CENTRAL ASSOCIATION by James Summerbell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 27, 1862

CENTRAL ASSOCIATION.

By James Summerbell

The anniversary season will soon be with us. May is flying and June makes haste. Are you going to attend the Association this spring? Now is the time to decide and get ready; and when the time comes, go. It meets in Adams, Jefferson Co., N. Y., and already the question is passing around: Are you going to attend? Of course, the brethren and sisters in Adams want to see you there, and the brethren and sisters from the "churches scattered abroad," who expect to be there, all want to see you; and you will want to see them. Now the question is, Are you going?

But there are other considerations. Associations meet but once a year, and the year will soon be gone. The world is before us. It is Christ's vineyard. He has said, "Go ye in and work; whatsoever is right I will give you." We have heard the command, and we believe the premise. It is a great work; but many hands make great tasks easy, and love makes all burdens light. It is not my work nor your work, but ours. "We are workers together with him." This is the basis and authority of association. We work; we work together; we work together with Him. Here are the first, second, and third degrees. Let us take them all, and the work shall "go forward," for God and men are in it. I hope you are going.

"The falling away" has come. Alas, that it should be so. What glorious gatherings we need to have! "O, for the days of old!" Those were good times, when the brethren at one meeting of the Association began to get ready for the next. When the whole year was a year of casting ahead, and making ready. When every morning prayer was rising incense to God, bearing fervent desire for his blessing on the work of the last Association, and guidance on the next. Then no business was so important as God's business. No work so important as that. Then, too, were the meetings a perfect jubilee of concord and delight. God was pleased to see the faithfulness and harmony of his "dear children." The worker came down, and the work of their hands prospered; and they rejoiced in it, and in the sight of their eyes, for it was the Lord's doings.

But "the falling away" has come. We have fallen a prey to the world, and must work for it. Now we take turns in going to the Association. Many say, "I went last year, let somebody else go this." Excuses, like opposing foes, rise up out of the ground. Men meet the Association after much contriving for avoidance. They propose to send, as the reluctant boy went to school; one step forward, and two backward. They send their ministers, and forget to pay their expenses; they get substitutes, proxies, and all sorts of things, but the spirit of generous and Christ-like liberality—this dries up. Meeting thus, they meet not God as in former times; they meet not to rejoice, for they have nothing to rejoice over. The valley is there, but it is not the beautiful, blooming vale of Eden; it is only a valley of death, and its fragrance is of dead men's bones. Now these bones may live, and our valley may be changed to blooming hope. Let us fill it with live men, having living purposes. Let us bring into it a living Christ, and living fountains of prayer. Let us not fear to open the channels of our benevolence, and he who is the "Way, and the Truth, and the Life," will meet with us, and breathe upon us.

The Association has work to do; work much neglected. It is God's work, and when his work is revived, then are his people glad. But God works by means, by his people, and through them. When the Association meets, will you meet with it? Let us work and sacrifice as in days of old, and God will bless us as of old he blessed. If you want soul-stirring speeches when you come, come with the resolves ready formed to do, and eloquence will flow as do the unceasing waters, and drop as the dews. Let the mouth speak "out of the fullness of the heart." Let it speak out of the fullness of the purse also; then shall the speaker's tones be as those of a silver trumpet for sweetness.

All that is needed to give interest to our Association's gatherings, is the spirit of Christ there. "He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty, might become rich." Let us feel toward the unconverted world, as Christ felt toward us, and we will make haste to give them treasures of life, and be glad that it costs us something. Now, if you would have good speakers at the Association, send them along, and come yourselves. Let them know that your pockets shall back them up, and your hearty good wishes shall support them. Let them know that they are not sent away to represent a selfish, worldly, shirking constituency, and they will speak with a confidence which lends wings to thought. Brethren, will you come? JAMES SUMMERBELL.