THE GENERAL CONFERENCE

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1880

THE GENERAL CONFERENCE.

AT the special session of the General Conference held at Battle Creek, Mich., March 11-15, 1880, twenty-eight delegates were present, representing fifteen different States. Committees were appointed on the following subjects: Resolutions, Tract and Missionary Institutes, Camp-meetings, Tent-meetings, Tithing, Proper Qualifications of Ministers, and the Length of Time Church Elders and Deacons should hold their Office without a re-election.

In view of the fact that our experience as a people is demonstrating more and more the vast importance of the tract and missionary work, the committee appointed to consider that branch of the work recommended

1. That one or more general Tract and Missionary Institutes be held in each Conference, as the circumstances may seem to demand, and that especial efforts be made to secure the attendance of all ministers and tract and missionary officers.

2. That in each Conference one or more persons be qualified to conduct similar classes, and thus extend the system to every local society.

3. That as many Institutes be held the present spring as practicable without interfering with tent-labor.

4. That as Eld. B. I. Whitney, of New York, has successfully taught several Institutes, introducing an efficient system of tract and missionary accounts and labor, we recommend the adoption of these methods, and that, as far as possible, his services as teacher be secured by those Conferences where tract and missionary Institutes may be held.

5. That a manual of instruction be published, embodying the system of instruction relative to the tract and missionary work.

The Committee on Resolutions among other things recommended,

1. That those who conduct camp-meetings, acting with the State Conference committees, prepare a programme of business at the opening of the meeting, in order to expedite the transaction of business; also that they divide the camp into sections, and appoint laborers to hold meetings in those sections and work for the spiritual interests of the people.

2. That our ministers act as agents for the T. and M. society in the sale of all books and publications, the society furnishing the publications, and receiving the profits thereon.

3. That our State Conferences employ judicious persons to act as colporters, who shall receive a license from the State Conference committees to labor in that capacity; and all such persons will be expected to give quarterly reports of their labors to the Conference; it was further recommended that the auditing committees be empowered to consider such cases; and when, in their judgment, such labor has benefited the cause, to give a reasonable remuneration for the same.

At a succeeding session it was recommended, in view of the foregoing action, that the tract societies furnish our ministers with such tracts as they need for judicious distribution.

A resolution was also offered, recommending that the local elders and deacons in our churches should be elected annually, such election to occur in each church at a time set by each State Conference, except in churches where dissatisfaction with the incumbent has been expressed by at least a respectable minority of the church. In such cases it shall be the duty of the church clerk to notify the Conference committee of such fact; and elections in such churches shall be deferred till proper help is provided by the committee.

All the meetings were opened by singing and prayer. At each meeting the minutes of the preceding were read and approved. Subjects were more fully discussed, pro and con, than at any previous Conference, yet with the utmost cordiality of feeling, and with unanimity of action at the last in every case. It was throughout a most pleasant as well as important and profitable meeting.