The Seventh-Day Adventists.
By Uriah Smith
A BRIEF SKETCH OF THEIR ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND PRINCIPLES.
Public speakers being few, in comparison with the calls for labor, a plan has been devised designed to give all an opportunity to act some part in the promulgation of our views. This organization is called the Tract and Missionary Society. In this organization, the State is divided into districts, each district being composed of a certain number of churches, adjacent to each other. For each district a director is appointed, who appoints a librarian for each church in his district, to take charge of distributing tracts to the members, and a district secretary to keep an account of the whole working of the district. The district directors, a president, secretary and treasurer, constitute the officers of each State T. & M. Society. This Society has now been organized in each of the thirteen State Conferences. These State Societies then unite and form a General Tract and Missionary Society, with its proper officers. The object of this organization is to systematically canvass the country with books, tracts, and pamphlets setting forth the things we hold to be special truths for this time, to obtain subscribers for our various periodicals, visit the sick, call upon, and converse and pray with, families and individuals; and the general organization is designed to seek out openings and supply calls for help, in all the world. This Tract and Missionary organization is quite recent, the present year, 1874, being the first year with most of the State Societies. Yet the funds raised for the work of this Society now amount to over $15,000, and during the past year reports show that between three and four millions of pages of reading matter have been distributed, mostly given away, thousands of bound volumes placed in public libraries, nearly ten thousand families visited and prayed with, and 15,000 trial subscribers obtained for the different periodicals, aside from the regular subscription list above reported, while publications have been sent to England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and to every missionary station on the coast of Africa. Missions are now in successful operation among the Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and French, in this country. The Danish and Swedish papers have already been noticed. Quite a number of books and tracts are already issued in these languages, as also in the French and German, and papers in the two languages last named are in contemplation. Our views have also gained a permanent foothold in Switzerland in Europe. There are now some seventy-five believers there. Two of their number have been sent to this country to learn the English language, and become more fully instructed in S. D. Adventist views. Sept. 15, 1874, Eld. J. N. Andrews left this country for that field of labor. The first camp-meeting of S. D. Adventists was held under the management of Elders White and Andrews, in the town of Wright, Mich., Sept. 1–7, 1868. The results of this meeting were so encouraging that the plan of holding meetings of this kind during the summer months was soon generally adopted among this people. The past season, two camp-meetings were held in the State of Michigan, and one each in the twelve other Conferences, making fourteen in all. At the first Michigan meeting of this season, held in Battle Creek, Aug. 6–17, there were ninety-one tents, and between twelve and thirteen hundred persons permanently encamped upon the ground. Others lodging away from the ground, but daily attending the meeting, swelled the number to nearly fourteen hundred. This was the largest company of Christian observers of the seventh day known to have assembled since apostolic times. These meetings, as conducted by S. D. Adventists, are designed to be occasions of great spiritual profit to all who attend, promoting a revival spirit, and deep, and vital piety. Complete order is maintained, proper hours for rest are secured, and everything passes off with as much order and decorum as would be observed in a house of worship. In 1868, Elders J. N. Loughborough and D. T. Bourdeau were sent by the General Conference on a mission to California, and, with a large tent taken with them, commenced the work. From this point the cause of Seventh-day Adventism has grown quite rapidly on that coast. In 1872, Eld. White and wife visited that State, and aided in organizing a State Conference. They again visited California in the latter part of 1873, remaining until August, 1874. On this last visit, perceiving that the growing cause in that distant locality needed a medium of communication nearer than the publishing house in Michigan, Eld. W. commenced in Oakland, Cal., the publication of The Signs of the Times, the first number of which was issued June 4, 1874. It was started as a weekly the same size as the REVIEW AND HERALD. The wants of the cause, and the action of the General Conference of Aug. 10, 1874, calling Bro. W. east, the California Conference assumed the publication of the Signs. At their camp-meeting at Yountville, Oct. 1–12, 1874, nineteen thousand dollars were pledged for this purpose. As indicating the progress of the cause in California, it may be stated that, at the camp-meeting just referred to, there were some 85 tents pitched, and at the height of the meeting nearly six hundred Sabbath-keepers upon the ground. The churches belonging to this Conference now number fourteen. A mission is now progressing encouragingly in Oregon and Washington Territory, under the management of Eld. I. D. Van Horn and wife. The subject of education among S. D. Adventists, and the founding of a denominational school, was brought to the attention of this people by Eld. James White and wife, in the early part of 1872, and several meetings, at their call, were held in Battle Creek, Mich. May 11, 1872, the matter was put into the hands of the General Conference Committee, who, during the summer and autumn of 1873, solicited subscriptions to this enterprise, obtaining pledges for over fifty-four thousand dollars. March 16, 1874, an association was formed, under the law of Michigan “for the incorporation of institutions of learning,” and ground was broken, in May, for the erection of a suitable school building. The site is a beautiful plot of twelve acres, in the highest part of the city, opposite the grounds of the Health Institute. The building, of brick, 37 by 71, with two hall wings, each 17 by 37, three stories high, capable of accommodating between four and five hundred students, will be ready for use Jan. 1, 1875. The school itself, has been in progress, in such accommodations as it could secure, some two years.