p. 157 | THE IOWA CAMP-MEETING by Geo. E. Butler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 17, 1877

THE IOWA CAMP-MEETING.

By Geo. E. Butler

The time for our annual gathering is drawing near, and we want our camp-meeting this year to be the largest and best one ever held in this Conference. Our camp-meetings are a most important means of grace, which our people cannot afford to lose. Those who attend them from year to year find them a great source of spiritual strength. Our ablest speakers come to labor for the good of our people and the public, and we should all place ourselves where we may be benefited.

We shall take pains to advertise this meeting extensively in the country around, and we expect a largely increased attendance over that of last year. The influence of that meeting was good. There has been some increase of interest awakened among our brethren during the past Conference year; but many are nearly asleep, and sadly need the benefit of a good, spiritual meeting, such as we trust our camp-meeting will be.

We hope our brethren and sisters will make a general rally this year. Come prepared, as far as possible, not only to take care of yourselves, but to help others also. But let none stay away if they cannot do this. Especially do we invite the lonely, scattered ones, who have not the privilege of hearing much preaching. This is your time. Come by all means, if possible. Come, and speak for your localities, and set before the Conference your need of labor. Here is your best chance to secure it, when our preaching brethren are all together, and our tents are just about to start out. After they get into a field already chosen, it is hard to get them away. But here you can talk to them face to face.

Let our people take special pains to bring with them all their friends who are partially or largely interested. Here may be the chosen spot where they will take their stand for the truth. You will find no more favorable place. Come, brethren, prepared to labor for others and to point them to Christ. Our camp-meeting should be a grand inquiry meeting, where the wants of the unconverted will be looked after.

We ask our General Conference Committee to furnish us with laborers who can help the people where they need help. We extend to Bro. and Sr. White a special and cordial invitation to be present at this meeting. There will be many present who have never heard them, but have heard of them and who will be greatly disappointed if they are not present. We hope that this camp-meeting will be the largest gathering of Sabbath-keepers in the field, excepting Michigan; and we therefore trust that the General Conference Committee will consider the wants of the cause, and the need that our best gifts be present to reach the people. Let all our churches send their best men as delegates to the State Conference. Each church is entitled to one delegate, and if you number thirty-five members, you are entitled to two, and one more for each additional fifteen members.

Come, brethren and sisters of Iowa and Nebraska, let us make a general rally to our next annual gathering at Marshalltown, Iowa, June 7-12. Bring all the tents you can for your own comfort and that of others. Come the day before the meeting commences, and stay till it closes. Come to work for God and your fellow-men—to get good and to do good. Come to make a new departure from the world, to enter more heartily into God’s work. Satan is wide awake; the world is all astir with its business and folly, the nations of the earth are getting angry, and the hearts of its great men are full of fear as to what is coming in the great war just commencing. We are near the end. Let us awake. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Come up to this meeting to enter anew into the work of God, and to prepare for Christ’s coming. GEO. E. BUTLER.