Leading Men in Council—Perfecting Plans to Reach Every Human Being on Earth—A Message of Hope and Joy to Give Them
THE biennial council of our General Conference assembled in Loma Linda, California, from November 5 to 21. In connection with this meeting of the General Conference, our North American Division also gathered in council.
The General Conference meetings were held in the forenoon of each day, and the afternoons were given to the North American Division.
Committee work began at six o’clock in the morning, and every moment of the day until nine in the evening was filled with busy activities. Indeed, some of the committees continued their labors, on numerous occasions, until far into the night.
This being a biennial council merely, it was not planned to have anything like as full a representation as when the regular sessions of the General Conference are held. Nevertheless, there were representatives present from Australasia, Java, China, India, Europe, and several from Canada; while from the United States, in addition to the officers of the General and the North American Division Conference, there were present most of the presidents of the local and the union conferences.
The council was greatly pleased to have among its delegates five old veteran ministers who were in the neighborhood of eighty years of age, some of them being past eighty. They were Elders George I. Butler, J. N. Loughborough, S. N. Haskell, H. W. Decker, and J. H. Rogers. It was an inspiration to hear the testimony of these tried servants, who through a long life have devoted their powers to the promulgation of the great message of the soon coming of the blessed Christ.
The council was marked by deep earnestness, determined enthusiasm, and a spirit of world-wide aggressiveness. Every individual on earth, be he in civilized land or in far-away jungle, must be greeted with the prophetic evidence that Christ is soon coming. This is a great message of joy and hope to carry to this dark world; and with such a message actuating the life, every member of the church should be an earnest, active worker, doing what he or she can for the advancement of the great cause.
As should be expected, the central theme of the council was earnest evangelism. The time was largely devoted to the study of the most successful methods of soul winning. How may every creature be reached most quickly, and made aware of the glorious news God is sending to the world—the news of the returning Christ, who will bring an end to all sadness and sin?
Already our people have their work well established and organized in eighty-seven countries.
At the close of 1914, our total membership stood at 125,844. There had been a gain in membership, during the year, of 11,287, almost ten per cent. 113 new churches were organized during the year. Of the 125,844 members, 9,360 are devoting their entire time to the advancement of this work, as ministers, teachers, publishers, medical evangelists, nurses, colporteurs, etc. That is to say, one of every thirteen of our church members gives his entire time to the work of advancing the cause we have espoused. The report also shows that one person of every seventy-seven in our denomination is a teacher either in one of our schools in this country or else in our schools and mission stations in foreign lands.
As might be expected, when so large a percentage of the denomination devote their entire time to the work, the members who are not devoting their whole time to the cause show a correspondingly marked activity. Hence we were not surprised to have presented to the council the report that 911 persons were added to our church in a single quarter through the activities of the laity.
As showing what some of our local churches are doing, Brother Quinn, president of the Atlantic Union Conference, told of our church at Portland, Maine. There are only sixty members in the organization, and none of them are wealthy. At the beginning of 1914, they had a debt of $8,000 on their meeting house, which they paid off in the first eight months of the year. Their activities were of such a character that it became necessary for them to build an annex to the meeting house. This cost $1,700 additional. But these local expenses did not diminish their interest in the foreign mission field; for during that same year, 1914, the membership of that church gave on an average $21.84 each to foreign missions, and all this in addition to the regular tithe they paid for the support of the work both at home and abroad.
While the year 1914 throughout the field showed a big increase in every department of our work over any previous year, yet case after case was reported in which the first nine months of 1915 have shown a greater advancement than the whole of the year 1914. For instance, Elder Christian, reporting from the Lake Union Conference, stated that the baptisms in 1914 were 1,012, while in the first nine months of 1915 they were 1,202, or an increase of 190 in the first nine months of this year over the whole of last year. And this is illustrative of many similar reports.
The report of the way our people have given for the advancement of this work was one of the most inspiring things in connection with the council. We have quite complete records of our organized work since the year 1863. Since that time, our people have contributed $31,675,894.76. But let it be remembered that $3,090,484.80 of that sum was contributed in the year 1914.
The amount given by each church member during 1914 averaged, throughout the world, $35.45; while if we take our membership in North America alone, the average is $45.81 a member. Going back to the year 1863, the average per capita paid into our denominational treasury was only $2.29; but the earnestness and aggressive faith of our people have risen year by year as time has passed, until the splendid result of 1914 was reached. There has been a steady climb, and continued, earnest advancement.
It is never becoming to Christians to boast, and what they say in regard to their work should not be said in the spirit of boasting; but the presentation of fact will oftentimes serve as a stimulus, and it is with the hope of inspiring helpfulness that we make a few comparisons.
The average per capita contributions of the members of all other Protestant bodies in the United States were only sixty-three cents for the year. The figures range all the way from $1.93 a member in one denomination on down to the lowest, which was twenty-one cents a member. May it not be possible that the great difference between giving twenty-one cents a year a member and $45.81 a member, is brought about through the powerfully stimulating joy of believing that Christ is soon coming again, and the desire to impart this joy to every creature that may be reached?
The part that our Sabbath schools have played in the work of giving in support of our missions was very strikingly told by Mrs. Plummer, the secretary of our Sabbath School Department. Through charts that would appeal to the eye, as well as words that would appeal to the ear, she presented the fact that the first twenty-five years during which our Sabbath schools made a special work of donating to missions, yielded only a little over a million dollars for that purpose; but the second million was raised by our Sabbath schools in three and one fourth years, ending with March 31, 1915. And now the goal is set to raise the third million through our Sabbath schools during the last nine months of 1915 and the year 1916.
In 1903, we had one lone worker in China, who had a Sabbath school there all by himself; but now we have ninety-three Sabbath schools, with over 3,000 attendance, in that great field. Mrs. Plummer also informed us that our Sabbath school membership is greater than our church membership, which was an item that brought much good cheer into the council.
During the biennial period just closed, our9Sabbath schools had set apart fourteen different days on which special donations should be taken up for worthy objects in the foreign mission fields. These fourteen days of giving alone netted the splendid sum of $217,073.36.
Our publishing work has also shown marvelous development. With scarcely any equipment at the beginning, we now have thirty-nine well equipped publishing houses and branches, and are sending out literature in some ninety-two different languages. Our last statistical report gives the number of languages as eighty-nine, but brethren at the council reported some three other languages that have recently been entered with our publications. From 1845 to 1854, we sold only $2,500 worth of our literature; 1855 to 1864, we sold $17,500 worth; 1865 to 1874, $73,000 worth; 1875 to 1884, $371,000 worth; 1885 to 1894, $3,969,000 worth; 1895 to 1904, $3,144,000 worth; 1905 to 1914, $14,086,000 worth; or a grand total, during the time, of $21,663,000 worth of our publications that have gone to the world.
It is very interesting to observe, from the foregoing figures, that it took us forty years to sell $464,000 worth of our publications. But during the next ten years, we made the big jump to $3,969,000 worth. Then during the ten years from 1895 to 1904, we struck a period of hard times, and withal were reorganizing and changing over our work, so we did not sell quite as much as in the ten years between 1885 and 1894. But the ten years immediately following 1904 show the big increase that enabled us to reach the splendid figures of $14,086,000. Or to put it in another way, during the ten-year period from 1904 to 1914, we sold almost twice as much literature as we did in the first half century of the history of our publishing work.
While the reports showed most excellent progress in all lines, it was a source of encouragement to the council to hear the statistical secretary state that there had been remarkably few apostasies from the faith. Those who take their stand with us, almost invariably remain firm, and become active workers in the good cause.
The council voted unanimously to use the SIGNS OF THE TIMES as the medium in presenting the harvest ingathering campaign of 1916.
The council eagerly listened to the reports of Elder W. J. Fitzgerald, president of the British Union Conference, and also of Elder L. E. Conradi, president of the European Division. These brethren have been laboring right in the heart of the great war that has been going on for more than a year; but notwithstanding the difficulties, our work has made a very substantial progress.
We were prepared to hear from them that the work was very materially curtailed; but instead of receiving such a discouraging report, our hearts were made glad by the good progress that had been made. Elder Conradi, reporting for the European field, told us that 4,857 persons had been baptized into the faith during 1914, which was only 154 less than the year preceding. The tithes paid by our people in Europe for the support of their local work was $354,597, or only about $18,000 less than the preceding prosperous year. In addition to their tithe, the same brethren donated, during 1914, $96,000 for missionary operations outside their own territory, which fell only $10,000 short of the year before the war.
Our publishing houses in Europe, notwithstanding the broken up condition caused by the war, were able to sell $424,000 worth of our literature, which fell only $58,000 short of the sales of the year before. These figures show us that our work is able to make strong headway under the most forbidding and difficult circumstances.
Elder G. W. Caviness, who has labored in Mexico most of the time while the revolution has been in progress there, also reported good success, and bore his testimony to the protecting hand of God over the workers in that war-torn country. As the workers go forward bearing their message, they are made to feel the care of the heavenly Father, who is seeking to convey to the world the great message that His Son is soon to return, not only to bring an end to wars, but to bring to an eternal end every other evil thing.
Among the very important moves made was the strengthening of the organization of the Asiatic section of our work. The council organized the Far Eastern Division Conference, which will embrace Australasia, India, Burma, China, and Japan, including the many islands bordering on this territory.
Our work in that Asiatic and Oceanic field has assumed proportions which require the presence of a number of strong, experienced men, who can counsel together, and decide important questions without the delay necessary to submit them to our foreign mission board at headquarters in Washington, D. C.
Elder R. C. Porter was elected president of the Far Eastern Division Conference; Elder J. E. Fulton, of Australasia, was elected vice president and secretary; and Henry W. Burrows, of Vermont, was elected treasurer and auditor.
The work in South America was also strengthened by more fully completing the organization. Elder O. Montgomery, president of the Southeastern Union Conference, was asked to go immediately to South America, to take general supervision of the work in that field. He told the council that he had his affairs in such shape that he would be able to sail early in December. Other laborers will accompany him to strengthen further the work in that field.
The outlying mission districts of the world are calling loudly for experienced men from the home land, and the call will be louder and louder as the work advances. Never was there a cause that gave more inspiring promise to young men and young women to enter upon a career that is destined to terminate so sublimely—a career that meets its great climax when all the splendors of the universe combine to make glorious the return to earth of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords—the blessed Christ, our divine Saviour.
