Michigan for

twenty-five more just such earnest, common sense, young men to go forth, armed with the word of God, to fight the battles for truth. God grant that these dear young men may always seek to work in him, keep near to the dear Saviour, and in hope and faith press the battle. If God be on their side, victory will be sure. Then He that will be for them will be more than all that can be against them. God is a majority. Men are feeble. God is mighty. What an unspeakable blessing and honor to feeble men to be clothed with the strength of God, and to work in him.

We have been exceedingly glad to see young men pressing into the ministry in the western Conferences. And it should encourage them to learn that God is working through just such feeble instruments as themselves. The reports from brethren Kilgore, Morrison, Downer, and others, have moved our feelings deeply. And what has touched the tenderest cord has been the fact that these are striplings in the cause that have been witnessing the gracious work of God so gloriously.

Tremblingly they went forth. And, not having a great amount of experience in the ministry to lean upon, they cast themselves in their weakness upon the arm of the mighty God of Jacob, and have found help and strength. To us, this is the most favorable feature of the cause at the present time.

We wish to speak of Iowa in particular. For good reasons we have ever sympathized with and loved the brethren in that State. We have encouraged our best Michigan gifts to that State in times of Iowa’s past misfortunes and feebleness. And when we saw that Conference comparatively strong, and other States in destitution and great want of ministerial labor, we were as ready to plead for these destitute States as we have been for Iowa in her destitution. Our efforts were not appreciated. And our remarks upon the subject at General Conference, suggesting that the growth of a sectional feeling in Iowa would be ungrateful and wrong, were misunderstood, and made a bad use of. In that Conference were two strong men, Elds. Butler and Carrigh. The membership of that Conference looked to these men to do the work, and overlooked, to some extent, at least, the importance of encouraging others to enter the ministry.

But God has taken this matter in hand, and has worked it out to the glory of his name. Our camp-meeting in that State was the best ever held there. With Bro. Carrigh in Minnesota, and Bro. Butler filling the office of President of General Conference, to labor in the wide field, the brethren of that Conference, at that camp-meeting, came up nobly. There we saw worked out what we had seen in prospect when we made remarks in General Conference, to which exceptions had been taken. God gave us a testimony at that camp-meeting that moved hearts, and inspired faith. And it was one of the most solemn and happy hours of our ministry when we saw bowed in a half circle in front of the preachers’ stand, Brn. Hare, Mitchel, Nicola, Kilgore, Morrison, and Osborn, of that Conference to receive ordination to the work of the ministry by the laying on of hands. While we pen these words we feel the tenderest Christian sympathy drawing these brethren to our heart, and tears blind our sight. O God, keep these men pure in thy sight, and make them strong in thee.

And then how touching to the feelings of one who entered the ministry in his school-boy days, and has known much of the toils, trials, and blessedness of such a life for thirty years, to see some eight or ten of the young men of the Iowa Conference pressing into the ranks of the licentiates of that Conference, just vacated by six who had received ordination. True, we were very feeble at the time of that good camp-meeting, and probably labored beyond our strength; but the place, especially at the closing services, seemed sacred, and the scene one of those where awful solemnity and holy delight were wonderfully and inexpressibly mingled. To those who can understand the words, will the truest idea be conveyed when we say that the Lord was in the place. Feeling the importance of the occasion, and the presence and power of God in every nerve, how could we keep from the appropriate labors of the occasion?

But in contrast with the pleasing view we have taken of the progress of the cause under the labors of our young men, we look with a degree of sadness to the condition of some of the pioneers of the cause, and the want of success that attends their labors generally. Elds. Cornell and Loughborough have some success in California; but small, when compared with that of some of our striplings. Ingraham is past labor, at present. Waggoner, with his superior argumentative powers, and clear sight of truth, is laboring here and there, and not able to report conversions to any considerable amount. And the reports of our good Bro. Carrigh, with all his strength and success in debate, is likely to discourage all Minnesota, unless victory soon turns on the Lord’s side in his labors.

We take the liberty to hold up the picture in the truest light possible, that our people may learn the lesson from it designed by Providence. We confess that we are getting tired of these everlasting, tedious, and, said to be, able and deep discussions of plain questions, whether oral or written. God has given us a plain, harmonious and mighty truth to proclaim, and his power and success attends its earnest proclamation in that unadorned simplicity which the common people can understand. It may be duty at times when the truth is assailed by its enemies, to stand in its defense. But the influence of oral discussions in many respects is to be deplored, while real, lasting good does not, by any means, always result from them. We fear the influence of debate upon our two ablest debaters, Cornell and Carrigh. They, being accustomed to move the crowd in the warmth of debate, are becoming disqualified, we fear, to bear up under the discouragements of small congregations, and a lack of interest on the part of the people.

Our books, and our preaching, should be such as to meet the wants of the common people. The Sacred Scriptures are given to the people in plain and easy style; and we should be careful to not make obscure, tedious, and doubtful, that which the word of God has stated in clear, brief, and faith-inspiring terms. We suggest that Bro. Andrews, in giving us the Sacred and Secular History of the Sabbath, do not bring before his mind that class of law-abolished men who have rejected the truth of God, and whose hearts are set to oppose the true Sabbath, however plain its perpetuity may be made. Efforts in the preparation of such a work to so meet the objections of the first-day, and no-day, men that they cannot doubt, would greatly injure it for the reading public generally.

The Holy Spirit has not given the facts of the Sacred Scriptures in a manner that men cannot doubt. The great truths in God’s word are given sufficiently clear for faith in those who wish to believe, while those who choose to doubt find chance to doubt. God would have us proclaim in books, and from the speaker’s stand, the plain truths of his word in the power of their simplicity. The Holy Spirit will set them home to honest hearts, and they will gladly believe. While those who choose to cavil, and who would be a curse to the cause of truth, should we be able to compel them to believe by very labored arguments, will continue to cavil.

The power of the gospel is in its plain, unvarnished, yet sound, primitive simplicity. It is then that the Holy Spirit has room to work. When human sufficiency, learning, and wisdom, monopolizes the business of converting men and women, the Holy Spirit hardly finds room to do anything for the poor sinner.

To our fellow-laborers, especially to those who united with us in the work at an early period in the history of the cause, we wish to speak words of encouragement. The Lord is giving us the field. The present truth, or the truth Providence has brought out for our time, is plain, harmonious, and powerful. And God is ready to bless all who will come so near to him that they can receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and have their commission and strength renewed. Most of us are worn, some of us fearfully. In God there is help. In him we may work, and finish our course with joy. Courage, brethren! Courage in the Lord!

JAMES WHITE.

Denver, Col., Sept. 22, 1872.