New York Camp-Meeting by I. D. Van Horn

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 4, 1883

New York Camp-Meeting.

By I. D. Van Horn

THIS meeting was held Sept. 12-18, at Union Square, the same place and ground occupied last year. There were upwards of seventy tents on the ground, and about five hundred campers. We arrived at the place on Wednesday afternoon, and found the preparations far advanced.

The camp-meeting opened at 5:30 P. M. of the 12th, with a business session of the New York Conference. At 7:30 the same evening the first sermon was given. A special effort was made to get the business out of the way before the Sabbath, and with good success. Everything moved off in harmony. Steps were taken to bring up the colporteur and canvassing work to its true position, and it had the effect to decide quite a number of brethren and sisters, both old and young, to consecrate themselves to the work. Bro. Boynton was here with his accustomed zeal, to give instruction in this branch of the work. He had quite a large class.

Sr. White arrived on the ground on Friday. She had taken a severe cold at the Maine meeting, and had stopped near Portland to take some treatment. She felt so poorly that she nearly decided to go by the New York meeting to Battle Creek, and take treatment at the Sanitarium; but she finally decided to stop. On Sabbath afternoon she spoke with her usual freedom and power, and labored after speaking for backsliders and sinners. The Lord blessed and raised her above her physical infirmities, so that she spoke on Sunday, and to our people again on Monday, and when we left the meeting she was much better than when she came.

The special effort made for sinners, and those far from God, met with a good degree of success. Many responded, not only by coming forward, but by earnestly seeking God. On Monday, those wishing baptism were invited forward, and twenty candidates went to the water, and this holy ordinance was administered to them by Eld. R. F. Cottrell.

There was a good degree of freedom enjoyed in the preaching, and in the social meetings. The plain testimony borne, and the clear, searching truth that we are entering the perils of the last days, and that we are not doing one-twentieth of what we should, had the effect to arouse some to a sense of their lukewarm condition, and of their need of help from God. A good degree of courage and hope was expressed in the camp before the meeting closed.

The effort made by Bro. Butler on Monday morning to show the extent of the work of the closing message of mercy, and the wants of the missions in Europe, and of the International T. and M. Society, had a good effect on all. The call for pledges to sustain these enterprises was cheerfully responded to. The sum of $1,350 was pledged.

Taking all in all, this was a good meeting. Though this Conference is feeling severely the loss of some of their leading men, who have gone to labor in other important fields, they feel of good courage, and several of the young men resolved to take hold and improve the talents God has given them. I. D. VAN HORN. Chicago, Sept. 19, 1883.