Turn Out, Brethren, Turn Out by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 11, 1875

Turn Out, Brethren, Turn Out.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Thus far, in my appointments, I have only been able to get the brethren waked up enough to begin to get out to meeting just as I got through. This is too bad. Churches have been left for long months, and some of them for a year or more, without labor. These churches have felt tried about it, and have urged that somebody should come; but now, come to the case in hand, many of them care but little about it.

I commence my meetings as early in the week as possible, perhaps Wednesday night. Generally only a small proportion of the brethren and sisters will be out; the next evening probably a few more, and Sabbath, at half past eleven, we are able to get quite a fair turnout. Even then many of them come and leave their grown up children and hired help at home, the very ones we wish to reach. On Sunday, perhaps, they will turn out a little better, when the presence of outsiders renders it impossible to say to them what needs to be said. This discourages me very much. I find connected with our churches some who have so far lost their interest in present truth as to let their subscription for the REVIEW stop. These, of course, do not have interest enough to attend the regular Sabbath meetings always, and hence, in several cases, know nothing about the meetings till they are over or nearly so. These are the very persons above all others I wish to reach.

Something must be done by the elders and leading brethren in our churches to get such persons out to our meetings on the start. Come, brethren, you must wake up to your duties in these matters. When an appointment is given for your place, do not wait till the last day in the afternoon to do something about it. Do not wait till I get there and then ask me about it. I would rather preach to a full house than to a little company gathered around the stove.

In nearly every neighborhood, if a proper effort is made, a good turnout can be secured. Put a notice in your local paper. Give it as though you expected something to be done. Get out handbills and scatter them everywhere; post them up; send your children or go yourself to every one of whom you have the least hope and urge them to get out. Mud, rain, or snow, will not prevent me from filling my appointments. If I can get out every day in the week, and every week all winter, the brethren and sisters in each place can stand it for one week, I know. Do not be so tender and faint-hearted. Let nothing but sickness hinder. Let it be understood that in every place we shall make a special effort to reach the cold, the back-slidden, and the children, among our people. Hence every reasonable effort should be made to have them attend all the meetings. Usually we devote Sabbath afternoons to this special work. If they come to meeting for the first time Sabbath morning, they are not at all prepared to enter into the spirit of the meeting.

A suitable place should be looked out beforehand for baptism, and preparations made for the ordinances.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Vassar, Mich.