The Work in Louisville, Kentucky
By Otho C. Godsmark
As we look back over the work that has been accomplished since our first coming to this place more than two years ago, we can but praise the Lord for what he has been willing to do for and with the little company of believers in this great city. Louisville is a city of the South, next to the largest in the South, and so far as educational interests are concerned, is pre-eminently the leading city of the South. To this place there come from all over the South the brightest and most intelligent youth of all the land. The question before us, and it is a serious question, is, What are we doing to get the truth before this great people? The work in our large cities is becoming more difficult every year. The time is coming when the work will eventually be closed to all laborers in the South. The work will be closed here before it is in other portions of the United States. What we do must be done soon. If we expect ever to help the South, we shall have to act in the very near future. This is why God is so earnestly calling upon our people everywhere to assist those of us who are here devoting our lives to the finishing up of the work in this field, which is the hardest field we have. When we consider that in this great city of two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, we have only three conference workers,—one colored and two white,—and some of us have to be away in different parts of the conference a considerable portion of the time, it does seem like a small effort on our part to do the work that is so fast closing in on us. Now brethren, why can not we have more laborers here in this great city of the South? We have never appealed for this before; but we feel that we can not hold our peace any longer. Something must be done, and that right early. If our people in the older conferences do not arouse to these pressing needs, we believe the Lord will raise up deliverance elsewhere. We have among us men and women who are accustomed to the ways of the South, and who can reach the people of19their own land, and why can not these be brought into service? The whole thing is a matter of means. As a conference we are out of debt, and we expect to keep out of debt. We receive none of the appropriations that come to the South from the Mission Board. We cut our garments according to our cloth, so have not had to feel dependent; but O, how much good a few dollars would do in the city of Louisville! Our little company here purchased a respectable church building, and it has proved a great blessing to the work, as it has afforded a place in which we could hold meetings, and to which we have been able to invite the people to come to hear the message for these times. By the strictest economy and self-sacrifice on the part of the little band of sisters here,—the greater portion of the time there has been but one brother besides the writer, to help bear these burdens,—this little company has been enabled to keep up the interest, and to make the payments as they have come due. Two of our members who were the best able to help financially, and upon whose help we depended so largely, have died during the past year, so the burden now falls very heavily upon the few who are left. We have but twelve hundred and fifty dollars to pay, and then we can be free, and dedicate our house of worship to God. This would be but a small amount for some of our churches in the North where we have brethren owning their homes, and living in comparative comfort, but it will take this little band here a long, long time to pay it all. Yet we have it to do, or have no place in which to meet for public worship; for we are not in the North where halls may be rented by any one. We are in a different field, working under different circumstances. O, how we have prayed God that he would put it into the hearts of some of our people to give us the assistance we so greatly need! How often have we prayed that our people in the North and East and West would respond to the calls that have come to them from the pen of Sister White, and send us even their mites to help establish the work in these large cities. A few dollars from each church, a little from each believer, and the work here would be placed upon a firm basis. Our people here who have labored so faithfully and long could then sing the song of jubilee, and could give of their mites to help in the other calls that continually come to us, but which we are compelled to deny because we have all this great load of our own to carry. We were never in a place where there was a greater interest to hear the truth than here. We simply can not meet all the demands that come to us, for the people are crying for the light. I long to see the time when we can place one or two of our devoted, intelligent young people here in training for this very work. We believe the Lord will hear our cries. We believe our brethren will respond and help us in this work. Our hearts were made glad when, but a short time ago, we received word from the pen of Sister White to feel perfectly free to appeal to our people for help in our work here. We praise the Lord that there is a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, and we believe that our brethren will everywhere respond to this call for help in this great city. The Lord is going out before us, and our little band of workers—our people here all work—are of good courage. Quite a number have begun to keep the Sabbath this past year, and many more are interested and are studying the message for these last days. Our colored people here are also arousing themselves, and are making an effort to secure means with which to build them a place of meeting. O, we long for the time to come when we can get these forces in working order, and see the truth being carried forward to completion! OTHO C. GODSMARK, President of the Cumberland Conference, 2005 Magazine St., Louisville, Ky.