General Articles by John Norton Loughborough

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 12, 1878

General Articles.

By John Norton Loughborough

CONFERENCE ADDRESS,

DELIVERED AT YOUNTVILLE CONFERENCE, SEPTEMBER 2, 1878, BY ELDER J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH, PRESIDENT OF THE CONFERENCE.

Dear Brethren and Sisters:—In the events of God’s providence we are spared to meet upon this camp ground. This is our eighth camp-meeting in Northern California, and our eleventh annual State gathering. May God bless in this convocation, and make it to us all one of the brightest periods in our lives, and as we go from this place, and meet the trials and conflicts of life, may we each be able to look back to this meeting as a place and time where we knew for ourselves that God met us, and may we realize its effects to hold us to the right, as a ship feels the force of good anchorage amid the storm and tempest.

As we repeat, one after another, the numbers of our yearly gatherings, we are reminded of the rapid flight of time. Life at the longest is but a brief space, “a vapor that appeareth but a little time and then vanisheth away.” Soon all our years will be numbered and we be found among the quick or dead, at the coming of our King and descending Lord. Then a vast eternity, unmeasured by the flight of time, will open before us. “Oh! eternity, infinite and unmeasurable,” how will it open to us? Either with immortality and bliss, or with banishment in “everlasting destruction from the presence of God and from the glory of his powers.” Our own course in the few brief hours or months that remain of our probation will decide our fate. “Oh! what shall the harvest be?”

Another year has flown. It has been filled with events of the deepest importance, especially to the student of prophecy, and to the believer in the doctrine of the near coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

One year since, a severe conflict was in progress between Russia and Turkey, which appeared to forebode the immediate destruction of the latter, and that it would suddenly spring the question of the occupancy of Turkish territory by the nations of the East. This, many supposed, would immediately bring the conflict of nations and the battle of the great day of God Almighty, as predicted in Rev. 16. But again “the winds” of war are checked that the sealing message of Rev. 7 may come up like the rising of the sun and accomplish its work, that a people may be prepared to stand in the time when earth shall be “reeling to and fro like a drunkard,” and when rocks of the mountains, reft from their bases, shall be flying in every direction, and the ungodly shall call upon them to fall and hide them from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.

What has Turkey gained in this declaration of peace by the allied nations of Europe? It would seem that this very checking up of war might be the prelude to numerous other wars, and that Turkey is to be dismembered and thus pass away gradually, (“dried up,”) Rev. 16:12, instead of being dispatched at a single stroke, as anticipated by many one year since.

During the past year we have, also, been strikingly reminded of the signs our Saviour gave of his coming, when he said: “There shall be famine, pestilence and earthquakes in divers places.” At the time of our last annual gathering upon this ground a severe famine was devastating India. Over one-and-one-half million souls perished in that famine. Now some of the most populous sections of China are being depopulated by the most terrible famine of the present century. Last accurate accounts estimate that between five and six millions have already perished in this famine during the last year. While we are here, quietly partaking of the bounties of God’s providence, those famine-stricken Chinese are selling their young men and maidens into slavery to get means to buy a little food, to lengthen for a brief space their miserable lives. Others, where there are none to buy them, are killing their children, and children killing their parents, and eating them for food. Oh! the horrid thought!

Pestilence, in the shape of yellow fever, is also making its sad ravages in the United States, cutting down high and low. Last reports state that it has already assumed the form of a plague, and is destined to make still greater ravages.

We wish, however, to note more especially in our address some of those events, which are transpiring in connection with the cause of present truth, and which are such evident tokens that this message is surely and steadily merging into that which for years we have spoken of as “the loud cry of the third angel’s message.” As we think of these events our desire is that God will inspire all our hearts with zeal to find and do our part in this great work.

Before speaking of these, it may be proper to dwell for a moment on the temporal benefits and blessings of God we have enjoyed as individuals. As I look over this audience I see many new faces, faces of persons who have in the last year embraced present truth, and meet with us for the first time in a Seventh-day Adventist camp-meeting. We welcome such to our ranks, to share our joys, and to join with us in our blessed privileges of bearing burdens in this precious cause of our Master.

I also miss some who have mingled with us here and elsewhere. Brother Grant, of San Francisco, and Sister Cooper, of the Napa church, who were with us last year, and also Sister Freeman, are sleeping in Jesus. Brother Waldeck, our book-binder at Oakland, and Sister Waldeck, who have recently joined us, have lost their only daughter. God bless them. Brother Church, of Fresno, has lost one of his daughters, Sister Maria De Long, Brethren Dimmick, Wilson, Rickett and Rasmussen have lost little ones. The mortality in our ranks has been much less for the last year than for any year during the last four years. For the blessings of health and life let us render devout thanksgiving to God, and may his afflictions also lead us nearer to him. Let us devote to him that strength which he still grants to us.

Our work upon this coast is just entering upon its eleventh year, and as some important changes in laborers are about to be made, it may not be out of place to call attention briefly to the growth of the cause upon this coast, especially in this State.

Elder Bourdeau and myself landed, with our 60-feet tent, in San Francisco July 18, 1868. After two weeks tarry there to fit up our tent, we went to Petaluma, Sonoma county, and there commenced our labors in a tent meeting, which held from August 14 to October 17. As the result of this tent meeting, about twenty took their stand upon the present truth. About one-half of these are at this camp-meeting. Nearly all are holding on. Thus our mission was fairly opened, and the work has steadily advanced from that point. For the first eleven months the work was mainly supported by the donations of our brethren east of the Rocky Mountains. Up to April 8, 1869, the time of our first annual meeting, there had been contributed towards our work in the State, by our brethren in California, $112.80, while at the same time our brethren East had contributed, in tent, fare of laborers from the East, and expenses in the State, $1,814.47, besides a donation of $80 worth of books, which were given away in the mission.

Our work in the State now consists of thirty companies of Sabbath-keepers, and numbering over one thousand souls. There has been contributed for the support of the work of the ministry in the State, to the date of this address, $23,194.95, and there is still systematic benevolence due from our churches that we can depend upon, enough to raise this sum to an even $24,000.

Our missionary work was opened in the year 1869. During that year there was raised the sum of $37 for tract distribution. Up to this date there has been raised by this people for tract and missionary work the sum of $8,321.59, and of this sum $3,484.62 was raised during the last year.

At the time of the Yountville camp-meeting, September, 1874, pledges were made for the purpose of raising a publishing fund, to carry on the work of publishing the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and works on the present truth. There has been already paid into that fund by the brethren and sisters this side the Rocky mountains $22,527.38.

There has been raised and expended, as tent and camp-meeting fund, the sum of $5,000, making a total of means raised here for the above-named purposes of $59,848.97. If we add to this what has been expended in church building and in the Sabbath-school work, we must put down another sum of $40,000, making a grand total of $100,000 that has been raised and used in the advancement of this cause in California.

Of the above mentioned sum there was contributed directly to these enterprises by our beloved brother and servant of God, Elder James White, in cash, $3,600, and by your humble servant, while laboring among you, the sum of $2,300, while at the same time I have only received from your State treasury the sum of $12 per week, and traveling expenses. I do not regret for a moment the investment I have made.

Of Brother White I would further state, that in addition to the sums already mentioned, he brought greenbacks to the State to invest in the cause here, the difference in value between the greenbacks and the gold was a loss to him of $2,000. He has more recently sold to the Publishing Association, property that they must have to prosecute the work, a location for the new Office building at $1,300 less than it cost him in cash, notwithstanding the same property had increased in value since he purchased it, thus donating $1,300 more to our California cause. He has invested as a gift to advance other enterprises in the State $250 more, making in all over $6,000 cash donated by him to the cause on this coast, while from these investments, he has not received one dollar’s pecuniary benefit. Aside from this, his appeals influenced our brethren east of the mountains to place in our Oakland Office presses, type, bindery, etc., at a cost of $13,000. It is his pleadings as an humble servant of God, in whose judgment our brethren East have the most unbounded confidence, that has led them to use the SIGNS OF THE TIMES as a missionary paper, at a cost exceeding that for which the same could be furnished east of the plains. This was done in order that the publishing work in this new field might be built up by the aid of eastern patronage.

We do not mention these things to flatter any one, but we should render “honor to whom honor is due,” and as there are many who have recently embraced the truth both here upon this ground, and elsewhere in this State, who do not know the facts in the case, they should know them, and have them for reference so that in case our enemies make rash statements through lack of an understanding, they may be able to meet the same.

During the last year the business of the SIGNS Office has so increased on our hands that it has been deemed necessary by the board of directors to double our facilities for doing the work. Another building has been erected of about the same capacity as the first one. A “lightning cylinder press, complete bindery, and a type, stereotype, and electrotype foundry have been added to the work. The bindery and stereotyping department are carried on by those, competent workmen in their line of business, who have embraced the truth during the recent tent meetings in San Francisco and Oakland.

We have moved forward with firm confidence that when our brethren and sisters on the Pacific slope should rally to a sense of the times which we are in, and attain that spirit of consecration that the times demand, and learn the true situation of affairs, and their duty, they would rally to the rescue and willingly consecrate of their substance to lift off from our publishing house every debt, and leave it to use its earnings in publishing the truth, instead of our directors being under the painful necessity of continually paying out such means as interest.

As we think of these things, and the situation of our people, we are reminded of the appeal made by Haggai when the Lord was moving him out to

build the temple. “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say the time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, oh ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough, ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm, and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. . . . Ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heavens over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.” Haggai 1:4-6, 9-10.

God grant that you may not longer withhold your offerings from God’s cause, and be continually complaining of failures and loses, but the rather bring all the tithes and offerings, and as predicted by the Lord to Malachi, see the Lord open for you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it, and also share the temporal blessings of his promise. “I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.” Mal. 3:11. In the epistle of James which seems to be an Advent epistle, addressed to those especially who live in a time when “ the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” Chapter 5:8. And when “the Judge standeth before the door,” verse 9 we read the sad fate of those who cling to their earthly store and neglect to use their means in God’s cause. “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you, your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.” James 5:1-3.

Of such, when they awake at last to a sense of what they have been doing, the prophet Ezekiel says, “They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed. Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels, because it is the stumbling-block of their iniquity.” Eze. 7:19. The Lord deliver us from being thus found.

If we take the course in these times, that God requires, we may not only be like men that wait for their Lord when he shall return from the wedding, but we shall have the satisfaction of being “laborers together with God.” If we are ready to distribute, and are willing to communicate of our substance to advance the cause of God, we may “lay up in store for ourselves a good foundation against the time to come that we may lay hold on eternal life.” The Lord help us to act earnestly and speedily, and in the fear of God.

We have all talked of the time when the Pacific Press, and publishing house should be free from debt, and the SIGNS OF THE TIMES become self-sustaining, and I presume many like myself had expected that this was to be accomplished simply and solely by the increase of the subscription list of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. It was to assist our young association, that the General Conference and General Missionary society decided to use the SIGNS OF THE TIMES as a missionary paper in the East, paying us $1.50 per year, for the same, and putting up with the week’s delay in getting it from this coast, when they could actually get the same in the State from the Battle Creek Office at $1 per year, and have them fresh and new every week.

How long do you suppose our brethren East will put up with this situation of things, unless they see on our part a rally to lift with our might in response to what they are doing. As I view the providence of God in connection with our Office, and the facilities now connected with it, it seems to me the Lord is putting within our reach the means of making our Office, with careful management, self-sustaining in a much shorter space than we had anticipated.

Why not rally at once to the rescue, and pay for these improvements, and as soon as possible leave our brethren in the States who have done so nobly for our cause here, to invest their means in establishing (as they had once intimated) a pioneer sheet on their own side of the plains.

For many months I have meditated on what we could and should do in this matter. During my first visit to the North Pacific Conference, after setting these matters before our brethren there, they pledged several hundred dollars to this enterprise. Some of this has been paid. May the Lord help them to move out trusting in God, and pay those pledges. Some of our brethren in Nevada are taking hold to lift in this matter. A brother who has recently embraced the truth by reading, and who acted as my tent master at Reno, has pledged $500 to the Oakland publishing fund. May others there move out as they are able to lift in this enterprise.

When it was proposed by the General Conference that I should leave this coast, one of the most prominent objections I raised against it was my desire to see something done to relieve the Pacific Press. The General Conference committee have made an appeal to you, published about a month since in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. In harmony with their suggestions, we have prepared subscription papers for stock. These papers provide for payments to be made January 1, 1879 and April 1, 1879.

My own mind is that $30,000 should be raised upon this coast, and that if it was raised, we should be making an investment that would bring God’s blessing upon us as never before. The consecration leading to such an investment would tend greatly to advance us in spirituality, bring us nearer to God, and place our publishing house, where the proceeds of our business, would be free from the steady canker of interest. Then with the natural increase of the circulation of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, the Pacific publishing work would be a success. Shall we do it? God help us is my prayer. But, you ask, How can this means be raised? There are persons in this State who have embraced the truth since we first took stock in the Association to the amount of $20,000, who are more able to do for the cause than we then were, and who, if they took hold with the same zeal that we did could easily raise $20,000 more. There are those who took stock then, who are just as able and willing to take as much more now. These pledges, with payments on pledges already made, that could be paid by energy and carefulness, would make another $10,000.

I would like to see this headed with a pledge from some one of $5,000. There are those who have $1,000 invested in stock, who would experience a blessing by putting in $1,000 more. Then there are others who can put in smaller sums, as $500, $100, $50 and tens. Some may say that they have not the ready means, and yet have property on which they can readily borrow the means, even if they pay interest upon it for a time. This would be becoming our faith and exigencies of the time, more so than to run to our houses, leaving the publishing work, that great lever of truth to go on crippled because we seek our own and not the things that are Jesus Christ’s.

I should be grieved indeed to find upon this ground, in this solemn time, any who have long professed the truth of God, trying to discourage others in this matter, may the Lord enlighten us all, and we move out to duty.

There is another object on which I look with interest. It is the fact that a few of our brethren have organized the Pacific Rural Health Retreat, and have constructed buildings in which they are successfully treating the sick with nature’s own remedies, although this establishment has been open only about two months, it is and has been for most of the time filled almost to its capacity with patients. More room is needed to meet the present wants of the institution, but this will probably for the present have to be furnished by a few individuals until such time as it shall be duty for our brethren and sisters in the State to take stock to the relief of those who have started the enterprise. Our first aim must be to help the Office and maintain the ministry and tract and missionary work, but undoubtedly the Rural Health Retreat, as its patronage increases, will demand an investment of your means. The General Conference will undoubtedly advise with you in due time upon these matters.

Do all in your power to assist the institution by distributing the circulars and calling attention to it, and as you can otherwise without interfering with your duty in other directions.

In conclusion, I would say, I am glad to meet so many of my old friends in California upon this ground. I am glad to learn that there is with you all a feeling of resignation to what seems to be the will of God in relation to a change of laborers in this Conference. Many tell us that they came to this Conference with about the feelings they would have in going to a funeral, yet they believe that the decision of the General Conference committee is right, and although they do not see just how matters are to come out, they will trust in God.

Trust in God, brethren and sisters. Move in harmony with the General Conference and their decisions and efforts to help you. Receive such as they may send you, and “assist them in whatever business they may have need of you,” that thus they must be succorers of yourselves and of many precious souls.

My labors with you are drawing rapidly to a close. I can bear witness that while I have been upon this coast I have wanted to do right. I have made mistakes, as the result of these mistakes your feelings may have been injured, and perhaps in some things the cause would have been in a better condition to-day had I obtained more wisdom from God to guide my way. I should have made more mistakes than I have had it not been for the counsel and instruction I received from the first by the gift of prophecy, as manifested through Sister White. Forgive my mistakes, as I believe God has forgiven them. Ever remember that success in life does not consist in never making mistakes, but avoiding the same mistakes a second time. I desire to learn by the past, to seize ever the favorable present to do good, and wherever my lot may be cast, to be a faithful soldier of the cross of Christ, and when, in the near future, the Lifegiver shall come, may it be true of you, of me, of us all, that we have so conducted ourselves that to us it may be said, “Well done,”

Brethren, as I shall leave you soon I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to keep us unto life eternal through faith and our obedience to all God’s commandments and the faith of his Son. May we ever seek the guidance of his spirit and have our work wrought in him. Be watchful, be before God much in secret, be ever faithful to duty, maintain a consecration of all your faculties of mind and body to him and all will be well. So may it be.