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A Mistake

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 16, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 31.

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A Mistake.

By Editor

WHEN members of the church fail to report to the quarterly meetings, letters are sent out reminding them of the fact. These letters are intended to answer a two-fold purpose; to ascertain why they do not report, and to serve as reminders, that the person shall not be so negligent again.
The clerk of the Oakland Church has received a response from an absent member, containing the following words:—
“If the notice of regular church quarterly meetings had been sent regularly, I am sure you would have heard from us. We were negligent, and so were the church officers.”
We must differ with the writer. The fact that we have “regular quarterly meetings” at stated times throughout the year obviates the necessity of sending notices. We have a large number of non-residents and absent members, and it is quite too much to ask the clerk to send notice “regularly,” when every member knows the time and knows his duty in respect to it. There is no such duty devolving on “the church officers.” And it is quite wrong to subject the clerk to the trouble of sending letters of inquiry. We hope that all our members will yet become so prompt that these inquiries will go out of use, as they ought to.
EDITOR.