The Conference by Uriah Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 26, 1863

The Conference.

By Uriah Smith

THE business proceedings of the Conference just held in Battle Creek, are given in other columns of this paper. But perhaps a few words concerning the meeting from a different point of view from that occupied in the record of its business proceedings may be of interest to the readers of the Review. Taking a general view of this meeting as a religious gathering, we hardly know what feature of the joyful occasion to notice first. We can say to the readers of the Review, Think of everything good that has been written of every previous meeting, and apply it to this. All this would be true, and more than this. Perhaps no previous meeting that we have ever enjoyed, was characterized by such unity of feeling and harmony of sentiment. In all the important steps taken at this Conference, in the organization of a General Conference, and the further perfecting of State Conferences, defining the authority of each, and the important duties belonging to their various officers, there was not a dissenting voice, and we may reasonably doubt if there was even a dissenting thought. Such union, on such points, affords the strongest grounds of hope for the immediate advancement of the cause, and its future glorious prosperity and triumph.

The majority of those present from any considerable distance were the delegates from the different churches in this State, and from abroad, and were consequently those whose hearts were all aglow with love for the glorious present truth. Their happy and hopeful countenances, and cordial greetings, as they arrived from their various, and in many instances far distant, localities, are among the pleasant scenes which it is not for the pen to attempt to portray. The pilgrim heart enjoys them intensely here, and through them faith points forward to the greater, more glorious, and eternal meeting in the kingdom of God, of which these are but a faint emblem.

On Friday the Michigan tent was erected on the green a few rods from the Office, as it was evident that the numbers who would be present on Sabbath and first-day could not even find standing-room in our house of worship. Six discourses were delivered, and two social meetings were held in the tent. A tent nearly full of Sabbath-keepers on the Sabbath, intently absorbed in listening to the proclamation of the great truths of our present position, was a cheering sight. Evenings, and on first-day, a good attendance of friends from the immediate neighborhood furnished as large a congregation as could be comfortably entertained in the tent. There were in all eight stirring and instructive discourses delivered, one each by Brn. White, Sanborn, Snook, and Loughborough, and two each by Brn. Andrews and Hull. At the close of the forenoon discourses on first-day, we had an interesting season of baptism, in which eight signified their faith in the burial and resurrection of their Lord.

The influence of this meeting cannot fail to be good. We are certain that those who were present, as they look back upon the occasion, will not be able to discover an unpleasant feature. And as they separated to go to their homes, courage and good cheer seemed to be the unanimous feelings. U. S.