Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 18 (1903)

Ms 26, 1903

Regarding Work of General Conference

Oakland, California

April 3, 1903

This manuscript is published in entirety in 14MR 279-280.

There is need of a most earnest, thorough work to be now carried forward in all our churches. We are now to understand whether all our printing plants and all our sanitariums are to be under the control of the General Conference. I answer, Nay. It has been a necessity to organize Union Conferences, that the General Conference shall not exercise dictation over all the separate Conferences. The power vested in the Conference is not to be centered in one man, or two men, or six men; there is to be a council of men over the separate divisions. 18LtMs, Ms 26, 1903, par. 1

The showing by the past leadership of the Conference is not after God’s order. There has been a work done of a character that has not been approved of God. The result we have before us in the ruins where once stood that large printing plant with its expensive facilities. 18LtMs, Ms 26, 1903, par. 2

The divine statutes have been set aside. The time will soon come when God will vindicate His insulted authority. “The Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” [Isaiah 26:21.] “But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth?” [Malachi 3:2.] 18LtMs, Ms 26, 1903, par. 3

In the work of God no kingly authority is to be exercised by any human being, or by two or three. The representatives of the Conference, as it has been carried with authority for the last twenty years, shall be no longer justified in saying, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we.” [Jeremiah 7:4.] The men in positions of trust have not been carrying the work wisely. 18LtMs, Ms 26, 1903, par. 4

The Lord calls for wise men to preside over His work and to be faithful shepherds of His flock. He has a work to be done in every city. The General Conference has fallen into strange ways, and we have reason to marvel that judgment has not fallen, showing, “by terrible things in righteousness,” that God is not a man that He should lie. [Psalm 65:5.] 18LtMs, Ms 26, 1903, par. 5