CONFERENCE ADDRESS by James White

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 18, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 20.

CONFERENCE ADDRESS.

By James White

Progress and Wants of the Cause.

Last week we dwelt largely upon the power and authority given the Christian ministry in the New Testament. We wish this week to speak freely of the dangers and duties of those who connect themselves with the work of the last message.

Ours is a missionary work. This labor whether performed by Christ in his public ministry, by his first ministers who sealed their testimony with their blood, or by holy men of God since that time, has been attended with great sacrifices.

And now, near the close of God’s great season of grace, as the last gathering of souls has come, and the opening fields appear before us all white for the reapers, demanding work everywhere with new and enlarged plans of action to advance the cause, thus giving evidence that the period of our labor is brief, sacrifices are called for from the people of God, greater than at any previous time. Men are wanted with the true missionary spirit, to labor in word and doctrine. Men and women are wanted to enter the missionary field with our publications, to converse and pray with the people, and judiciously hand out tracts, and solicit subscriptions to our periodicals, without pay for such services.

Men and women of intellect, refinement, and hearts and hands consecrated to the work of God, are wanted at our publishing houses at Battle Creek, Mich., Oakland, Cal., and in the city of Basel, Switzerland, who shall, by the help of God, learn to labor with that ability and that nicety in the execution of their work equal with the times in which we live, and the holiness and importance of the work of God in the last message.

This work must be done with the spirit of sacrifice. Those who shall be favored with coming so nigh to God as to have a part in publishing the last message to be borne out to the world everywhere, upon the wings of the wind, in mail bags, and otherwise, should give themselves to their calling with such self-sacrifice and devotion as has given character to the history of true missionaries in all past time. And if anything beneath the sun calls for the critical eye, and refined taste, it is the work of publishing the holy truth of God to the world.

The Book says, “Cursed is he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently.” And those who connect themselves with the work will call down upon themselves the curse of God as surely for doing his work in an unworkmanlike and slovenly manner. But when these work negligently, slovenly, and selfishly, they are calling down upon their unworthy heads a threefold curse.

Sanctified talent is wanted in all our publishing houses, and in every department of the great cause. There is a want of this talent in active service at present, from the fact that most of our best young men and young women are drawn off to more lucrative employments, and leave the precious work of God to suffer, simply because it does not pay as well as some branches of worldly service. How painful the thought that the Lord has to take up with very much second or third rate talent, because first class cannot afford to be consecrated to the work of God.

READY TO DISTRIBUTE.

As a people we are backsliding from God. The spirit of sacrifice is departing from us. Our wealthy brethren generally lay their plans for interests, and gains, and to increase their wealth, which reach far into the future. Calls are made for means to establish this or that new branch of the work, or to increase facilities to meet the wants of the growing cause; but these brethren generally have, as they say, their “hands tied.” Their surplus funds are at interest where they cannot call them in, or they have purchased a farm, or built houses, which they cannot sell. If they would ever heed the words of the apostle, and be “ready to distribute,” 1 Tim. 4:17, they would not be found with their hands tied when the Lord would have them open their hands wide to the wants of his cause.

As a steward of the Lord we dare not have our hands tied in this way. When our College building was going up in June, 1874, we were urged to transfer $6,000 we then had on deposit without interest at the REVIEW Office to California and let it out at twelve per cent interest, which was reasonable for that State. Everything was favorable for such a change. “Green backs” were then worth in gold ninety-two cents on a dollar.

But we knew very well that this money was needed to hasten the College to completion before winter, and we left it at the REVIEW Office without interest eighteen months. California interest on this sum for one and a half years would have been $993.60. But at the close of the eighteen months green backs had fallen to eighty-six cents in gold, making a loss of $360 on the $6,000 paper money. This, added to the amount of interest not secured, and the sum not saved by suffering our hands to be tied, amounted to $1,353.60.

At the close of the eighteen months our means were wanted for awhile without interest in the lot and New Office building at Oakland, Cal., so after leaving $1,000 in the College as stock, we transferred our means to California at the heavy discount of fourteen cents on the dollar. And when the brethren at San Francisco, who had undertaken to build the largest S. D. Adventist church in existence, on a lot that cost them $6,000, needed help, we were able to transfer our means to that, leaving another $1,000 in stock in the Pacific S. D. A. Publishing Association.

About that time the subject of a respectable house of worship in Oakland, Cal., was agitated. That church is financially weak. And as we can collect our means from the Publishing House, and the San Francisco church, we are putting it into the house of worship at Oakland. And now comes up the urgent call for means to establish the Press in Europe. And we as cheerfully send what remains of our means, after giving $1,000 each to the churches at San Francisco and Oakland, over the waters to be put into the European Press.

We called for $1,000 men in favor of the Press in Europe, and offered to be one. We introduced the matter to our General Conference, and urged the measure of raising the necessary sum for that grand object in donations of not less than $1,000 each. We knew there were more than twenty-five men and women in our ranks who would find a happy relief in unloading this world to the amount of $1,000 each. And we object to those general, urgent, unqualified calls that wring means from our conscientious poor people. We were loth to give up the plan of raising $25,000 in donations of $1,000 each, and day by day we feel the wrong more sensibly.

Our poor people should use their means in home missionary work. There is hardly a brother or sister in our whole communion but has friends, more or less, to whom they should send the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. And it is a living shame to our wealthy brethren that they will hold back in such leading enterprises as the Press in Europe, and leave these poorer ones to press in with their tens, and twenties, which they should use, if they are able to give these sums, in sending the SIGNS to their friends, and the distribution of other worthy publications.

We appeal to twenty-four others, in this matter. Shall we have the pleasure of being one of twenty-five in raising $25,000 for the European Press? The Lord pays higher interest on money put into his cause than any worldly capitalist can afford to pay. We speak from experience. Now let the $1,000 men, and $1,000 women, respond to this suggestion. We are now appealing to those only who have a double, triple, or quadruple competency. More than one hundred such can be found in the ranks of S. D. Adventists in the United States.

We have brought up our children, have given them educational advantages, and have lifted them above the sterner embarrassments of commencing in life. Our duty being done in that direction, we are settling the other little affairs of this world while the cause needs help, and while we can give the matter personal attention. We have always chosen to give personal business personal attention. We have ever been troubled with that feeling, which many others have had, that we could look after our own business better than any one else. And it gives the greatest satisfaction to appropriate it with our own hand, while the cause needs help more than it can at any future time, and while we can have a voice in the uses made of it.

A brother seeing a statement in the REVIEW a few weeks since that on account of letting the College have $10,000 the Publishing Association was in want of means, offers a large sum at ten per cent. But we had asked the use of money without interest until the College could pay the $10,000. Now that very brother could put $10,000 into the cause the next twelve months, and never feel it. And he would in all probability never need one cent of it if he should live as long on earth as did the Patriarch Methuselah. Should he give $1,000 a quarter for the next five years, with usual prosperity his family would then have five or ten fold a comfortable competency.

This brother loves the truth; but on the subject of property he is insane. Now we invite him to stand by our side, as a $1,000 man in our College, in the Pacific Publishing House, and in the European Press. It is the best thing he can do for himself, and for the cause of God. And as we disclaim partiality to this one brother above others similarly situated, we urgently extend the same invitation to all who are burdened, and their minds darkened, with the cares of property, to engage at once in the happy work of administering upon their own estates, and enjoy with us the satisfaction of appropriating with their own hands while the cause needs help as it never can at any future date. J. W.