Adelia P. Van Horn by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 12, 1872

Adelia P. Van Horn.

By James White

This Christian woman has filled the office of Secretary of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association for about three years, with great ability and unparalleled devotion. And we are sad to know that her health is failing, making it necessary that she should resign her office.

The relation we sustain to sister Van Horn may constitute a sufficient apology for speaking quite freely on her case, at this time. She was the first in her father's family to embrace the Sabbath, not far from twelve years since. She came into our family ten years since, and for several years had an excellent influence over our children. Her parents (Bro. and sister L. C. Patten) had trusted their daughter to our care, and when Eld. L. D. Van Horn asked her hand, we consented, and gave her to him with the interest parents feel for their daughters.

Before accepting the office of Secretary of the S. D. A. P. A., she had edited the Youth's Instructor, acted as Secretary at the Health Institute, and had shown superior ability in the REVIEW AND HERALD counting-room. But to take the office of Secretary of the Association, at the time she entered upon its duties, when confusion and embarrassment seemed to be written upon everything in the counting-room, the result of unconsecration and incompetency, was accepting a double task.

During the year then just closed, when she entered upon the duties of Secretary, the invoice of the property showed a decrease in the capital stock of the Association from $36,000 to $32,000. The invoice of ten months since gave $60,000. That of January, 1873, will not be much, if any, less than $75,000. Then, after deducting the amount of new stock taken during the past three years, the figures will show that there has been saved at the Office of the Publishing Association, not less than $32,000, equal to the entire capital stock, when A. P. Van Horn entered upon her duties.

And in justice to her, we further state that, in consequence of the absence of the President of the Association, a large share of his time, and his feebleness during almost the entire time he has been in Battle Creek, and from want of any other thorough business person connected with the Association, it has seemed necessary that her active, penetrating mind should reach beyond her duties as secretary, and enter largely into those of the President, in having, to a very great extent, the general supervision of the entire financial workings of the Association. In many cases, our most successful plans in the interests of the Association have been those of her own devising, which, when matured, she has submitted to the President for his opinion, and his acceptance. And, although she might decline accepting the credit of any share of the prosperity which has attended the Publishing Association, in doubling its capital stock in three years, yet without the interest, and care, and labor, which she has given it, all the efforts of the President to improve upon a former administration would have amounted to but very little.

And as she takes leave of her office, which she has filled with ability and faithfulness, under circumstances which insure the sympathy and prayers of all the friends of the cause, we are the more willing to let the simple facts in the case appear. Let the trustees do their duty by her as she resigns her office. A tithe of what she has earned the Association, above her wages, would be a handsome purse. We recommend the Rocky Mountains in summer, and California in winter, as the most favorable to those feeble from overwork. And, if it please God, we welcome Bro. and sister Van Horn, when she shall be able to journey, to our winter valley, and mountain summer, retreats. There are no better fields of labor than in the States of California and Oregon, and in Washington and Colorado Territories. And there are no warmer and more liberal hearts than in those who embrace the message here.

JAMES WHITE, Pres. S. D. A. P. A. San Francisco, Cal., Nov. 1, 1872.