p. 100 | THE CAMP-MEETINGS by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 29, 1877

THE CAMP-MEETINGS.

By James White

The last season’s camp-meetings, fifteen in number, were very successful. We attended fourteen of these, under the impression that it was the last complete round of camp-meetings we should undertake. We were anxious to attend all the Eastern meetings last season, as we designed to remain on the Pacific Coast until the Spring of 1878. But the work was too hard for us. We have been able to write but little, and speak less, the past winter, from overlabor last summer.

The camp-meetings for 1877 should be more in number than those of 1876. And it is of no use to arrange them to follow each other, one each week, so that one set of speakers shall attend them all. Our speakers who can hold the crowds are of too much value to the cause to be used up in this way.

These speakers must be on the camp-ground five days in each week. Wet or dry, cold or hot, these very persons must do all, or nearly all, the preaching, and must be present at business sessions. And these are the very persons who feel the importance of the camp-meetings, and take much of the care of them. And the time between the meetings is spent on the cars. We have gone from meeting to meeting four weeks at a time without stepping over a threshold, only that of the railroad depot. If our people would take all these things into the account, they might smooth our way very much, so that we might last longer, and be at more meetings. We live in our trunks nearly one-third of the year. We take our tent with us in a trunk. Could lumber be in reserve on the ground for us, some one be appointed to take us and our baggage directly to the ground, and persons ready to assist in putting up our tent, and we be visited by those only who should come to our tent to assist and cheer us, and none come in the confusion of breaking up, and packing for the cars, to bid us good-by, very much of the dreaded part of camp-meeting life would be removed.

We are used to driving our own team for rest from Office labors and cares. After a tedious journey shut up in the cars, or shut up in the woods speaking to the people, on committees, or attending business sessions, week after week, what an unspeakable relief to weary brain and trembling nerves would be the use of a horse and carriage for a few hours each day. But no one thinks of this, only the camp-meeting slave, who is shifted twice each week; first, from the cars to the omnibus and to the ground; then away by the omnibus to the cars, to be dumped off in the ditch, perhaps, bag and baggage, beside the next camp-ground, after riding day and night for twenty-four, thirty-six, or forty-eight hours, in the dusty, smoky, stifled air of the cars. And if you don’t preach with spirit and freedom each day of the meeting, you are liable to be regarded as backslidden.

Dear brethren, we cannot go the rounds of your camp-meetings any more, and we ask for one season’s entire rest from the camp-meetings to recover as far as possible from the severe wear of such efforts as the past year’s. Should you consider our past labors and our age, and smooth our way before us, we might attend a portion of your camp-meetings in 1878.

We have promises to fulfill to the readers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and Mrs. W. is completing the third volume of Spirit of Prophecy. And we have other books to write, which makes it necessary that we should remain at our Pacific retreat a whole year from May next.

There should be held by our people the coming season not less than twenty camp-meetings. We recommend that each State select its best time for meeting, secure help, and trust in God for the rest. If the brethren will cheerfully do this in faith and hope, the next will be a better camp-meeting season than they have yet enjoyed. J. W.