MATTERS AND THINGS by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 23, 1877

MATTERS AND THINGS.

By James White

It is an interesting fact that our camp-meetings are increasing in numbers, in importance, and in their influence, each year. Mrs. White returned from the Indiana Camp-meeting with the report that the Kokomo meeting just passed was the largest and best ever held by our people in that State. Not less than three hundred brethren and sisters camped on the ground. The Sabbath services, and the social meetings generally, were very excellent.

The congregation Sunday was variously estimated at from five to fifteen thousand. Mrs. White, who has had considerable experience in numbering crowds, puts the number of the Sunday congregation safely at eight thousand. Only about five thousand could be seated, leaving three thousand on their feet. She spoke eighty minutes on the subject of Christian Temperance, holding even the standing crowd in motionless silence. The order was perfect. No people has ever given Mrs. W. a better hearing than the citizens of Kokomo and vicinity.

We were not able to attend this meeting, and were very glad that Elder Waggoner could be present from first to last, and that he could join Elder Smith the last week of the Ohio Camp-meeting. Elder Smith’s report of the first half of the ten-days’ meeting in Ohio is given in this issue. Our readers will doubtless hear from the last half of that meeting next week. Mrs. W. designed to be at that meeting; but she returned from Indiana with a fearful cold, and up to this writing has been a great sufferer, and fears are entertained that she will not be able to attend the eastern camp-meetings.

A little care on the part of the good brethren in Indiana, and an hour’s work in properly staking Mrs. W.’s tent, and making trenches about it, would have saved this sickness, and other States could have her labor as well as Indiana.

No one saw the necessity of wall stakes and good trenches about the tent until the storm struck the camp when it was too late. The storm blew in the walls of the tent, and the rain drenched carpet and clothing. Then a good heating stove, which should have been provided as soon as she took up tent quarters, was needed to dry out the tent. But for want of these preparations and comforts, and in consequence of the tremendous effort before eight thousand people during eighty minutes, which left her weary and an easy subject to cold, other thousands are deprived of her labors.

Such things have so often occurred in our camp-meeting experience, and in most cases have resulted from want of a little extra care and effort, that we fear, at our age of life, to risk ourselves to the careless care of our brethren. Last year our able reporter took cold at the Ohio Camp-meeting. A good stove in the tent from the first would have saved this. Her cold was greatly aggravated at the Vermont meeting, from the effects of which she has not fully recovered, after losing several months’ labor by sickness. A good stove from the first would have saved this also, and would have been of great service to the whole tent company, weary from holding a camp-meeting each week. But these comforts and safeguards to health and life of those who must speak in earnest camp-meeting style four or six times each week cost the brethren in the several States so much that they could not run the risk of losing what they would cost in case of warm and pleasant weather. So the risk is run, and health is sacrificed; and pain, feebleness, and sadness of heart are experienced by those to whom the people look for help.

Our good people mean to do their whole duty. But they are not able to see the difference between the fatigue of preaching, and exhorting, business sessions, and morning and evening, and sometimes midnight, committees, during fifteen camp-meetings in succession, and the rest of the one only they attend each year, sitting and hearing, or strolling about the grounds with minds and hearts as free from anxiety and care as the gentle breezes that fan the groves. Many of these good people come to camp-meeting, expecting to enjoy good long visits with Bro. and Sr. White, and when they find us overwhelmed with labor and care from the commencement of the meeting to the close, they go home disappointed, and sometimes grieved, because we did not give them more personal attention.

If these dear souls would come to camp-meeting under a sense of duty to help us, and not to burden us, to look after our wants, instead of feeling neglected unless we give them attentions, they would take home with them more of the blessing of God, and remove from us much of the dread we have of attending the camp-meetings. We have labored long and hard. Mrs. W. has stood by our side in the tug of battle for thirty-one long years. We are growing old, yet with care can do as well, if not as much, as in younger days. But if our brethren call the old folks out to meet them in camp, they must treat us tenderly, and not cast their burdens upon us.

Beloved brethren, we have labored long, and with care and solicitude for you. We have given more than thirty years of the best of life in laboring to bring the truth of God before you and to build up the cause of God. We have suffered privations willingly to serve you. We have seen but little in this life but toil, sorrow, and feebleness from overwork. And we had hoped that our young brethren before this time would have taken the burdens we have borne and divided them among them, and thus let them drop from our weary hands. We have looked forward to the time when their tender care would be towards us, as ours has been towards them. Sustaining such relations to our people, and enjoying their loving care, we should be very happy to meet them in all their camp-meetings, and teach “them the way of the Lord more perfectly.” J. W.