Battle Creek Camp-Meeting.
THE following report of the first week of the Battle Creek, Mich., camp-meeting was prepared for the secular papers of that city October 8 :- The great National Camp-meeting of Seventh-day Adventists has been holding in this city for the past week. It is the largest gathering of the observers of the ancient Sabbath of Jehovah ever assembled in the United States, and probably the largest in the world for ages. Local camp-meetings are not apt to excite much interest outside of their own locality, but this, being a national affair, at least so far as the denomination is concerned, and being in many respects different from ordinary camp-meetings, may be of interest to your readers. The Conferences of all the northern States, from Maine to California, are represented by delegates, as well as the missions in the southern States, and it has been considered of sufficient importance to call home a delegation of missionaries from Europe. Elder James White and wife, among the earliest pioneers of the cause and prominently connected with all the institutions of these Adventists, are here from their temporary retreat in the mountains of Colorado; Elder J. N. Loughborough and wife, from California, on their way to England; Elder J. N. Andrews and daughter, of Switzerland, and Elder D. T. Bourdeau and wife, of France, who represent the European Mission; Elder S. N. Haskell, of Massachusetts, and Elder D. M. Canright, of Michigan, members of the General Conference Committee; Elder U. Smith, managing editor of the Review and Herald, their denominational paper, and professor of Biblical Literature in Battle Creek College; Elder Nathan Wardner, of the Seventh-day Baptists, formerly missionary to China, and others. Upwards of fifty leading ministers of the denomination are in attendance, besides any number of lesser lights. Their religious meetings are devotional, and a high standard of religion and morality are held up before the people. Two hundred responded to Mrs. White's appeal to seek salvation, at the close of one of her discourses. The meetings are not all of a devotional character. There are several important institutions under the auspices of the denomination, and the several organizations hold their annual business meetings in connection with the camp-meeting. About three thousand believers are present. There are one hundred and fifty dwelling tents on the ground, most of them quite commodious, besides the mammoth pavilion, eighty by one hundred and twenty-five feet, and five smaller ones used for dining and provision stands, prayer, conference, and committee meetings, etc. A marked feature of the meeting is the neatness and order of the grounds, which are regularly laid out in streets, both streets and tents being numbered, and well lighted at night. As a rule, the people discard the use of tobacco in every form, and the absence of all traces of its use is very notable in their camp. On Saturday morning, the day observed by this people as Sabbath, the whole camp resolved itself into a mammoth Sabbath-school, under the direction of Prof. G. H. Bell, of Battle Creek College, who stands at the head of the Sabbath-school work in the denomination. The huge pavilion was filled to its utmost extent. All, from gray-headed fathers and mothers in Israel down to little children, entering heartily into the exercises. Appropriate music, rendered by a finely trained choir led by J. E. White, enlivened the exercises. Mrs. White gave an able address on Christian temperance, Sunday afternoon, before an audience of six thousand. This people are staunch temperance advocates, going back of the bottle and the wine cup, to the table, and advocate the use of plain, nourishing, unstimulating diet from infancy as the surest safeguard against intemperance in our growing youth. Elder Andrews, in his report of his work in Switzerland, took occasion to make an emphatic protest against the statement that in countries where grape wine is freely used there is little or no drunkenness. The prevalence of intemperance of this kind has moved him to labor against it, with gratifying success, so far as converts to the faith in Europe are concerned. The General Conference holds its annual meeting at this time also, and the State Conference of Michigan has held several sessions. Take it altogether, it has been a very busy week for both ministers and laity, and they have several days more of hard work laid out, if the weather does not interfere with their plans. Thus far it has been that could be desired for camping purposes. But who and what are these Seventh-day Adventists? Their name explains the two leading features of their faith. They are believers in the soon coming of Christ and observers of the seventh day Sabbath. They date their origin at the time of the great Advent movement of 1844. Some now living among them were connected with that, and passed through the bitter disappointment that met them when the time at which they expected their Lord passed and they were still doomed to be pilgrims and strangers upon the earth. This disappointment scattered many of those who had been zealous advocates of the doctrine. The great wonder is that any were left to cling to the Advent faith and name, and take up the heavy cross of derision and persecution that awaited them. But there were a few men and women of stronger hearts and cool heads of the stuff of which martyrs are made,—for what is social ostracism but a species of martyrdom. These turned earnestly to the Scriptures for some clue to the position in which they found themselves. They found an escape from the conclusion to which they had arrived concerning the prophetic periods of Daniel. But circumstances showed that they were mistaken in the event. Further search revealed that the earth was not the sanctuary to be cleansed at the expiration of the time (Dan. 8:14), but that there was a heavenly sanctuary to which the prophecy referred, and which Paul describes in his epistle to the Hebrews. That the end of all things is close at hand they fully believe, but as they still hold that the prophetic periods ended in 1844, they have no data by which to set definite time. This is a distinguishing feature between them and other classes of Adventists, who are frequently re-adjusting the prophetic periods to bring their ending in the immediate future. In the meantime, their attention had been called to some other points, as that the idea of innate immortality is unscriptural, and that though all are to be raised from their graves at the second coming of Christ, only those will receive immortality who have merited it through faith in Christ and Christian lives; those who have neglected this to perish for their sins, when sin, its author, and sinners, will alike be blotted out from the universe, and the earth, redeemed from the curse and purified, will be made the seat of Christ's everlasting kingdom, where he will reign with his saints. The ten commandments stand the same examination, and, as a result, the seventh-day Sabbath, as expressed in the fourth precept of the law, began to be observed among them. So direct a track across the creeds of the churches could not fail to sever them most completely from them, and after some years they formed a separate organization, taking the name of Seventh-day Adventists. Still confident that time was short, and anxious to fulfill the mission which they conceived to be their, of warning the world of its impending doom, they commenced to publish. In this work Elder White and wife labored amid discouragements and trials that would have daunted any ordinary faith, but the ball was put in motion and the large publishing houses, one on the Pacific coast, at Oakland, California, and two here in Battle Creek, testify to the success of their endeavors. The Oakland house publishes a neat eight-page weekly, devoted to an exposition of their faith and religious views generally, called the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. The one at Battle Creek occupies two large and handsome buildings, one of them one hundred and fourteen feet front and sixty-six feet deep, and four stories high. This issues tons of tracts and books annually, amounting at the present to 259,130,951 pages; one weekly paper, four monthlies, and a quarterly. Their aggregate monthly circulation being 40,000 copies. The most of these are in English, but they also publish in French, Danish, Swedish and German. Of the monthlies, one is denominational; one a fine little sheet for youth, and another a health journal, these last being unsectarian. This brings us to another institution located here under the auspices of the denomination, the Medical and Surgical Sanitarium. This is a really elegant brick building, one hundred and fifty feet long by one hundred and ten deep, fitted for its purpose at an expense of $100,000 with every appliance of the healing art. The property is held by stockholders, but the management of the institution is intrusted to the care of J. H. Kellogg, M. D., a thoroughly educated physician and scientist. Four physicians of experience, two of them ladies, and a number of helpers, complete the Sanitarium staff. Opposite the Sanitarium, in the center of a park of seven acres, is the College building, also of brick. Elder White is president of the institution, but Prof. S. Brownsberger is the acting head, with six professors and six assistant professors as his assistants. Neither the Sanitarium or College claim to be sectarian. The latter is designed for those of both sexes who desire to take a thorough course of study, classical or otherwise. The Greek and Latin courses are thorough and comprehensive. Educated native teachers have the modern languages in charge. The chief distinction between this and other educational institutions of the kind is its discipline, grievous to young men who have many wild oats to sow, or young maidens to tender thoughts inclined, but highly satisfactory to most of parents. No tobacco, no intoxicants, no flirtations, are permitted. Those who come for study have ample opportunity—others not invited. The enrollment for the past year was four hundred and seventy-eight. Having outgrown their church in this city, they are erecting a large brick tabernacle, which promises to be the largest in seating capacity, in the State. Their work is aggressive, and their methods of carrying it on, peculiar to themselves. Their ministry is not settled over churches, but left free to carry their message into new fields. During the summer season while out-of-door services are admissible they go out with pavilion tents, asking nothing of those among whom they locate, except a place for their tent and a hearing. Here they give lectures upon Biblical exegesis, setting forth the peculiar tenets of their faith and their reasons for them, usually gathering more or less of a company to their views. Seventy-five of these tents have been used thus the past season. In the mean time the laity are not idle, but by means of an extensive and systematic tract organization are actively employed in extending the knowledge of their faith to others. They have seventeen conferences in the United States, besides missions in nearly every State and Territory, north and south, where there is no organized conference. They have missions in Switzerland, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, and Egypt, the Swiss mission having a press of its own and publishing a paper in the French language, besides tracts etc., in German, French and Italian. This mission was established four years ago. They have begun to raise $100,000 to establish a mission in England, with a press of its own, the coming year. As they are by no means a wealthy people, and number only about twenty-five thousand in the United States, it must be evident to all that the success of their work and institutions is the result of close calculation and hard labor somewhere. With the history of the work from its earliest rise, and that of all their institutions, the names of Elder and Mrs. White are closely connected. Their lives and interests seem to be interwoven with it. Whatever one may think of the belief of this people, their evident zeal and earnestness commend our respect as proof of their sincerity.