DEAR BRETHREN: Having closed the labors of the winter, I feel constrained to say a few words in parting. I have seen but few of you during the past season, as my duty lay in another direction; but I am as much interested in your welfare as though I had visited you in your assemblies or at your firesides. I feel cheered and encouraged by what I have both seen and heard for past months in this State. Though the roads in this part of the State have been exceedingly bad most of the time since I came here, labor has been attended with better success than a year ago. Souls are rejoicing in the truth with the fervor of the "established love" of the saints of Christ. Forgetful of unfavorable circumstances, I rejoice with them, and determine to press on in the good work.
During the past summer a series of quarterly meetings was held by the State Committee, and to these you are indebted in a great degree for the present cheering aspect of the cause in the churches. But in this the members of the Committee bore a very heavy burden, spending their time, neglecting their farm work, and paying their own expenses. Brethren and sisters, you who are at home about your work, and who (very unfortunately) sometimes need to be urged to attend these meetings, little realize the sacrifice made last season by your Committee. But He who says, "I know thy works," has blest them, and they too are enabled to rejoice. But this labor and sacrifice was too great to be longer borne; one of the Committee wrote to me, and I quote from his letter without asking his consent: "With my limited means I can not see it duty to do as I have done the last year. Do not think I am discouraged. I am willing to do all that I can; but I have a family, and to do as I have done is to use up my capital, while others much more able, scarcely diminish their interest. I want some assurance of duty under the circumstances."
Brethren, permit me to make a few suggestions in behalf of your Committee and the cause. The Lord has blest. Since the visit of Bro. and sister White over a year ago, a brighter prospect has opened before us. Shall it be dimmed by neglect? or shall it grow brighter and brighter by our earnest prayers and labors to secure a greater blessing? It seems to me that the present is the turning-point for the cause in your State. While we consent to the readiness of the Lord to bless, he requires us to prove him, and to know that he will pour out a bountiful blessing. Would you not rejoice to have such a blessing, that there should not be room to contain it?—that every heart should overflow? Read Malachi iii. "Be not faithless, but believing." And this I am persuaded you will be forward to do. With this confidence it may not be amiss for me to remind you of a few of the wants of the cause.
1. You want two laborers with the Ohio tent the coming year.
2. You want to send your delegates to the General Conference with such pledges and assurances of support that they can freely urge your necessity for laborers.
3. You want to select delegates to the spring State Conference whose hearts are in the work—who are competent to judge of its wants, and ready to co-operate in meeting them; in whose hands you are willing to trust your interests in the Conference, and whose actions you can sustain. Do not send them because they can most conveniently go, but because they ought to go.
4. You want to have your pledges all made out, and send them to the State Committee in season for them to make safe and liberal calculations.
I trust I need not further say that you want to realize that the liberal shall stand by liberal things; that covetousness is idolatry; that there is that withholdeth, but tendeth to poverty; that godliness is profitable to all things; that to gain the whole world and lose life is unprofitable; that faith without works is dead, being alone.
Dear brethren, let your earnest prayers go with your officers and laborers. God is answering prayer. He is raising up such helps as you have long felt the need of in this State to assist in quarterly meetings, &c. In this I rejoice with you. Let us not slack our hands now, but press with vigor on, and soon we shall join the glad cry, "Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."