The fall council of the North American Division was a most important and profitable occasion. This being the first meeting of the full committee since the organization of the division conference, there were many questions which required careful consideration. The meeting of the General Conference Committee, together with several brethren from local conferences and boards, brought together quite a number of those bearing responsibilities in the work. The counsel of all these workers was much appreciated. The names of those present having already appeared in the REVIEW, it is unnecessary to publish the list again. The good Spirit of God was present in the council, bringing unity of action into the deliberations.
Careful study was given to the financial situation which faces us in our institutions, many of which are resting under a heavy burden of debt. The condition which confronted us led to most earnest prayer that the Lord would send us help, and would point out the road to travel that we might be delivered from the slavery and bondage of debt which threatens to stagnate and seriously hinder our work throughout the world. The following actions of general interest were taken:—
Permanent Headquarters
Having regard to the close relationship in work of the General and the North American Division Conference offices and departments as at present organized, and the great economy to be effected in operating the various departments of work from the same headquarters; and in consideration of the fact that the work of the General Conference Committee calls for the presence in committee sessions of at least some of the officers and members of the division executive, without whom, in the absence of the president of the General Conference, it would be difficult to secure a working quorum for the transaction of Mission Board business, we,—
Recommend, That the offices of the North American Division Conference continue in Washington; and further,—
That the officers of the General Conference and of the North American Division Conference be authorized to add to the General Conference building such room as may be necessary to provide for the requirements of the combined work of the offices.
Scholarship Plan
The following recommendations were presented by the Educational Department, and after being carefully considered were adopted:—
Whereas, We recognize that there is a growing need of more efficient workers in our conferences and institutions in the large cities of this country, and in the mission fields, especially for well-trained ministers, teachers, Bible workers; and,—
Whereas, Our training-schools have been established and are being maintained at large expense for the purpose of giving our young people thorough preparation for the Master’s service; and,—
Whereas, There are a large number of young men and women not now in school who should attend our colleges and academies to obtain a better education for the work, to the end that the message may be hastened among all classes in all lands at home and abroad,—
We recommend, That an organized effort be made to arouse our people generally to the value of advanced education in qualifying our young people to fill their place and part in the finishing of the work. And to this end, we recommend,—
1. That our leading brethren prepare articles for the REVIEW AND HERALD setting forth the direct relation which a better preparation of our young people for service sustains to the advancement of the advent movement.
2. That in our churches and large public gatherings an effort be made to turn the hearts of parents more fully to the importance of giving their children the education necessary to efficient missionary service.
3. That two Sabbaths each year be set apart as educational days in our churches, for the purpose of studying the principles of Christian education and the needs of our work; and that suitable matter be prepared by the Educational Department for that purpose.
4. That the sacred calling of the gospel ministry be kept continually before our people, with the purpose of attracting many more bright, consecrated young men to this calling, and of inspiring them to make an educational preparation that will fit them to present the truth among all classes.
5. That a plan of tuition scholarships of fifty dollars each be arranged which shall provide for the tuition of acceptable young people in our colleges who have finished at least an academic course in one of our schools, and who wish to take further training for either the ministry, teaching, or other definite lines of gospel work; and that these scholarships be provided in the three following ways:—
a. That each of our conferences be recommended to provide two or more permanent tuition scholarships.
b. That our larger publishing houses be encouraged to provide three or more permanent tuition scholarships in educational institutions in their respective territories, available to students who have earned two tuition scholarships in the canvassing work.
c. That persons of private means be encouraged to endow permanent tuition scholarships in our advanced schools, either by payment annually of the sum of fifty dollars for each scholarship or by the gift of one thousand dollars as a permanent fund whose interest will provide one scholarship annually.
Legal Corporation
That a corporation be formed to be known as The North American Conference Corporation.
Quadrennial Session of the Division Conference
That the next session of the North American Division Conference be held in Los Angeles, Cal., Oct. 14-30, 1915.
The Washington College
1. That the Foreign Mission Seminary resume the status of a college, for which it already has a charter, on the following suggestive basis:—
a. That it operate in harmony with the general course of study adopted by our General and Division Educational Department in general convention.
b. That, in order to facilitate and strengthen the plan of the Mission Board for certain special training to be given its appointees to foreign lands, one of the main departments of the College be known as the Department of Foreign Missions, with the policy of its work fully determined by the Mission Board in conjunction with the College faculty.
c. That the College be given as its territory for regular students the Atlantic, Columbia, Southeastern, and Southern Unions, and all the territory of the Canadian Union Conference, except Ontario, Ontario being transferred to the territory of the Berrien Springs college, with the understanding that the Department of Foreign Missions receive as students any appointees the Mission Board may draw from any territory.12
d. That the managing board consist of fifteen members, made up as follows: The presidents of the Atlantic, Columbia, Southeastern, and Southern Unions; the presidents of the New Jersey, Chesapeake, District of Columbia, Virginia, and Eastern Pennsylvania Conferences; whose academic patronage the school receives; the treasurer of the General Conference; the president of the College; and four other men. And that we recommend to the board that they designate seven of their number to act as an executive board between sessions of the full board.
e. That work on this basis begin in the autumn of 1914.
f. In making these changes it is understood that the indebtedness of the College shall not be increased.
2. That Mount Vernon College and the Southern Training-school carry only twelve grades, turning over their patronage and good will in grades thirteen to sixteen to the Washington College; and that there be some equitable division of the Columbia Union territory for the patronage in the academic grades, leaving to the future the determining of a policy of affiliation with the Washington College.
3. That South Lancaster Academy continue as a fourteen-grade academy, leaving to the future the determining of a policy of affiliation with the Washington College. But we advise the management that they do not increase their present facilities for students.
4. That Union College draw college students, as heretofore, from the Northern, Central, and Southwestern Unions, on some equitable policy of affiliation with Keene Academy and with the academies of the Central and Northern Unions, to be determined by the executive committees of the three unions in counsel with the North American Educational Department.
5. That Walla Walla College and Pacific Union College and their affiliated academies be visited as soon as consistent by a representative of the North American Department of Education, to study, together with the union officials, the highest interests of these schools, and report their findings to the department.
The following dates for holding the coming sessions of union conferences that were agreed upon: Atlantic, November 25 to December 7; Southeastern, December 24 to January 4; Southern, January 6-18; Central, January 13-25; Northern, January 27 to February 8; Western Canadian, February 11-22; North Pacific, February 25 to March 8; Pacific, March 11-22; Southwestern, April 1-12; Lake, April 14-26; Columbia, April 28 to May 10; East Canadian, summer of 1914.
Other recommendations will be given later.
G. B. Thompson,Secretary N. A. D. Conf.
Unmitigated Rubbish
The president of the American Meat Packers’ Association recently declared that without the use of meat “we shall pass to the condition of the low-caste Chinaman.” Regarding this the New York Weekly Witness says: “It is not likely the time will ever come when it will not be possible for the great majority of the people of this country to eat meat, but it might prove a great blessing to most of our people if they could be compelled to get on with very much less meat.”
The first statement quoted above, the Witness characterizes as “unmitigated rubbish,” and surely it is. There are millions of people in this world into whose dietary meat never enters, and yet they are quite as strong physically and capable of quite as much physical and mental endurance as those who live on an omnivorous diet. Nor are the people of this class confined to the races of India or the natives of the South Sea islands. In temperate zones, in such countries as England and the United States, there are thousands of people who for the greater part of their lives, and perhaps during their entire lives, have subsisted wholly on vegetarian products, and these are holding their own with their meat-eating fellows in both intellectual and material pursuits. Meat is by no means a necessity in the dietary of the average laboring man or brain worker. The elements which it contains should be supplied in other foods, but the vegetable kingdom affords an abundance of protein matter, so that recourse to meat products is by no means necessary. The public mind needs education on this question.
Note and Comment
The Evils of War
It is not in the direct loss of life alone that the horrors of war are manifest. We must take into account the widowed wives, the orphan children, the desolate homes. The pursuits of industry and thrift are made to pay tribute to war’s exactions. If direct famine does not result, then pinching want for many years is entailed upon thousands of homes. Of the results of the recent war in the Balkans, a recent number of the Chicago Journal presents the following dark picture:—
There will be bitter suffering in millions of families of Europe this winter. Coarse food will give place to coarser, belts will be tightened in place of meals, the rations will be shortened, and every public and private agency of relief will be taxed to capacity to keep hardship from becoming disaster; for more than a thousand million dollars of Europe’s liquid capital has been burned up in the Balkan war, or has gone into unproductive increases of armies already too great for taxpayers to support. The coming hardships will press most heavily on lands which felt the devastation of war,—Turkey, and Bulgaria, and the fought-over regions of Thrace and Macedonia. In the first-named countries defeat has added bitterness to privation, and in Turkey the inchoate character of society will increase the ills of poverty. While these lands suffer most, no part of Europe is wholly exempt. Fifty thousand men are already out of work in Berlin, and the authorities of that city are expecting a repetition of the bread riots of last year. Martial law prevails over large districts in Austria and Russia. Workers in Italy are striking for a living wage, and even in prosperous France and Holland the pinch is felt.
Presbyterian Statistics
ACCORDING to the report of the Presbyterian Church, recently published, the gain for the year on confession of faith has been 88,808. This is reported as the largest in the history of the church. The Presbyterian, in commenting on these figures, credits this increase to the decline of destructive criticism and unbelief in the church. On the other hand, the number received and dismissed on certificate was very large. Over fifty thousand were reported as suspended. Says the Lutheran, in commenting on this:—
Scriptural discipline certainly was not applied to this number, and the figure seems to reveal that which is becoming too common among our own people; namely, drawing a blue pencil through names on the church roll of those who have become careless, and letting this act be the beginning and the end of discipline.
Often there is less effort put forth by Christian believers to reclaim the back-slider than to convert one from the darkness of heathenism. There is danger that this spirit will creep into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Our own unconverted children, those in the church who have grown careless and indifferent, are quite as worthy of our best efforts as those in the dark heathen lands whom we have never seen. “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” 1 John 4:20.
True to Temperance Principles
IN the Griefswald University, which is one of the oldest in Germany, it is reported that several students were recently expelled for refusing to partake of beer in violation of their temperance pledge. The occasion was a celebration of the jubilee of Emperor William’s reign.
All Need Jesus
“THE sick need one to make them whole, the wanderer one to guide them, and the blind one to lead them, the thirsty and the living fountain whereof they that partake shall thirst no more; the dead are in need of life; but all need Jesus.”
J. E. FULTON
By J. E. FULTON
Samoa
J. E. FULTON
TEN very pleasant days were spent in Samoa visiting at the homes of our workers and with our brethren and sisters, all of whom were very kind and did all they could to make our stay enjoyable.
The weather was wet, and we could not go far away from headquarters, but the time was fully occupied in talking over the work. Several meetings were held, some of general interest and a few for our laborers.
The sanitarium property, which has held our workers so long in Apia, has now been sold. For this we thank the Lord, not simply because we obtained a good price, but now there can be no hindrance to starting afresh far away from European influences. We are glad our workers fully coincide with such a plan. Certainly our policy has been wrong in lingering so long on such unpromising soil. By so doing we necessarily ran counter to both the natural prejudices of the natives and the contaminating influences of the Europeans. Our work has made little progress.
We are glad, however, for the few faithful European Sabbath-keepers we have in Apia. They are staunch supporters of the cause.
We are glad to find both Brother and Sister Howse in good health and of good courage. They are anxious to see the work started in another part of the group. We hope that some definite plan will be laid toward this end at the coming council.
Samoa needs more help. Another couple should be sent as soon as possible. This field needs our prayers. The writer feels certain that once we get started on right lines we shall see much to encourage us in this field. Let us remember the work and workers in our prayers.
Teneriffe, Canary Islands
By Bert B. Aldrich
BERT B. ALDRICH
Considerable time has elapsed since we reported. We have now been in the Canaries about a year and a half. A large share of this time has been spent in canvassing for the health book “Salud y Hogar.” The Lord blessed much in taking orders for this pioneer book in Santa Cruz, the capital, and in Laguna, where we are at present located. About five hundred orders were taken, and possibly four hundred books delivered. It is much easier to take the orders than to deliver the books, as the Spaniards many times change their minds when they are asked to pay.
CANARY ISLAND MISSION
While canvassing in Santa Cruz I found one family who seemed to be waiting to learn the truth, and I immediately began to hold Bible studies with them once a week. Later, when delivering, I found more opportunities of this kind. One woman had been converted to Protestantism about a year before. Her attention had been called to the Sabbath, and on learning that I was an observer of the Sabbath, she desired me to instruct her in the truth. She had been converted under the labors of a Baptist missionary who, although he tells me that we are right in regard to Sabbath observance, does not teach it to his converts. Accordingly I immediately began Bible studies in other homes, and in this instance began instructing this woman in the Sabbath truth. She seems eager to learn the truth, and says that she wants to know it all. After finishing the Sabbath question, she told me that she was keeping the Sabbath although still identified with the Baptist Church. Her interest in the truth continues, for which we are thankful to God.
In Laguna I found some shoemakers who had a Protestant Bible, and as they seemed to want to learn, I began to study with them. They are hard-working men, and many times listen as they work. We may be able to instruct them, but only God by his Spirit can bring the inner transformation of character which must take place before they will take their stand for the truth. The Word says, “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.”
One always has to ask on going to a house, “Is there any one here who knows how to read?” If they know you have books to sell, they will usually say that they do not know how to read. Another expression is, “Me est orbe lo negro” (The black disturbs me), which means that the print—black and white—is a trouble to them. Many say their parents taught them only to work, and wonder why any one should trouble them with reading. There is a universal indifference, which is lamentable. If there is in the household one who can read, one can usually excite his curiosity in a little tract, even though an order for a book cannot be obtained. As the price of a tract is small,—two cents,—one usually sells quite a number in a day.
Thus through the suppression of education the Roman Catholic Church has taken away the truth from the people. In spite of the ignorance which prevails, the Lord has given a few orders in the country districts for the health book. In one little village I obtained five orders, and delivered every one of them. In another, six miles west of here, the Lord gave me twenty-five orders, and I sold over one hundred tracts.
I delivered a book to a physician in Oratava. He asked me if I had other books to sell. I told him I did, and that I hoped to follow this later with Bible books, offering him a gospel tract on the signs of our times, at the same time telling him I was an Adventist. He said, “I am a Catholic, nominally.” He took the tract, saying he would read it. There are many here who are Roman Catholics only nominally. May God give us the ability to find the truly honest in heart with his truth.
Last week the city observed the feast of Corpus Christi. Four of the principal streets were decorated with magnificent floral designs in the forms of rugs on the pavement. Among these were: the cross, the front of the cathedral, various coats of arms, and shields. This is a very unique custom. Over these rugs the procession, made up of combined civil, religious, and military displays and demonstrations, passed. Every few steps the procession halted and mass was said.
The islands, except for tourists who come here from England and Germany, and for the commerce with England, are practically isolated from the world. The people are very slow and easy-going.1078
Many do not seem to appreciate the importance of knowing anything but what the church tells them. Although the power of the church is not so great as formerly, yet the priests wield a great deal of power over the people. The work of the message will be slow here. Pray for us and for the few honest-hearted ones who are studying God’s Word at the present time.
FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M. D
By Frederick M. Rossiter
The Gospel of Health—No. 6
FREDERICK M. ROSSITER, M. D
THROUGH the goodness of God we are not left in darkness, but have more light on the subject of healthful living than has ever before been bestowed upon any people. Gospel means “glad tidings,” and to teach others how to live physically is a part of the glad tidings. But before we can give the gospel to others, we must know it for ourselves; and so before we can show others how to live healthfully, we must be able to do so ourselves.
In no period of the world has there been so much light on the subject of preventing disease and of preserving the health as in our day. Why is this? Manifestly it is to save people from sickness and the race from extinction, and to prepare them to receive the complete fulfilment of the gospel.
While it is true that great light has been shed upon this generation in reference to the prevention of disease and the promotion of health, it is probably true that there never was a time when there was so much sickness, acute and chronic, as at the present time. Statistics show a daily average of more than three million persons in the United States on the sick-list, or an average of thirteen days per capita for the entire population; or in other words, about four per cent of the population is sick all the time. Were death from preventable diseases, such as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, malaria, pneumonia, and diseases peculiar to infants, prevented, the saving of life would be sufficient to add fifteen years to the average duration of life. And, in fact, eighty per cent of the diseases that afflict the human race are preventable.
What do these facts mean to us as a people? Let us consider this for a moment. Suppose that four per cent of our people are sick all the time. Four per cent of 100,000 would be 4,000, or the number of our people sick all the time. Suppose that four per cent of our ministers, physicians, nurses, Bible workers, and all other workers are sick all the time. What does this mean to our work? Or suppose we put it in another way: According to the United States Census reports, every one of our 100,000 church-members has thirteen days of sickness each year. Say because of loss of time, expense for physicians, nursing, medicines, patent medicines, sanitarium care, expense of traveling, and change of climate, there is a loss to the denomination of two dollars a day for each of these thirteen days of sickness, how much will it amount to?—Twenty-six dollars for each person, and one hundred thousand times that will give the little sum of $2,600,000. But these figures are no doubt too high for our people, and so we shall reduce them fifty per cent. That still makes the cost of sickness to the denomination $1,300,000. Fifty per cent of this sickness is certainly preventable. An expense of $650,000 might be saved annually. How much would this do for missions? How many workers would it send into the needy fields? There is truth in these figures, and they are of such importance that we ought to give the cause of this expense some consideration.
How may most of this money be saved to the cause of God? I should say it could be done by studying the light that the Lord has given us on the subject of health, and then putting it into practical daily application. There ought to be very few funerals among this people except of those who have passed the threescore and ten mark. God has promised this length of life, and when one dies sooner he has died prematurely. Moses, Aaron, and others died when their work was finished, at a time when their strength was not abated. Death should be as physiological as birth.
It has been estimated that the average length of life in the sixteenth century was about eighteen to twenty years. The reason for this low average of life was because of the terrible epidemics that swept the nations, due to ignorance and insanitary conditions. At the end of the eighteenth century the average length of life had increased to thirty years. During the past century the average duration of life has increased very materially, and at present it is between forty and fifty years in many of the nations.
This saving of human lives, thus increasing the average length of life, is due to increased light on the laws of health, improved sanitation, and laws of preventive medicine made applicable to the individual and to the nation. But this increase in the length of human life is due largely to the prevention of acute diseases. I have already mentioned a few of the acute diseases that are preventable, and if they were prevented, fourteen or fifteen years could at once be added to the average length of life in this country, and this change could probably be brought about in a period of less than ten years. If these same acute diseases were destroying domestic animals as rapidly as they are destroying human lives, it no doubt would be made in much less time, for, as a matter of fact, more attention has been given to the15health of hogs, cattle, and sheep than to that of human beings.
Let us look at this situation from another standpoint. A recent government report from the Census Department shows that out of every miscellaneous one hundred persons dying on any given day, only two die of old age. Seven die from accident or violence, but had these seven escaped their violent death we have no reason to believe that they would have lived any longer than the majority of the one hundred. So, then, of every one hundred born, more than ninety-seven come into the world without the capacity for old age, or having that capacity they deplete it and so die prematurely. These figures may seem an exaggeration of the subject in hand, but they are true. In presenting these facts we do not have to become pessimists. However, this condition ought not so to be. I believe that in the providence of God it should not exist. God has placed a remedy in the world for this state of affairs. That remedy is the gospel of health,—health reform,—and this is the part of the gospel that has been very much neglected by all the churches from the days of the Reformation to the present time. To us this gospel message has been given, but we have come far short in living up to this phase of the message. Living out the principles of health in daily life is the gospel in illustration. See “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, page 241.
While it is true that the average length of life has been gradually increasing during the past two hundred years, yet we are confronted with the facts today that there are fewer individuals out of every hundred that die who attain old age. While the chances for living up to a certain period, say thirty or forty years, are better today than during past epochs, the mortality from all causes after the period of forty years is steadily increasing.
Only a short time ago I received a letter from the chief medical examiner of a large insurance company for which I am an examiner, making suggestions for greater cautiousness in examining men over forty years of age. The reason given for more particular care in examinations was the fact that diseases known as degenerative diseases are on the increase, and these diseases are so subtle and insidious in their beginnings that great care is required to detect them, for the early symptoms are not noticed by the patient until the disease is well established. Insurance companies know that these diseases are on the increase, with an attending increase in the mortality, and they wish to avoid such risks.
Gold Coast, West Africa
By J. W. Garrbrah
J. W. GARRBRAH
Because of the wonderful works of God's hand in this field, I am glad to be able to send on a report to the brethren and sisters beyond the seas. To God we render our sincere thanks that “the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.” Indeed, the gospel seed sown here is the planting of the Lord, and is bearing much fruit.
A few months ago a Catholic family of four embraced the third angel's message, and since the last special week of prayer, the number of Sabbath-keepers here has increased from thirty-six to sixty-seven. The Lord has begun to work among boys and girls as the Great Fisher of men, and for this reason the greater number of Sabbath-keepers in this field are children of heathen parents. We rejoice that the Lord has made a good start in his work. He means to cut short the growth of idolism, and make firm the planting of the standard of his gospel; hence the children are being led to accept the Lord Jesus as their Saviour.
All around us in the whole Coast are idol-worshipers. They are our inveterate enemies, denouncing us as false prophets; but our keenness in the faith, and the basing of all our arguments on Scriptural authority, lead them to befriend us. Divine rays of the truth are making sharp reflections in the minds of many here.
We had been praying for some one to come and visit us, and in answer to our prayers, on January 11 Elder D. C. Babcock arrived among us, and was warmly welcomed.
On Sunday, January 12, twenty-nine Sabbath-keepers followed their Lord in baptism. The writer was ordained elder, and Brother Robert Essien, deacon. Our church is not large enough to hold us now when we meet, therefore we are engaged in building a larger one.
“Bless the work in America, and that in other places,” forms a chief part of our prayer here. We pray the Lord to send more workers to our Coast, and to carry the gospel message to other places where “this gospel of the kingdom” is to be preached for a witness unto the people before the end shall come.
Guard Kindness Within Yourself
By George Sands
GUARD within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.—George Sands.
Land of My Love
By Arthur W. Spaulding
ARTHUR W. SPAULDING
LAND of my love, to which, in dreams of night,
My exiled heart went roving on its quest;
Back to your valleys green, your wooded heights,
I hasten, urged by duty's glad behest.
Far, far from you, I yet have urged your cause,
Have told your glories, plead your urgent needs;
Pained, when the force of fortune made me pause;
Glad, when my will of service made the deed.
Now, burning plain and jagged mountain wall,
Lying in purple threat across the sky,
Oppose in vain my answer to the call
That bids me home with speeding ardor fly.
Soon, soon the shackling hours shall part
That hold me prisoned from my sweet desire;
Swift, swift there nears the harbor of my heart,
Almost discerned my altar's kindling fire.
So glows the joy of earthly habitat,
So leaps the fervor of my duty's flame.
How, if my ardent spirit fires at that,
How shall it burn at one more precious name?
O Heaven, if my toil may be as true,
My heart as little alien in exile,
If I may spend myself as far for you,
Then here my stay is but a little while.
Albuquerque, N. Mex.
H. LOUIE MIGNOTT
By H. Louie Mignott
Jamaica
AFTER returning from my trip in Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth, I had the privilege of seeing the long-needed church building at Bryant’s Hill, reared on the first day of July. While working on the Post Road and Goshen church buildings, we laid plans for raising means and preparing materials for this building. The brethren at this place are few, but they are full of zeal for the word and work of the Lord. Having a mind to work, they are doing all in their power for the speedy completion of their building.
On July 20, six souls were added to the Post Road church, and two to the Goshen company, by baptism. July 24 I left Chapelton for Russell Hall. After the tent was pitched, Elder Hubert Fletcher, by request, preached on the evenings of August 3 and 4 to goodly audiences. Since then, the grand truths of the threefold message have been presented night after night. The sound has gone to the adjacent districts, awakening and disturbing the consciences of many. As a consequence, the ire of the dragon is aroused, and he is stirring up some to oppose God’s message. As it was with ancient Israel, so it is with modern. They knew not the time of their visitation. “For they that dwell at Jerusalem,” says the apostle, “and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.” Acts 13:27.
In like manner men are today condemning God’s message. Some, seeing the people attending the lectures at the tent and talking about the things to which they have listened, preach against us, and warn the people against attending our meetings. But, as they “can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth,” the Lord causes their wrath to “praise him,” and “the remainder” he restrains. So they are proving themselves, in God’s hand, excellent advertisers of our work and meetings. Our evening services are well attended. The word of God has lost none of its original power. “As a fire . . . and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces,” it is able to pull “down strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
Last Monday evening a young man came into the tent, armed with a one-edged sword, a tract written by the Rev. R. A. Cevestus Duffan, entitled “Ten Brief Answers to Seventh-day Adventist Objections.” He came with assurance that the ten commandments were abolished and nailed to the cross. I asked him if he really believed that the law of God, the ten commandments, was abolished. He said, “Yes.” I then asked him to read Eph. 6:1, 2, which he did; after which I asked him to read the fifth precept on the law chart, and left him to think for a while. He saw the point clearly, that if the law had been abrogated, then every one of its precepts was also abolished, and for this reason the apostle could not have said that it “is right” to observe its fifth precept, as it would have been wrong for a man to keep that which the Lord had annulled. His stronghold was pulled down. He is now a Sabbath-keeper, and is rejoicing in the truths of God.
We are thankful to the Lord for what he has wrought for us. At the present time, September 10, there is a class of fourteen new converts preparing for baptism. Recently I went to the church to listen to a lecture on Law and Grace, by the pastor. After the service he invited me to his home, where for nearly two hours we had quite a pleasant talk on several Bible topics. On the same evening I gave a discourse,16according to previous arrangement, to a goodly number of his congregation and other interested listeners. I had my prophetic chart, and we studied the change of the law, from Dan. 7:25. They were greatly interested, and desired to listen to another public lecture, which I promised to give. Remember us in your prayers.
H. LOUIE MIGNOTT
God Is the Great Seeker
It was not the sheep that was seeking the shepherd; it was the shepherd going out into the desert to hunt until he found the lost sheep. It was not that piece of silver seeking the woman, but it was the woman seeking for the lost piece of silver. Those parables teach us that God is the great Seeker.—Dwight L. Moody.
