Memories of Early Days
By Geo. O. States
ON receiving the REVIEW of April 5, containing the sad news of the death of Prof. August Kunze, my mind recalled some, to me, very interesting incidents of years ago. It was over thirty years ago that Elder S. N. Haskell visited the Lapeer (Mich.) church, and his earnest talks on the tract and missionary work encouraged me to do all I could to inspire our people to engage in that work. About 1880 I was director of the tract and missionary work in District 13, and as our ministering brethren would raise up companies of believers, I used to go and organize them into tract societies. I shall always remember visiting Elder G. K. Owen and his wife, who had raised up a small company of believers. After giving some earnest talks on the importance of all engaging in the work of spreading the message through the printed page, Sister Owen said to me, “Brother States, don’t you think you ought to give your life to the work of the ministry?” I had been thinking of that work for some time, but that was the first encouragement I had to enter that branch of the message. Not long after that Brother Kunze visited our home and urged me to go with him to hold a series of meetings. That fall I attended the Michigan Conference, and Brother Kunze got them to give me my first license. For years whenever I met him, he was always an inspiration to me. Elder Jerome Fargo was the president of the conference, and was always an inspiration to young men entering the ministry. Brethren Fargo and Kunze and Sister Owen await the first resurrection, but the Lord has spared our dear Brother Haskell to still encourage this people. While I am not able to do public work, yet the memory of these dear ones lingers, and I rejoice to see this message encircling the earth as we believed so many years it would. One by one those who have labored so faithfully in the past are laying down the armor, and may those of us who are spared stand by the grand old truths we loved so long ago, and not be led away from the pillars of this message. Let us hold up the hands of our leaders whom God has called to bear heavy burdens in this critical time through which we are passing.