The Conference by Uriah Smith

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1876

The Conference.

By Uriah Smith

We gave last week a partial report of this good meeting. This was a special meeting of the General Conference, not designed to take the place of the regular annual meeting, to be held in connection with the Michigan Camp-meeting in August next.

We are happy to present this week the doings of the committee appointed to arrange the camp-meetings for the coming season. The meetings last year were precious seasons. We look for them this year to be crowned with a still greater measure of the blessing of God.

One of the most interesting features of the Conference was the correspondence received. The earnest letters, calling for help and stating the openings everywhere presenting themselves, showed that the Lord has gone out before us and is inviting us to follow. Letters which came from States where Conferences are organized will be referred to the Conference Committees of those States. Of others we are happy to note the following as examples:—

A letter from Hampton Co., Ontario, stated that many thousands of pages of tracts had been distributed there, a great interest excited, some had already commenced to keep the Sabbath, three places were waiting for the living preacher to instruct more fully, baptize and organize churches, and a fourth would soon be ready for such labor. In one place the leading citizens contemplate paying for a hall, and say they must have some preaching on these subjects.

Bro. Osborn appealed earnestly for Kentucky. There are now five organized churches in that State, besides two in Tennessee. The brethren there have pledged nearly enough to purchase a tent, and are arranging to have it in the field the coming summer. The Conference generously proposes to furnish a tent for that field, send Bro. O. a good assortment of books, and let them use their means for further missionary labor in that section.

A very interesting letter was received from a brother in Coose Co., Alabama, seventy years of age, who commenced to keep the Sabbath last October. He embraced religion at the age of thirteen, commenced to preach at fourteen, has been preaching ever since, fifty-six years, and is still at the work with a voice as strong as ever. He has a wife and eleven children, the youngest of whom is twenty-five years of age. He has resided in Alabama thirty years, and is known all through that country. He now preaches the Sabbath. Has had no doors shut against him as yet; and as a result of his efforts, quite a number have embraced the Sabbath, and ten ministers are now investigating the question. He says the prospect in his place and surrounding country is good for the spread of the truth.

Brethren are beginning, as is right, to think about tents for the coming summer. Many camp-meeting and preachers' tents are wanted, and inquiries are coming in, in regard to the best place to buy, etc. It was the opinion of the Conference, not officially, but individually expressed, that S. D. Adventists ought to have a tent-making establishment of their own, by which tents of all kinds could be furnished to our people at a much less rate than we now have to pay. Thousands of dollars are now paid out every year for tents, a good portion of which might be saved to our cause, had we such an establishment of our own, and a person capable of conducting the business. U. S.