MY VACATION by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 12, 1880

MY VACATION.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

It is well known to the readers of the SIGNS that I came to California to act as editor of this paper, and not as a minister. But my interest in the churches of Oakland and San Francisco caused me to keep up appointments in these cities during the entire period of my labors here. It is also known to my friends that this climate is not suited to my constitution, and that keeping up these appointments in addition to my other arduous duties was at the risk of my health, which has been greatly injured by this overtaxing of my strength.

When it was decided of late that my duty lay outside of the office, and in the preaching field, I felt assured that in my feeble condition, having been broken down last winter and not having taken time to establish my health, I could not endure the labor. But I have been accustomed to waive my convictions in deference to the judgment of others, and made an effort to comply with the decision. And that is why I am taking my vacation. Having had a season for reflection on the subject of vacations, I will give my idea to the readers.

First, A vacation is not pleasant. I can speak only from my own experience. Perhaps if I had the experience of those ministers who spend their vacations at the springs, or in the mountains, or in a trip to Europe, I might think differently. But mine is taken in one position of body, with the monotonous scenery of “four square walls.”

Secondly, I have never been favorably impressed with vacations. I think they are often taken when they should not be. However, had I taken one sooner mine need not be so irksome as it now is. But I believe that periodical vacations are more often a conformity to custom than an answer to the call of necessity. On this point I find the following in the Independent: “It is not good generalship to flee in the face of the enemy. It is not creditable to Protestantism that, as a morning paper of this city states, 56 churches are closed or will be closed before the first of August. Ministers, of course, need rest, as other men do; but they need not all take it together. The Jewish and Catholic pastors do not. Their churches are never closed.”

Thirdly, I think even the necessity might be obviated in many cases, by a change in the habits of the ministers. If they would saw their own wood, or take other useful or healthful exercise, and live on plain, digestible food, their labors which are seldom severe, would not break them down. Ministers ought to be reformers in everything, and especially in Christian temperance. They ought to set themselves against the pernicious habit of their kind-hearted house-keeping friends of “getting something good for the minister,” which means to tempt his appetite with indigestible, dyspepsia-breeding compounds. They ought to lift up their voices like trumpets against church festivals and suppers, and every health-destroying practice of late eating under the silly and wicked pretense of raising money for the support of the gospel.

Fourthly, It is in my mind to suggest an entire change of practice in the matter of vacations. There are other classes who ought to vacate a while, and let the ministers keep to their work. I wish to move that bar-tenders and saloon-keepers now take vacations. My reasons are everyway good, as follows:—

1. They are the most badly over-worked people in the community. Seven days in the week, both day and night, they are compelled to serve their customers, in a never ceasing round. Ministers fail in merely threatening perdition to the impenitent, but these deal

out damnation itself in a liquid form. Who does not pity them?

2. They can be better spared than the ministers. Even Ingersoll himself, who seems to have an instinctive hatred of ministers, would have to confess that these are a lesser evil in community than saloon-keepers! People do not need liquid fire in their throats in July and August. But there are many sick and dying ones in these months to whom a visit from a minister would be a boon. Let us change the order, by all means.

3. I call upon the Working Mens’ Clubs and Committees to attend to the wants of this much-abused class of our citizens. Bakers and barbers are protected from over-working. There is a remedy at law for almost anybody else. Who ever heard Kearney plead that liquor-dealers should sell whiskey and brandy only eight hours a day. But perhaps they work so continuously from choice. Their master has a great deal to be done, and they are zealous to do his will. But why should they be so much more zealous than the ministers? Is their work more urgent? Does their master offer better pay? I would like to hear on this subject from a committee of ministers who are taking their vacation. “It is too painful for me.” I must rest, and so may my amanuensis. J. H. WAGGONER.