p. 242 | Reporting Converts by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1879

Reporting Converts.

By Editor

A WRITER in the Biblical Recorder, on the custom of numbering converts in modern revivals, says:—

"The rule with some people is to profess religion every protracted meeting, even if those meetings are held twice or three times a year. A brother who is now in the midst of one of those wonderful meetings in his church reported to us one hundred and fifty converts up to that day. We asked him how many of them were already on his church book as regular members. He replied: 'Well, it is as is usual in such meetings. We are doing a work for all the churches.' We once aided a good brother in one of these meetings that lasted two weeks. Seventy-five or eighty people shouted gloriously and hardly a sinner was left in the neighborhood. We were both strangers and thought the Lord had done a great work in converting sinners in this meeting. But when we went around to see who of the converts were going to join the church, we were surprised to learn that nine-tenths of them were already on the books and had doubtless been numbered many times before. But when the preacher's success is measured by the number of the additions and when a minister's standing in his conference depends upon the number of conversions reported, how can it be otherwise? The brethren must number and must get up revivals or sensations."