The Cause at Battle Creek.
By James White
BATTLE CREEK, having become the center of the operations of our people, that which affects the cause at the heart of the work, affects it more or less everywhere. Hence, the importance that matters should move right at head-quarters. We are happy to report decided improvement in the state of the cause at Battle Creek. We arrived in the city from Colorado, November 10, and left the city, December 18. During this period of thirty-eight days, we labored intensely hard, generally from five in the morning until nine in the evening. We witnessed the steady, distinct advance of the work as we never before saw it at Battle Creek. And we left with faith and hope for the permanency and progress of the cause, such as we have not enjoyed for several years. Things which have greatly injured the cause, and have driven us from the work in discouragement and feebleness, have been more clearly seen, and the strongest union now exists between those who have not been able to see eye to eye. With this improved state of things has come a spirit of prayer, and of faith, and a large degree of the Spirit of God. Not a few who have been bound in uncertainty, and held by the chains of unbelief in darkness, have been set free, and have been able to triumph in the pardoning love of Christ. Thank God that we have shared largely in this good work. As the spirit of grace and supplication has come upon the people of God, we have sometimes been led out in prayer and faith as never before, for freedom, divine guidance, and health and strength to labor in the cause. And it gives us the greatest pleasure to report, that at the close of the thirty-eight days of most intense labor, we are much stronger to endure mental and physical labor than at any point of time during the past three years. There were several remarkable manifestations of divine power during our labors at Battle Creek. To the honor and glory of the Lord’s name, we here mention the case of the daughter of Bro. and sister Smith, a child of about six years. In September last, she was taken very sick with spinal fever. She became much reduced, extremely nervous and helpless, excepting to move her hands. Physicians gave up the case as a hopeless one, deciding that should she live, her condition would be that of helplessness, a burden to herself and to her parents. But our gracious God had better things in store for that afflicted family. It was on a Sabbath afternoon, at the very hour when the crowded congregation in our house of worship were moving, as it were, in a body toward Mount Zion, and Bro. and sister Smith were yielding to the influences of the divine Spirit, that a holy, solemn influence came into the dwelling of Bro. Smith, as if an angel had made his advent to touch the child with healing power. Sister Smith could not leave the bedside of her suffering child to attend the meeting. And she reports that a sudden change came over her feelings, and that it appeared to her that an angel had come into the house, and had shed a holy influence in every part of it. And it was at that moment that the hitherto helpless child drew herself up in a sitting posture, and next rose upon her feet. She rapidly recovered to her usual habits of taking food and sleeping, and now takes the exercise of the most robust children of her age. From the first, we felt that the time had come to expect the gracious work of God in the church at Battle Creek. And repeatedly, we bore testimony before the crowded congregation that our solemn convictions were that the time to favor Zion, so far as these words could apply to our time and our wants were concerned, had come; and that God was ready to reach down his hand to the help of those who had been the most back-slidden and rebellious. There was a great work to be done in many minds and hearts, and it was very encouraging to see that very work steadily and surely progressing. Many came to the light, and experienced freedom, and we hope the good work will move on until the spirit of darkness will not have a single foothold in that large congregation of Sabbath-keeping Adventists. Although General Conference was appointed while we were in Colorado, and letters and telegrams, received a few days before our leaving, urged us to attend, yet the delays of these requests, which led to reflections of past disappointments, led us to decide to go from the Territory, direct to our friends in California, who had urgently invited our immediate return to them to avoid the perils of winter. So, checked and ticketed through to San Francisco, we parted with Mr. and Mrs. Walling at Denver. But while passing over the road to Cheyenne, a station on the main line from Omaha to San Francisco, we were most solemnly impressed. And while alone in the front part of the railroad coach, quietly praying and groaning out our feelings before the Lord, we felt a power turning our mind around, against our determined purpose, toward the General Conference to be holden in a few days at Battle Creek. In our mind we debated the probabilities of another shock of paralysis which would doubtless prove fatal, and decided that we would not count our life too dear to risk all in doing the will of God. And with this consecration, we became very happy before our train reached Cheyenne. It was then midnight, and after a few hours’ sleep at the depot hotel, we laid the matter before Mrs. W., who for the first time seemed willing to risk another journey to the scene of our toils, trials, sicknesses, and sufferings. And in a few hours we were repacked, sister Hall on her way to San Francisco to make ready for us at Santa Rosa in about ten days, as we supposed, and we ticketed and checked for Chicago. At Battle Creek we were greeted heartily, not only by our denominational friends, but by business men and leading citizens. The General Conference moved off with marked harmony, and the religious services were of deepest interest. What we have witnessed of the good work of God the past six weeks we set down as good evidence that the Guiding Hand turned our course at Cheyenne, from the most desirable route to San Francisco, to the General Conference at Battle Creek. We now write from Chicago. We came to this city the evening of the 18th. We remain here to rest and do some writing until Tuesday morning, the 23d, when we design to take the Pacific Express, and arrive, the Lord willing, at Santa Rosa, Monday night, the 29th. To our dear friends in California we wish to say that, as the Lord turned our course and sent us to the General Conference, we have waited upon him for orders to return. And it has been our prayer that we might go to them at the time of his will, with the good hand of our God upon us. As we look back upon the labors of the past few weeks, it is a matter of devout thanksgiving to the great Disposer of events that the cause at Battle Creek is settling upon a firmer basis, and that the minds and hearts of leading men are more firmly united in the great work than ever before. Bro. Smith remains at present at Battle Creek, and Bro. Andrews is expected to go to Europe soon; Bro. Abbey, who had left the Health Institute, not without cause, returns with new consecration and fresh courage to labor in that department; while the General Conference Committee are pressed with cares and labors in the numerous enterprises of our people, such as the location and establishment of our first school, missions to all civilized countries, and publications in French, German, Danish, Swedish, &c. Bro. Haskell, by the grace of God, is making a great success of the tract and missionary work. This system puts a musket into the hands of every soldier. Before this, our people gave themselves up to labor for the things of this world, and trusted the great work of warning the world to about fifty preachers. Now the tract and missionary system makes workers of all our people who have a mind to work. We recommend this systematic labor as the best treatment of that terrible disease, church trials. Satan has plenty of work for idle hands to do. Go to work, brethren, in the tract and missionary cause, and become so far imbued with the spirit of this glorious labor for the Lord as to forget your trials. The tract and missionary system promises to be a mighty engine to move the cause forward. Our school at Battle Creek numbers more than one hundred students. We had the pleasure of spending an hour in the school before we left the city. The school is a good one. The building, though designed for a printing house, is well located, and answers well for school rooms. It is expected that commodious school buildings will be erected before another winter, as our third publishing building, now occupied by the school, will be very much needed as soon as the next autumn. But just where to locate the school is not yet decided. There are several good sites in Battle Creek for which the Committee are willing to pay the present value of such property. But for some time we have been calling in question the policy of setting up so much machinery at Battle Creek. Should plans be carried out relative to a very large school, the enlargement of the Health Institute to accommodate from three to five hundred patients, and the increase of our publishing work, the pressure upon only a few calculating, care-taking men, would be terrible. The General Conference Committee should look well to this matter, and watch the indications of Providence. There are many localities, even in the State of Michigan, as healthy, and as accessible as Battle Creek, and at the same time possessing more natural beauty, where purchases can be made at a very low figure. In all these matters, we trust our worthy Committee will “make haste slowly.” We are more than ever impressed with the importance of immediate action in the establishment of branch publishing houses, both on the Pacific and the Atlantic. The call for our publications is so great, especially for our tracts, that they should be worked from plates. This course would reduce the want of room for type setters, and room to store publications, at least one-half. In the use of plates, we should print only one or two thousand copies at one edition. In setting the type every time, we print from five to twenty thousand to an edition. This course not only calls for room to store, but for capital to invest. At the present time, we have $30,000 worth of our publications ready to ship. Fifteen thousand dollars invested in plates, and small editions of books, would carry along more business than we are now doing. The gospel field is the world. Ours is a vast field. And there is nothing to bind us to the locality of Battle Creek, only that it was the head-quarters of our cause in its infancy. And it may be well to guard against a similar weakness to that which holds some persons from going beyond the narrow limits of the home of their childhood. We need no more printing houses at Battle Creek. In the case of no disaster, the natural earnings of the Association from this time will be equal to all new demands of capital to carry on the business at that point. Ten thousand dollars should be raised to establish a branch office on the Pacific, and as much for one on the Atlantic. The field is the world. And the original commission, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” has the same weight and power for the consciences of all true ministers of Christ, and the same fire for their souls that it had nearly nineteen centuries ago for Christ’s first ministers. May the Guiding Hand be with us in all our deliberations and in all our efforts.