p. 229 | Dakota Camp-Meeting

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 31, 1879

Dakota Camp-Meeting.

THE following is an extract of a letter from Sister M. K. White:—

The first S. D. Adventist camp-meeting held in Dakota is just past. There were many things interesting about this meeting. Although the appointment was very brief, about two hundred brethren and sisters were on the ground, more than half of these being Scandinavians. The work commenced here by a friend of the cause sending some Scandinavian tracts to a certain postoffice in the Territory, and the postmistress handed them to a Danish neighbor. He read them carefully, sent to the office of publication for more, and began to scatter them among his neighbors. They also read, and again loaned to their neighbors; and as the result of the work thus commenced the camp-meeting was held. A Conference, consisting of four churches and five unorganized companies, having one ordained minister and several licentiates, was formed. Sabbath-school and Temperance Association were also organized, and the work started on a good basis.

The meeting was pleasantly located on a ten-acre island in the Sioux River, about a quarter of a mile from Sioux Falls, a town of sixteen hundred inhabitants.

The Sabbath-school held Sabbath morning was excellent considering all the circumstances. This is a new field, but very little labor having been bestowed upon it until last year, when Eld. Whitney was sent here by the General Conference; but the interest manifested shows that with proper training and experience they will succeed in the work. A good move was made on temperance. Although quite a number brought tea, coffee, tobacco, and pork upon the ground, a good stand was taken by the people against their use, and one hundred and ten signed the teetotal pledge.

Eld. Hanson, who has labored in this Territory among the Scandinavians more or less for the last five years was present, and spoke several times in the Danish language. This, together with the plain, practical teaching of father and mother, and the pointed doctrinal discourses of Eld. Whitney, made the meeting one of interest and profit.

Monday afternoon twelve were baptized. Toward night eight covered wagons drawn by oxen left the camp for their homes fifty miles away. The weather was so excessively hot that they dared not drive their teams in the day. Thursday morning the camp broke up in order, and the fifteen tents and about as many covered wagons soon disappeared. Many expressed the desire that a camp-meeting might be held in the place every year.