Kansas Camp-Meeting by R. C. Porter

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 6, 1904

Kansas Camp-Meeting

By R. C. Porter

This meeting was held, according to appointment, at Wichita, Kan., August 23 to September 4. The camp was located in a small, well-shaded park, easy of access from the city. About one thousand of our people were encamped on the ground. A very friendly feeling prevailed on the part of the citizens, and the attendance at the meeting was good throughout.

On Tuesday, August 30, the corner-stone was laid for the new sanitarium building now in process of erection, two miles west of the city. The building is located on a beautiful site on a twenty-acre plot of ground. It will be erected at a cost of about twenty thousand dollars. At the laying of the corner-stone services, addresses were made by Ex-Governor Stanley, of Kansas, James Allison, and J. N. Knapp, chairman of the Sanitarium Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, the meeting being presided over by Mr. C. L. Davidson, president of the Chamber of Commerce. Elders E. T. Russell, C. McReynolds, Dr. B. E. Fullmer, and others, gave short addresses, presenting the fundamental principles upon which our sanitarium work rests. One very interesting feature of the addresses of the citizens was their belief that this people was especially called of God to conduct sanitarium work in advance of any other people. A brief quotation from Mr. Knapp’s address will illustrate the spirit of the talks given upon the occasion:—

“There must be a reason always for a forward move, and I suppose that the Great Master of the universe puts it into the hearts of men to do some things. Dr. Kellogg told me once that twenty thousand people are dying every year in the State of Kansas, and that one half of them might be saved if they only understood the principles of health. . . . We started a small institution on Market Street, and a United States senator who had broken down in health in the campaign, visited that place, and regained his health. He was very anxious that an institution be built here, and promised to support it; and when such men as James Allison, C. L. Davidson, and Mr. Burns, and the Kansas National Bank headed the list with two hundred dollars each, I said, ‘It is done.’ The proposition of Dr. Kellogg and Elder McReynolds was that if we would raise $10,000, they would raise the rest, and go on until we had a well-equipped sanitarium here. I already have $5,300, and want $4,700 more; and we are going to get it.” He then spoke very feelingly of how his wife’s life was saved by treatment in the Boulder Sanitarium when she was lying at the point of death, and closed his remarks with the following statement of the religious character of the work of our sanitariums:—

“Every morning the first thing we would hear in Boulder, when we would rise from our slumbers, would be the songs of Zion and the prayer going up for the blessings of the day, that the sick in the rooms of the institution might be brought back to health; and the great God listened and heard those prayers. And then, just before the eight o’clock breakfast, the patients would assemble, and Chaplain Wilcox would lead them in worship, reading a suitable portion of scripture, and joining in prayer for their restoration to health. I say, God heard and answered their prayers. I saw people that had been carried in there on cots go home after a brief stay, having been brought back to perfect health.”

A large number of citizens from the city attended this service, and a very favorable impression was made of the sanitarium work. During the past year the Kansas Conference had raised $4,100 for the sanitarium building fund, and $2,784 more was contributed during the camp-meeting, besides $3,000 in the tract society, which was placed to the credit of the sanitarium building fund. It is the determined purpose of the conference that this enterprise shall be so conducted that the sanitarium shall be completed and equipped free from debt.

The following contributions in cash and pledges were received: for the work in Africa, $106; South America, $219; colored work in the South, $621; Sabbath-school donations for the foreign mission work, $125, during the camp-meeting; tithes received during the year, $23,800; moneys from other sources, $15,000.

Six churches were received into the conference, with a membership of one hundred and nine, and the records show an increase in membership by additions to the churches during the year of one hundred and nineteen members. Fifty-one were baptized during the meeting. The officers elected for the ensuing year are as follows:—

President, C. McReynolds; Vice-President, I. A. Crane; Secretary and Treasurer, Florence P. Rice; Business Agent, N. B. Emerson; Educational Secretary, L. C. Sultz; Sabbath-school Secretary, Mrs. Dora Meyer; Field Secretary, C. F. Parmele; State Missionary, C. W. Hardesty.

Executive Committee: C. McReynolds, I. A. Crane, L. F. Trubey, Wm. M. Stone, J. G. Hanhardt, H. S. Osterloh, and I. F. Thorn.

A thousand dollars’ worth of books was sold on the camp-ground. The canvassing work received much careful study and earnest labor during the meeting, and if properly followed up, a number of canvassers will enter the field

as the result. The conference voted to place two of its laborers at the disposal of the General Conference, to be paid from the tithes of the Kansas Conference.

The laborers from abroad were Elders E. T. Russell, R. A. Underwood, I. H. Evans, H. Shultz, W. H. Anderson, Smith Sharp, L. W. Terry, J. Riffel, J. J. Graf, John Lipke, and R. C. Porter. Profs. C. C. Lewis, M. E. Kern, and A. Kunze, and Vera Thompson, labored especially for the young people and in the interests of the educational work. H. H. Hall, James Cochran, and J. Bryant, worked in the interests of the canvassing work, the sale of our publications, and the general missionary interests.

The parting meeting, Monday morning, was a very refreshing occasion. The brethren and sisters returned to their homes determined to devote themselves more unreservedly to the work than ever in the past. We believe the outlook is very encouraging for the work in Kansas the coming year.

R. C. PORTER.