The Iowa Camp-Meetings.
By George Ide Butler
Our camp-meetings for this year are in the past. In many respects they have been seasons of great interest and profit. Never before have so many of our people had the benefit of our annual meetings, and it has been an encouraging circumstance to the ministers, who labor in this State, to witness the readiness with which our people have availed themselves of the opportunities offered them. Our meetings have been well attended; upwards of forty family tents were in attendance at both meetings, and some five hundred of our people—and they came with a willingness to sacrifice and help in the work. It is no small gratification to the writer that, in a time when money is so hard to be obtained, four thousand dollars should be subscribed in Iowa to aid in the general interests of the cause, in the Health Institute, and Publishing Association. If a disposition to sacrifice is seen on the part of our lay brethren, who can remain at home and enjoy the society of their families, it will give those of us who go out to labor in the ministry some courage. If anything is disheartening, it is to think all our exertions to bring the people to view things in their true light in reference to sacrificing for the cause here, accomplished nothing. We are glad to say we do not feel thus, and that we have some courage to still labor on. Iowa is under great obligations to the General Conference for their watch care, and for the labor sent among us in times of great need. We ought ever to remember these obligations, and act accordingly. The Lord has blessed us by his Spirit. Many of our meetings were seasons of great interest. Forty-two were baptized. A gratifying increase of nearly two hundred members in the last year is seen in our Conference report. Surely the Lord has blessed us more than we deserve. Our Knoxville meeting was a large and interesting one. Many of those who have lately embraced the truth were present for the first time at one of our large gatherings, and became acquainted with those of longer experience, and had the privilege of hearing the testimony of Bro. and sister White. Our great perplexity, under which we have labored, has been the want of laborers to follow up the interest in new places after the ministers are called away to other openings. In the secretary’s recent report of the business proceedings of the Iowa Conference, will be seen the arrangement designed to partially obviate this difficulty. In that report our brethren will notice and remember the order of districts, and the churches composing them. Some of these have been holding meetings previously, as here arranged. But in the third, fourth, and fifth districts the arrangement is new, and should be particularly noticed. The third is composed of the churches of Pilot Grove, Brighton, Washington, Richland, and Sigourney; the fourth, of the churches of Monroe, Knoxville, and Sandyville; the fifth, of the churches of Woodburn, Adel, Peru, and the few friends who live at Afton. All these districts are to have meetings once in two months; and it is expected that Brn. Mitchell and Nicola, of the conference committee, will make appointments of time and place through the REVIEW, and attend these meetings. Our secretary, in his report, inadvertently made a mistake in reference to Brn. Bartlett, Johnson, and Washburn attending these meetings. It should have been Brn. Mitchell and Nicola. We regard these as men of experience, judgment, and piety, who are fitted to give counsel to those who have lately embraced the truth, and to help them by their advice and admonitions. We trust they will be true “help” in the cause; and whether they stand before the people to give regular set discourses or not, we think a field of real usefulness will open before them, and we hope they will enter upon it with courage and interest, and thus relieve, in a measure, those who have now far more than they can attend to in laboring in word and doctrine. They will appoint meetings as soon as the press of harvest work is over, and we bespeak for those meetings a general attendance of our brethren in their several districts. Our second meeting at La Porte City, in the northern part of the State, was a success, and very encouraging to us because of our fears that it would be otherwise on account of the withdrawal for a time of the appointment for it. We were very happy to see so many of the brethren in attendance, quite a number of whom were at the other meeting at Knoxville. They came with a disposition to work, and although there was much disappointment in the absence of Brn. Littlejohn and Canright, yet we all felt well paid for the efforts we had made in coming. A great amount of prejudice in this community was removed by the presence and labors of Bro. and sister White. On Sunday there was the greatest attendance of outsiders I have ever seen in the State, and the best of order was maintained. We trust the influence of this meeting will long be felt. Our social meetings were many of them excellent, and some for whom we have long felt an interest made a start here in the service of the Lord. Licenses were granted by the conference committee to Brn. Jacob Hare, of Mt. Pleasant, and R. H. Johnson, of Clarksville. God will hold us accountable for the additional light we have received at these important meetings, and for the solemn impressions made upon our hearts. We go out to labor in the great harvest field for another Conference year, thankful for faithful brethren who are ready to aid in the work by sacrifices on their part, and sustained by their prayers and united interest. We promise to faithfully endeavor to do what we can to advance the interests of the precious cause of truth till we meet again in our annual gatherings. Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, June 30, 1871.