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ORGANIZATION

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 19, 1861

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 18, No. 25.

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ORGANIZATION.

By Editor

For several years we have often been called to witness the painful results of the lack of organization with us. But we feared to speak out on the subject, as we were, by unhappy experience, too well acquainted with that reckless bigotry with many which led them to rise at once in opposition against any suggested plan to improve our condition. They were ignorant of the character and extent of the work before us. They knew nothing of the wants of the cause, and of their own blind and wretched condition. And while they have stood ready to object to any advance, and to oppose everything new, they have virtually said, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing." As an illustration of the bad results of a lack of proper organization and discipline, we give the following from Bro. John Bostwick:
"DEAR BRO. WHITE: I wish to ask your advice with regard to the following: The elder of this church, after being disfellowshipped by the church in this place, took it upon him to administer the ordinance of baptism and the Lord's supper to a band of brethren thirty miles distant. Can this be considered valid? Is it necessary for these brethren to be again baptized? They were ignorant, at the time, of his standing.
"JNO. BOSTWICK.
"Lynxville, Wis., Nov. 5, 1861."
The action of this brother was certainly all wrong. If he had been in good standing with the church, he should have received from the church a letter of recommendation before administering the ordinances with our friends in another place. If proper order had been established among us, and our friends everywhere had understood that we required our Evangelists and Elders to show their papers when they traveled from place to place, this unhappy circumstance would not have occurred.
Baptism is of vast importance, as it opens a new era to the believing soul, and should be admistered under circumstances which will give the ordinance all the sacredness and importance it possesses. And as the movement of the disfellowshipped Elder was all wrong, we give it as our opinion that it had better be all blotted out by the persons' referred to being baptized by a proper administrator.