p. 20 | The Camp-Meetings by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 30, 1874

The Camp-Meetings.

By James White

SEVENTH-DAY Adventists hold, the present season, thirteen camp-meetings in the States of California, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine. These are large gatherings. Our churches having no settled or stationed pastors, it is regarded very important that there should be a general attendance of the membership at these annual assemblies, to enjoy practical sermons from those eminently qualified to feed the flock of God, and to participate in social worship.

Camp-meetings are rather a necessity than choice with our young, widely-scattered and growing organization. As with the Methodists, in their early days when their scattered condition and want of houses of worship made general gatherings in camp a necessity, these annual meetings of our people are attended with the signal blessing of God. We have received reports of the first two camp-meetings of the season from Elder Butler, president of our General Conference. These suggest some thoughts of interest which we here express.

THE MISSOURI CAMP-MEETING.

The scattered friends in the Missouri and Kansas Conference have just made a grand and very commendable rally. The report states that more than two hundred brethren and sisters were present, and that many of them came with their teams from one hundred to three hundred miles to attend their annual camp-meeting. Twelve new churches were added to the Conference, making the present number twenty-two. Young men are entering the ministry, so that four tents are to be manned out in that Conference the present season.

The liberal feature of the work in that new Conference is worthy of notice. Besides purchasing two new tents, and meeting local expenses, they voted donations to the Danish, Swedish, and North Pacific Missions, and to aid us in the publication of the Signs, and to establish the press on this coast.

Accompanied by Mrs. W., three years since, we made a trip to Missouri and Kansas, and, assisted by Eld. Butler, held a very small camp-meeting. We scattered publications and preached the word. We organized the Kansas and Missouri Conference, which was at that time very small and weak. The situation of things was discouraging, yet commendable efforts have been made, and the results are glorious.

The Iowa tent and publications were expressed to Kansas at considerable expense, and traveling expenses were large. The means expended in that effort, amounting to about seven hundred dollars, were cheerfully donated by persons in different States. But as little immediate fruit appeared, we at one time regretted the investment. Now we regret our want of faith, and pray, Lord, we believe; help thou our unbelief. Such evidences of prosperity attending liberal efforts come pouring in from every side. And, with a solemn weight of the vastness and importance of the work, and the certainty of the blessing of God attending well-directed efforts, our leading men are still led out in yet broader plans for its extension.

THE IOWA CAMP-MEETING.

The Iowa Camp-meeting is reported to have been the largest and most important gathering in that State. That Conference has four tents in the field the present season. Mrs. W. was at this meeting the last day. A lively interest was taken in the work on the Pacific Coast. The brethren in Iowa have confidence in the work, and also in those who have given their lives to it from the first; and they are ready to act their part cheerfully and promptly in establishing the press on the Pacific.

It was but a few years since, when the cause in Iowa was young and feeble, that one family in New England let us have three hundred dollars without interest to purchase a tent for Iowa, until friends could be raised up in that State to pay for it. And now comes the return. At its recent session, the Iowa Conference voted three hundred dollars to the support of the Signs of the Times; and, what is far more, that Elder R. M. Kilgore be spared from the tent campaign in Iowa to labor the present season in New England. When that first tent was purchased for Iowa, Elder Kilgore was a captain in the army of the North, without Christ, and without the least knowledge of the people with whom, and the cause in behalf of which, he now fights the battles of the Lord.

The camp-meeting season has opened most encouragingly. We shall look for reports from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, with hopeful anxiety. We can do no less than to express feelings of gratitude to our old friends east of the Plains for their confidence and liberal co-operation with us in our work here. May it provoke and kindle the same in the hearts of our newer friends on this side.

It will not be denied that there are dangers of over-action in a rapidly growing cause like ours, which demands faith and action relative to its future operations. But, if the hand of God is with this cause, that hand will guide the men who are, with the greatest care, annually elected to the highest office. In faith, and much prayer that the Guiding Hand may be with them, a people as consistent as our people are on all other points, will confide in the judgment of the General Conference Committee, so long as they hold them in office. These men are naturally over-cautious and unassuming. And, if they appear otherwise to those who are led by the spirit of this world, it is because the power of the truth and the Spirit of God, presses them out of their natural course. They are men “terribly in earnest.” And well may they be. The subject, and the work to be accomplished in a short time, fully justify it. And the spirit of our irreligious times, and the condition of apostate Christendom, demand it. Thus saith the Lord, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Isa. 58:1. When the voice of truth is heard in earnest tones, in perfect accord with prophecy applicable to our time, every Christian heart should sympathize and respond. J. W.