NOTES ON THE CONFERENCE.
By Editor
A S stated in our last report, this is truly a missionary conference. The very first notes struck have been dominant all through the meetings thus far. The writer has listened to many mission reports, but he has heard none more thrilling than that presented by the Foreign Mission secretary, published in the Review and Herald of May 18, entitled "A Review of the Mission Fields." We would be glad to publish it in whole, but this is impossible. We can only refer our readers to that number. The good, strong missionary appeal made in the president's address was simply carried further out into the regions beyond. It touched the thought so strongly impressed upon all who have attended past conferences, that this one stands out above all others as a missionary conference, pre-eminently. The following excerpts from the report is indicative of growth:5 How hearts would have been stirred, even twenty years ago, at the suggestion of a conference made up with such delegations from the uttermost parts of the earth. Truly there is danger that many will fail to read the significance of the things now becoming common among us in the evidences of the rapid spread of this movement from land to land. Twenty years ago is not a long time, even to some of the younger of us. The cause of this message was a great work in those days. But, brethren, our fellow-believers rejoicing in this truth to-day in fields outside of North America are a larger body than our entire membership was twenty years ago. So mightily has grown the Word of God and prevailed in a score of years. Ten years ago the first mission was opened in heathen lands. Matabeleland is now sending trained helpers into other fields. These ten years have been years of constant growth everywhere, and our missions girdle the earth. There are wide gaps to be filled in, and the fields long to see the breaches made up. Asia has but nine ordained ministers for its 800,000,000 of souls—which is as tho there were one minister in all the United States. On the west coast of South America two ministers hold a line that stretches as far as from Maine to California. Our battle plan must be like Gideon's—not a large body together, but a slender line thrown out until it surrounds the entire field of conflict. Then shall quickly come the showing of the light, and the shout of victory. We must work to the plan that will win. One military authority recently said that Japan had won her victories not because she had the most men in the field, but because she had the most men in the right place. That is it. God must guide our forces to the right place for winning the speedy triumph. Just one thing will do it. When this Gospel of the kingdom is preached as a witness unto all nations, the end will come. THE work of the General Conference is now thoroughly divided into departments, as follows: Publishing Department, Educational Department, Sabbath-school Department, Religious Liberty Department, and Medical Department. The heads of these departments are elected by the body. The other members constituting the general committee in charge of each department, are chosen by the General Conference committee. THE reports of these departments are all very encouraging; the Publishing Department shows constant increase, and the plans now being laid will develop much more in the year to come. The Religious Liberty Department has been very active in Washington, especially in meeting the various issues which have risen in connection with Sunday laws and religious teaching in the public schools. Both of these have been before the District of Columbia, and both, by enlightening the people and their representatives, have been defeated, the glory of which belongs to God and the simple teaching of His truth concerning religious liberty and the rights of the individual. THE reports from the foreign missionaries have been of great interest, and have given greater and better knowledge of these fields than anything else could. China, Japan, Egypt, South Africa, South America, Polynesia, and other parts of the great field are all represented here. Some of the dark lands scarcely entered, have had no representatives here, but reports show that more than 150 have embraced the truth in these lands during the last year. THE home field reports, through the District presidents, also show encouraging growth and many omens of good, but there is a need of greater consecration, more devotion, broader and simpler plans for the work, and this, we are sure, will be met in the year to come. New plans are under consideration which will greatly enlarge the scope of missionary work in the home fields and in the fields beyond. One of the good omens is in seeing conferences in the home field dividing equally both laborers and money with foreign fields, and this spirit of sacrifice will be more than met by our lay brethren everywhere, we are sure. Of the help thus received, the secretary's report says: Many of the additions to the force must have been deferred had not special help come from conferences that have released workers and continued their salaries. The growth of this sentiment and plan is a token of the oneness and solidarity of the world-wide work that has gladdened hearts in all the fields. It is a new reserve force wheeling into line with the advance of missions. It has brought relief to many a hard-pressed point. Like beleaguered garrisons at last relieved, workers in some of the fields have wept tears of joy as they saw the fresh faces of the new recruits coming to their help. And still the Macedonian cry comes from over every sea. As in the siege of Lucknow the Scottish maid listened with her ear upon the ground, and caught the far-off notes of the Highland bagpipes, and the tramp of Havelock's men coming to the rescue, so, and we may know it, our comrades in far-off lands are listening now to hear if from this missionary conference shall come the sound of marching reinforcements. Even as they fall in death, their thoughts are with us. What a word is that which comes to this conference from inland China! Dr. Maude Thompson Miller has fallen in death, meeting the crisis as the true and loyal soldier of the cross that she ever was in life. She fell with her face toward the front, and with words of cheer upon her lips. With all that pressed upon her at the last moments—thoughts for her loved ones, thoughts of God, and of the eternal world—it was yet in her heart to pause on the threshold of eternity and think how the news of her death just at the time of this conference might weaken or discourage the sending of needed help. And she sent her salutation to this missionary conference in the message to the Mission Board: "I gladly give my life for the work in China. While it would have been a pleasure for me to have worked till the work was finished, yet if my work is ended for this people whom I love, I hope others will take up the burden." There was no faltering or weakness there. Such appeals from the falling workers shall but send the line of advance forward more swiftly than ever. Britain claims the admiralty of the waters by virtue of her dead that sleep beneath every sea. The graves of our missionary dead now mark our way into every continent, from that of first foreign missionary, J. N. Andrews, in the heart of Europe, to the last mound of consecrated earth in far Honan. The issue is joined. The whole world is marked for this message. It is ours to take possession of all fields in the name of the Lord. The Opening of the World.
And how grandly the way has been prepared! The great prophetic period of 1,260 years ended in 1798, and ushered in "the time of the end." Round that date cluster the events which Professor Warneck, of Halle, recently summed up as marking "the beginning of the missionary age." Another great prophetic period ended in 1844, and brought the rise of this advent movement. Round the same time cluster the events that have definitely prepared before us the ways through the foreign lands in which we are walking to-day. A divine Providence on earth has moved the train of world-events to fit the great time-table of divine prophecy. The year 1845, in which Joseph Bates found the Sabbath truth, was the year in which Livingstone, pressed by a force he could not understand, turned his face definitely northward to open the secret of the Dark Continent. It has been one swift succession of opening doors. The revolutions of 1848 changed the face of Europe, and began a new era of constitutional government that has made for liberty and progress. In the five years between 1853 and 1858, as this message was gathering strength, seven vast, closed countries, representing half the population of the world, opened wide to missionary effort. As late as 1888, one year after our work reached Cape Town, South Africa, Professor Henry Drummond said in his "Tropical Africa:" "The Africa of Livingstone and Stanley is still fitly symbolized by the vacant look upon our maps." Now the steam locomotive waits to carry our missionaries into several points within that very African interior. In 1888 no one could pass the customs line of Ecuador with a Bible. To-day Brother T. H. Davis is selling all our literature in that land, and people ask why we did not come before. As late as 1888, edicts forbade the public teaching of Christianity in Korea. Now think of what God is doing for us there. The whole world is laid at the feet of this message. Some of the greatest fields yet to be warned are heathen, it is true. But we have a message that the heathen can understand. Do not fail to catch the significance of the fact which Dr. Selmon reported in the Review a few weeks ago. The heathen of Honan have begun to call our mission in inland China the mission of "the true doctrine." Thank God for the simplicity of this truth. Simple souls can understand it. There is a compelling conviction that goes with the truth of the Sabbath and of the coming of the Lord, where minds are open and unprejudiced. The true-hearted among all the nations are waiting for this Third Angel's Message. And the same message that has made us a people is the message that will finish the work. It will not take long for the news to go when once the witnesses are placed throughout the earth. In all the darkest and most populous lands, news passes swiftly from lip to lip. Rumor sweeps over dark Asia as on the wing of the wind. In Africa, informations travels through the wilds from village to village and tribe to tribe. When caravan meets caravan, every man asks his neighbor, "What have you heard?" "What do you know?" This message will be talked about in all the earth one day, and God's Spirit will convict honest hearts, so that as they see the signs of the great day breaking upon the earth, they will look up to God. "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." We can answer the world's Macedonian cry by the grace of God. We can carry this message to every nation within this generation. It seemed pleasing to the conference, in view of the false statements which are constantly made as to our attitude toward civil government, that a deputation should wait upon the chief magistrate of our country, and lay before him, in a brief address, just what the position of the denomination is in this respect. We quote the following from the Washington Post of May 23: ADVENTISTS AT WHITE HOUSE.
Conference Committee Offers Greeting to the President.
Views on Civil Government Embodied in Memorial Presented at the White House.
Forty delegates, constituting an official committee of the Seventh-day Adventist Conference, in session at Takoma Park, yesterday visited the White House and presented the President an address, extending him the greetings and best wishes of the denomination, together with their views respecting civil government.
The memorial, presented by A. G. Daniells, of Washington, who headed the delegation, read as follows: To His Excellency President Roosevelt: The World's Conference of Seventh-day Adventists is now in session at Takoma Park, in this city. From this body we have the honor of being a deputation chosen to extend to you the greetings of our people.6
While our Saviour is the King of kings and Lord of lords, still, as Christians, we recognize that civil government is of divine ordinance, and while, in accordance with His command, we render to God the things that are God's, we also, according to the same command, cheerfully "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." As Protestants, we believe in the American idea of civil government. The principles upon which this national government was founded are our principles. We, therefore, honor the names of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, and others of your predecessors who stood for the great principles of civil and religious liberty; and approve your own position on the side of the rights of the people.
We wish you long life, and success in all that makes for the glory of God and for the peace and prosperity of this nation and of the world. The following-named persons constituted the deputation:
A. G. Daniells, president, Washington, D. C.; W. W. Prescott, vice-president, Washington, D. C.; W. A. Spicer, secretary, Washington, D. C.; I. H. Evans, treasurer, Washington, D. C.; S. N. Haskell, general missionary; G. A. Irwin, Australia; O. A. Olsen, England; G. I. Butler, Tennessee; A. T. Jones, Michigan; L. R. Conradi, Germany; H. W. Cottrell, Massachusetts; J. N. Loughborough, California; R. M. Kilgore, Georgia; A. J. Breed, Washington; R. A. Underwood, Canada; W. S. Hyatt, South Africa; J. O. Corliss, California; E. T. Russell, Nebraska; Luther Warren, Chicago; J. E. Jayne, New Jersey; W. H. Thurston, Canada; N. P. Nelson, Texas; E. E. Andross, England; W. J. Stone, Indiana; W. C. White, California; W. A. Wentworth, Scotland; M. C. Wilcox, California; E. W. Farnsworth, England; C. H. Edwards, New York; J. N. Anderson, China; J. L. Shaw, India; F. W. Field, Japan; J. W. Westphal, South America; W. H. Wakeman, Egypt; A. J. Haysmer, West Indies; K. C. Russell, Washington, D. C.; W. A. Colcord, Washington, D. C.; J. S. Washburn, Washington, D. C.; G. B. Thompson, Washington, D. C.; and S. B. Horton, New Orleans, La.
The address was very neatly written upon parchment paper, and all tastefully tied together with red, white, and blue silk ribbon. The President received the deputation very cordially, expressing his appreciation of the call and of the courteous language in which the address was couched.
They were very graciously received by the President, who read the address, and told the committee that he was very thankful indeed to receive it, and for the expressions of principles and loyalty which it contained. Many others took occasion on that day to visit the White House and greet the President. ANOTHER thing which will rejoice our people is this: For years, owing to the unfounded prejudice of religious denominations in Turkey, they have refused to class our people with Protestants. The Greek Church, Roman Catholic, and Protestant sects have standing in Turkey, because they have been so defined by governments, and Turkey has recognized this definition. A committee of the conference have laid before the State Department in Washington a declaration as to what our standing is, and the principles we hold, and the State Department has certified to the Turkish minister that we are a Protestant people, and are entitled to the same rights as other Protestants in Turkey. It is not asking the government for any advantages, but simply for a recognition of equal rights, a mere defining of the position which we occupy in the religious world. This will, we hope, result in the releasing of Brother Baharian in Turkey, where he is suffering, not from any crime which he has committed, but on account of the religion not having any standing in the empire. This action of our State Department, we hope, will give him the privilege of proclaiming the message of salvation to those who are in darkness. THE election of officers of the General Conference has taken place, and most of the committee have been elected. The following have been elected at the present writing:
President, A. G. Daniells; Vice-presidents, L. R. Conradi and G. A. Irwin; Secretary, W. A. Spicer; Treasurer, I. H. Evans.
Executive Committee: A. G. Daniells, L. R. Conradi, G. A. Irwin, the presidents of union conferences and union mission fields at present acting, as follows: H. W. Cottrell, G. I. Butler, Allen Moon, R. A. Underwood, E. T. Russell, N. P. Nelson, W. B. White, W. H. Thurston, O. A. Olsen, P. A. Hansen, W. S. Hyatt, J. W. Westphal, W. H. Wakeham, and the president of the Australasian Union Conference; additional members elected by this conference—W. A. Spicer, I. H. Evans, W. W. Prescott, W. C. White, W. C. Sisley, S. N. Haskell, Geo. B. Thompson, W. A. George, M. D., F. Griggs, K. C. Russell.
We hope to give complete report in our next.