The Illinois Camp-Meeting.
By Wm. Penniman
This meeting was in many respects the best we have ever attended. Although there were some discouraging features at first, yet the clouds moved away, and light shone upon the people. All were happily surprised, and very much cheered and encouraged, when it was announced the first day of the meeting that sister White was on the ground. As it would make the article too lengthy to do justice to the subject, we can only notice one or two prominent points. First, and most important, the great object of the meeting was not to get in the minds of our people a theory of the truth, but to get the truth into their hearts, and to have them beat in unison with God in this great work, and to cause them to enter into the spirit of labor, the spirit of sacrifice, and to become earnest workers in the cause. When we listened to the heart-searching and earnest words of Brn. Butler and Haskell, we could plainly see that they were well adapted to their high position and work. Sister White, in her testimony to the watchmen of this Conference, said there was no reason why there should not have been twenty times as many Sabbath-keepers at the meeting as there were. She also bore testimony that there was not that breaking down and confession of sins among the brethren and sisters that there should have been. But the brethren gave and subscribed liberally to support the cause. When our people are awake and have a heart to work for others, they will also have the spirit of going up to these great feasts. Many who doubt the written testimony, if they could hear the oral and living words of sister White as she appeals to the people in language most solemn and impressive, would perhaps believe. Never before did we feel such a sense of our own unworthiness and lack of consecration as at this time. We cannot see the exceeding sinfulness of sin till we strive, and really do draw near to God. The necessity of camp-meetings, and the importance of our going up to these yearly seasons of refreshing, were never before so deeply impressed upon my mind. How much some who might have been at the meetings have lost! We feel more determined than ever to work in our sphere, and our prayer is that all who attended this meeting may never forget the instruction which they received; but may live it out, so that as Bro. Butler says in an article in his REVIEW of June 16, which has the genuine ring, there may be a “charging along the whole line.”