BUSINESS PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE AT AVON, WIS by John Norton Loughborough

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 24, 1861

BUSINESS PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONFERENCE AT AVON, WIS.

By John Norton Loughborough

This meeting was held at Avon Sunday afternoon, Sept. 15, at which the following resolutions were passed:

1. To run the Wis. and Ills. tent another season, probably in southern Ills.

2. To raise $400 by pledges of individuals to run the tent.

3. To apportion it to each church in proportion to their ability (judging according to their pledges last year), if they are free thus to do. The apportionment to be as follows:

Mackford, Mauston, Marquette and vicinity, Wis., — $110,00 Crane's Grove, Ills., — 70,00 Green Vale, Ills., — 25,00 Round Grove, Ills., — 60,00 Little Prairie, Wis., — 30,00 Lodi, & Hundred Mile Grove, Wis., — 50,00 Rubicon, Wis., — 12,00 Avon, Wis., — 13,00 Princeville, Ills., — 30,00 $400,00

4. Brn. Sanborn and Ingraham to see to raising the subscriptions as they travel from place to place.

5. One-half of the subscription of each church to be paid by the first of May, and one-half the first of September.

6. Brn. Sanborn and Ingraham to correspond for foreign aid, should a messenger be needed to join them in the tent enterprise.

7. The following preamble and resolutions were adopted on the subject of organization, after the reading of the conference address on that subject in Review, Vol. xviii, No. 3:

Whereas, We have by sad experience learned the result of no order in the church, especially in what we have seen of its practical workings in Wisconsin for a few years past, and,

Whereas, We deem it highly important for the Seventh-day Adventists in this perilous time to avail themselves of every lawful means whereby the church may be prospered, and the interests of the cause of present truth advanced, and,

Whereas, We consider the plan of order proposed in Review, Vol. xviii, No. 3, for the organization of the churches, and the organization of churches and ministers into conferences will tend to guard us against evils under which we have suffered in the past, and place us as a people where we can better advance the interests of present truth, and labor without distraction. Therefore we, the conference assembled in Avon, Wis., Sept. 15, 1861,

Resolve, That we endorse the sentiments of the said article published in Review, Vol. xviii, No. 13.

Resolved, That we deem it highly important for us to enter into such organization, and we are willing and anxious so to do.

Resolved, That we recommend to our brethren, especially in the East, to consider carefully this matter, remembering that our great trials in Wisconsin have grown out of the no-order delusion, and as they consider it, to lend us aid in this matter by entering heartily with us into more permanent organization.

8. A resolution was then passed by the Avon church to grant letters of recommendation to Bro. and sister Jones, who were leaving that church for northern Wisconsin; after which, the meeting adjourned sine die.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH, Chairman, WM. S. INGRAHAM, Secretary.