General Conference Daily Bulletin, vol. 8
March 2, 1899
33rd Session. - WORCESTER, MASS., THURSDAY, - VOLUME 8. SOUTH LANCASTER, MASS. - NUMBER 13
The Daily Bulletin,
PUBLISHED BY THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF
Seventh-day Adventists.F. S. BLANCHARD & CO., Printers, Worcester.
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, - 50 CENTS.
CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER
| A Remarkable Occasion, | 121 |
| General Conference Proceedings, | |
| Twenty-third Meeting (concluded), | 121 |
| Twenty-fourth Meeting, | 124 |
| Twenty-fifth Meeting, | 128 |
| The Divine Way in Diet, | |
| Address by Dr. J. H. Kellogg, | 133 |
| Human Building Material, | 135 |
| The Cause (Poetry), | 135 |
| Report from Brazil, | 135 |
| Bible Study, | |
| The Roman Republic, A. T. Jones, | 136 |
A REMARKABLE OCCASION
Yesterday must be marked as a red-letter day among the days of the thirty-third session of the General Conference. As will be seen by the proceedings in this issue, immediately upon the opening of the morning session, letters from Australia were read, setting forth the principles upon which are based the work of carrying the third angel’s message to the world. The needs of the cause in Australia were also portrayed, when nearly every delegate gave means, as he was able, to relieve the situation in that country. This was done with a fervent prayer that God would bless the work in that land, and so encourage his tried servants in that work. It was blessed to be there. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.1
At the close of the meeting most of the delegates went, by invitation of Dr. J. H. Kellogg, to the east dormitory of the academy to partake of a thoroughly vegetarian dinner, which was much appreciated as a demonstration of the principles the doctor had been giving out in health talks at the conference. It would be hard to tell of the deliciousness of the food, which consisted of fruit salad, nut stock soup, protose, granose flakes, nutta, manna, zwieback, crackers, granose cakes, nut butter, coco cream, and granose fruit pie. What more could the most fastidious epicurean ask for? Yet all these things may be readily prepared by any private family; and the most ordinary cook, who is willing to learn the simple art. The time has come for a general trend in this direction, and a great loss will follow those who do not launch out on the tide which is now so strongly setting healthward and heavenward. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.2
It is important that we relish the food we eat. If we can not do this, but eat mechanically, we fail to be nourished and built up as we would be if we could enjoy the food we take into the stomach. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.3
GENERAL CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
The Manager of the Review and Herald Compares the Publishing Work of this and Preceding Years - The Manager of the Pacific Press Reports - Methods for the Increase of the Circulation of the “Signs of the Times.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.4
TWENTY-THIRD MEETING, TUESDAY, 9:30 A. M., FEBRUARY 28
(Concluded.) GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.5
We have been looking up the statistics a little, to see whether there is really now anything discouraging in the work. We find, according to the reports for 1888, that each canvasser sold in that year $156 worth of books. In 1891 each canvasser sold, on an average, $335 worth. In 1898 each canvasser sold, on an average, $499 worth. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.6
J. H. Kellogg: Counting the time of work, I suppose? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.7
PICTURE - OAKWOOD INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA. (See sketch, page 15.)
W. C. Sisley: Yes, sir. You see that the canvasser who is faithfully working to-day, sells nearly three times as many books in the same length of time as he did ten or twelve years ago. Our canvassers to-day are selling, according to reports we receive, eighty cents’ worth of literature every hour they work. In 1897 it was seventy-two and one fourth cents; so we have gained seven and three fourths cents an hour during the last year. If our canvassers would work to-day as faithfully and earnestly as those in other lines are required to work in order to discharge their duty, a thousand canvassers, at the same rate of sales would sell $1,600,000 worth of books in a year, provided they worked eight hours a day, five days in the week, and fifty weeks in the year. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.8
We have not as many workers in the field as formerly. It seems to me that about the only reason that I can give is the fact that we have in a measure lost the true missionary spirit. If we can get into our hearts a true love for our fellow men, and an earnest desire to carry out the purpose to which the Lord has called us, there would be no question but what we could find canvassers in large numbers. It seems to me that more attention ought to be paid to this line of work. We have listened here for days to different propositions along the line of education. This is perfectly right, because it is necessary. We have heard how necessary it is to educate doctors, nurses, teachers, ministers, farmers, and mechanics. We have not yet heard a single word about educating canvassers and workers to go out with our literature; and it seems to me that it would be well for us, for just a few minutes, to consider our duty in this line. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.9
We have been admonished and urged to select young men for the ministry. That is right. Our ministry is badly run down, and I long to see young men going into it. I long to see young men and women taking hold of all branches of our work; but it does seem to me that we should have men going throughout the length and breadth of the land, with a burden to select workers to go out and sell our literature. Every one of our ministers should act as a committee to do this work. It should be the burden of his soul to find men wherever he can, and get them into this work, - not to take them out of another branch, but to draw them from the common walks of life, where they are not working directly in the Master’s vineyard. If our brethren would take hold of this work of selecting men for these important branches and then provide means with which to educate them, and then send them forth into the field, a great work would yet be accomplished. There is no more important work than this. The word to us says: “If there is one branch of the work more important than another, it is that of getting our literature into the hands of the people.” It seems to me that all our work is important, and that we should not say that one branch is more important than another. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.10
Through the circulation of literature by our canvassers, fields have been opened up for our ministers, who have gathered the harvest resulting from the seed sown by the canvassers. There is still a great demand for this work. Although we have heard it said that the canvassing work has been largely accomplished, it can not be true. Since coming to this meeting, I have received a letter from Brother W. C. White, in which he says: GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.11
“About five years ago our canvassers and general agents in Australia began to say that the book business in the colonies had seen its best days; that the field was worked; the people were hard to reach, etc. When Brother Palmer first took hold of the work in these colonies he found this sentiment almost universal among canvassers. But notwithstanding this prophecy of evil, we have gone straight forward with our work; and each year has seen some advancement, until at present we have doubled the number of our canvassers, and have five colonial depositories instead of two, and sell about twice as many books yearly.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.12
The same prophecy has been made in this country. But I believe the same results would follow the same action here, if we would take right hold, and go straight ahead, using the facilities that God has given us. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.13
I have here a BULLETIN, printed in 1891. In it is a report from the canvassing agent, accompanied by a few remarks from Captain Eldridge. In these remarks the captain speaks of the work, of its influence, and then he makes a prophecy, and I think it would be well to consider it:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.14
“The canvassing organization is really a self-supporting missionary work. It furnishes employment to the canvasser, brings the truth to the knowledge of the people, fits workers for foreign fields, and hastens the coming of the Lord. A score of students might be pointed out in the college, who could not have attended this year, had it not been for the means earned in the canvassing field. Our denomination is selling more books than any other in the country, with the exception of the Methodist, whose Book Concern has been established for a century. Our people should pray for the canvasser, and encourage him in every way. We may expect the time to come when the entire denomination will be resolved into ministers, Bible workers, book-makers and book-sellers.” - Page 37. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.15
This is what was said ten years ago. I am glad that the medical missionary work has come into existence, and these other lines. I hope and trust that we shall not pass the canvassing work lightly by; but that we shall take hold of it all together, and place this important branch of the Lord’s work in its proper place and upon its right footing. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.16
I would like to say a word with reference to the circulation of the Signs of the Times. Years ago, when the Signs was first issued, our people all took hold of the work earnestly, and many papers were used through the agency of our Vigilant Missionary societies. I am satisfied that if we had gone on in that work as we did twenty years ago, a circulation of a million copies of that paper would be nothing for us to take hold of. When the late large edition was announced, it was looked upon as a large undertaking, and it has proved to be a large one; but I am certain that it would not have been, had we all taken hold and circulated it as we should. What a good thing it would have been to have dropped a million copies of that paper into a million homes of the people within a few days’ time! It could have been done just as well as not if we had been in the place where God wants us to be. I do hope the time will come when we shall not in any way be frightened when there is talk of circulating a million copies of anything. I believe that is nothing more than we should do, and do right along. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 121.17
Our publishing houses have been lifted up, as we all know, through the providence of God. He has had a special care over them. If it had not been for that they would have been out of existence long ago; but the Lord has nourished them and built them up, until to-day we have the finest publishing houses in the country. The Review and Herald is the largest and best equipped institution in Michigan; the Pacific Press is the best one on the Coast. We are well equipped for doing a large amount of work. We can turn out more work and cheaper than ever before, and we long for the time to come when we can employ every one of our facilities in those publishing houses on our own denominational literature. Since coming to this place, I have received a letter from our superintendent, in which he asks me to do all I can to stir up the people to sell our literature. He says that it is a shame to have our facilities used in doing work for the world. We have no trouble to get work from the world. He tells me in every letter I receive from him that more work is coming in than we can do. We have had to turn away much during the last year and part of the time have worked night and day. Every one of these facilities should be used in the cause of God. We have thought that rather than to let our plant lie idle, we had better use it to the best of our ability, earning what we could by doing commercial work, and then do missionary work with what we earn. This we have tried to do, and we have had all the commercial work that we could do. If we had done only our denominational work, we could not have run our institution for the last few years. But this is not as it should be. I do not know how we can answer to the Lord for this state of things, or what we can say for the use of these facilities that he has given to us. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.1
C. H. Jones: This is a very practical point, and one in which I am sure every Seventh-day Adventist will be interested. There are some delegates who think that the publishing work does not particularly interest them, and so they did not attend this morning; but those who are here this morning are of course not of that kind. This conference is to counsel together; and we want to counsel together as regards the best methods of doing this line of business. The question has been referred to as to how the Lord regarded this work, and I want to read it. It is from “Testimony for the Church,” No. 29, page 390: “If there is one work more important than another it is that of getting our publications before the public, thus leading them to search the Scriptures.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.2
This does not say that the canvassing work is the most important work, but if there is any one work more important than the others, it is this. It is a fact that the circulation of our literature has fallen off within the last four or five years, although in 1889-90 we were selling many of these books, and many men were in engaged in the work. Since that time, it has been steadily going down. Now we do not want any line of work to get out of proportion to every other. Every man should be given the opportunity to engage in the work of getting our publications before the public, and in this way assisting in the spread of the message. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.3
Our book work naturally divides itself into three divisions: (1) The subscription work; (2) the trade-book work; (3) periodical work. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.4
Let us notice briefly the subscription-book work. In our different publishing houses we have been trying very hard to improve our publications in every way possible. I think you will all agree with me that the book, “The Desire of Ages,” is one that comes nearer to the proper standard than any other we have published. It seems to me that a special effort should be made to place this work in the hands of the people. The price seems high to some; but it is not, when compared with similar works by the same and other publishers. It contains nearly nine hundred pages, and the illustrations in it cost nearly six thousand dollars. We have another book, “The Coming King,” which is an excellent one to put into the hands of young canvassers. Here is also “Heralds of the Morning,” which is along the same line, and sells at about the same price. Beginners are taking hold of these books, and meeting with success; but I think that none but experienced canvassers should handle “The Desire of Ages.” This book can be placed in all families, not only of the so-called lower class, but in the higher class as well. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.5
“The canvassing work is a most important field for labor, and the intelligent, God-fearing, truth-loving canvasser occupies a position equal to that of the gospel minister.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.6
It is a fact, brethren, that we have come to a point where the brethren almost look down upon the canvasser and the canvassing work; and our young people say, when we talk to them about entering the canvassing field: “Well, I don’t know about that, I would rather be a medical missionary, or a minister, or something of that kind.” Now that is all right and good in its way; but there are some important phases of this work which must not be overlooked, and these young persons should not be taught to regard the canvassing work as being something beneath them. I will read again:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.7
“Canvassers should be selected, not from the floating element in society, not from among men and women who are good for nothing else, and have made a success of nothing, but from among those who have good address, tact, keen foresight, and ability.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.8
While we should not turn aside those who have a call to any particular field, I do think this work should be presented before the people, and then a burden will rest upon their hearts to take it up. Now we can see the important part which this work acts. The ministerial brethren know that when they go into a field and open meetings, there are always some who do not attend. How are such people to be reached? - Through the printed page. Of course the result of placing the publications in their hands is not always manifested immediately; but Brother White (W. B.) here knows of a case where “Great Controversy” was placed in a person’s hands ten years ago, and only last year he accepted the truth. We must not look for the results too soon. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.9
“I can not see why the canvassing work is not as good and successful a work as can be done for the Lord. Were it not for the work of the canvassers many would never hear the truth.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.10
In another place, the Testimony states how these workers should be prepared for this work. This is a trade, and thorough preparation should be made for it. The reason so many have failed is that they have not had the proper preparation. They call for workers, hold an institute, and then send them forth with little preparation; and they fail and become discouraged. This reflects upon the work, and the people say that the time for the canvassing work is past. I would rather have five trained workers take hold of the work, in the fear of God, and stick to it for a lifetime, than to have fifty enter it who have but little preparation, and then have half or two thirds of them fail; for that discourages the rest. Training-schools for canvassers should be organized; and this should be a part of the work of every college and large school. We have been working a good deal on the wrong plan, and this matter should be taken up at once. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.11
Now a few words about the trade-book business. We can not present the truth to everybody by canvassers; we ought to have attractive little booklets selling at from twenty-five to seventy-five cents, setting forth the fundamental principles of the message. These should be put in the book stores for sale. Now how can we enter these avenues? This is a problem for the publishing houses, and we are considering it to the best of our ability; but I believe there is a good field before us in that line. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.12
Then we come to the periodical work. This has been developed rapidly of late. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.13
Recess of ten minutes was here taken. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.14
C. H. Jones continuing: I wish to say a word about the danger of turning men aside from the work to which they are called. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.15
“Men suited to this work undertake it; but some injudicious minister will flatter them that their gift should be employed in the desk, instead of simply in the work of the colporter. Thus this work is belittled. They are influenced to get a license to preach; and the very ones who might have been trained to make good missionaries to visit families at their homes, and talk and pray with them, are caught up to make poor ministers; and the field where so much labor is needed, and where so much good might be accomplished for the cause, is neglected.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.16
There are different lines of work to be done; and I do not think we ought to bear down on one line more than upon another, but let each one take his proper place, and go forward carrying the message to the world. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.17
Now we have various periodicals, and the Lord has spoken directly to us in regard to some of these. The Review and Herald, our church paper, should be in the hands of every Seventh-day Adventist. I do not know that I ought to say very much about that. The Lord has spoken in reference to it, and the subscription list has increased very rapidly of late. Then we have the Signs of the Times, which is recognized as our pioneer missionary paper; the American Sentinel, with a special line of work; Good Health, and our other publications, each occupying a position in doing the work of the Lord. But I now speak directly with reference to the Signs of the Times, our missionary paper, and I read what the Lord has said to us in regard to it in “Missionary Work by Correspondence:” “Our missionary paper, the Signs of the Times, is doing its work everywhere, and is opening a way for the truth to be more fully presented.” I think that our brethren in the field and the canvassers will agree that wherever the Signs of the Times, has been introduced, it has opened the way, in a marked degree, for the introduction of our books. One canvasser with whom I talked the other day said that he rarely failed to introduce the book for which he was working, in a home where the Signs was taken. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.18
Again: “Our brethren do not all see and realize the importance of this paper; if they did, they would feel a greater personal interest to make it intensely interesting, and then circulate it everywhere.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.19
Again: “Yet it is a fact that the circulation of our papers is doing an even greater work than the living preacher can do.” If that is the case, brethren and sisters, ought we not to be willing to put a little money in it? Some have thought that all of our canvassing work, with both papers and books, should be on a paying basis. I agree with you that it should be put there as nearly as possible, and in nearly every instance it can be made to pay its own way; but in case we had to help the canvasser a little, would it not be a good investment of the Lord’s money even to sustain the canvassers if it is necessary, when it is a fact that the circulation of our papers is doing even a greater work than the living preacher can do? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.20
Every one is not called to enter the ministry; some are, and we want to encourage others to do that, as the Lord has said. Every one is not called to canvass for books. But here is a line of periodical work that the rank and file of our people can take hold of. Every one, even though he has home duties, can do something in this way. This naturally divides itself into three parts. These are to take the papers in clubs, and send them out to names that have been secured; to canvass for yearly subscriptions to the paper; and to sell the papers from house to house, and on the street. We are told that “our sisters, the youth, the middle-aged, and those of advanced years, may act a part in the closing work for this time; and in doing this as they have opportunity, they will obtain an experience of the highest value to themselves.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.21
We have been trying to improve the Signs of the Times, and make it a paper that could be taken to the public and sold. You know the time was when our people thought the Signs could only be taken in clubs to be given away; and it seems difficult to believe that the Signs of the Times or any other of our papers can be sold. But it has been fully demonstrated, during the last year, that the paper can be sold; and that it can be sold on the street, and from house to house, even in business houses. Subscriptions can also be secured. There are those here that I hope we shall hear give some practical experience. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.22
Now you will want to know something about the quarter-centennial number of the Signs of the Times. Some thought it was a pretty big stroke to get out a paper of this kind, and think of circulating a million copies. Well, it was a big work, and we have not yet reached the million mark; but a good work has been done, and I believe it has been the means of arousing our people, and getting them into the work, as has nothing else we have ever taken hold of. It has not taken very many workers from other lines of work; but those who have taken hold of this are those who were doing little or nothing before. Up to the present time we have sent out only 500,000 copies. That is a good many more than some thought we would sell. Some thought that if we would sell 100,000, we would do well. The limit of the highest estimate was 250,000. But we have doubled that; and already we begin to see some fruits of that work. Brother Loughborough was telling me of one instance that occurred just as he left Los Angeles. Will you relate it, Brother Loughborough? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 122.23
J. N. Loughborough: About three weeks before I left Southern California, Brother Hart, of the Centralia church, went to a place selling the Signs. He introduced the paper to one man, explaining what it was; and the man said: “Why, that is the very thing we need to give us religious instruction. I am out of work; and all the money I have in the world is a dollar; but I want that paper.” Handing him the dollar, he said: “Here, take ten cents out of that; I must have the paper.” He finished reading the paper the next Sunday morning, and after dinner, went out and chopped wood all the afternoon. He and his family have kept the Sabbath ever since. I heard from them three weeks after that, and they were firm and devoted. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.1
E. E. Andross: I heard this morning that the Baptist minister [T. H. Balcom] who was here the other day, received his first impression of the Sabbath from the quarter-centennial number of the Signs. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.2
C. H. Jones: The seed has been sown; 500,000 copies have been placed in the hands of the people. I wish it had been a million. If it had been, it would not have injured any other branch of the work. The more copies of the Signs we circulate, the more people will be longing to know the message. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.3
We asked our tract societies to furnish means to send the Signs to every editor in the different States; and I think every State responded. I believe a copy of that special number has been placed in the hands of every editor in the United States. Here is a little booklet containing some extracts from some of those papers, some of which I will read. This is from the Putnam Sentinel, Ottawa, Ohio:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.4
“Signs of the Times. - This very excellent religious magazine comes to us in holiday attire. As usual, it contains many articles of unusual interest, embracing quite a number of topics, both religious and secular. It is certainly a very entertaining magazine, and of high merit. Published at Oakland, California.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.5
Here is another from the Bellaire (Ohio) Tribune: “The Signs of the Times, published at Oakland, California, is a vigorous religious publication, brimful of ably-discussed, live topics affecting the spiritual and temporal well-being of the people. The number before us is a double one, celebrating the commencement of its twenty-sixth year of publication, and is worth a year’s subscription. Its first year it had but a few hundred subscribers. Its recent circulation has exceeded 40,000 copies a week.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.6
Here is another: “We have read with interest its article in reference to the alliance of church and state, and wish every one could read it. Its masterly fight for Christianity, as taught by the Bible, and that only, is extremely good and timely. In this number is one of the sweetest songs.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.7
Now we want to counsel with you in regard to the future work of the Signs. Some have wished that every number might be gotten out with a cover. In order to do that, it would certainly be necessary to increase the subscription price; indeed, it has been thought by some that the subscription price is too low; that it ought to be increased to $1.25 or $1.50. It is now published at $1, and we give agents fifty cents; and so the office receives only fifty cents, which is actual cost, even though we publish large editions. Our subscription list now is a little less than fifty thousand. We want you to consider the question whether it would be best to increase the price to $1.50, and then give the agents seventy-five cents, thus leaving the office seventy-five cents. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.8
L. C. Sheafe: Would not the advertisements on the cover page pay the cost? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.9
C. H. Jones: It has been difficult to get those that would not offend our people. Almost every week we receive letters containing the money, with copy for an ad., to be placed in the Signs, and we have to send it back because it is something that we do not agree with, and do not wish to insert. The class of ads. that we can take in the Signs is very limited. We might take some, but most of these are doubtful. To put a cover on each number would certainly make it necessary to increase the price to $1.50. But we have decided, during the coming year, to get out five special numbers. The first number, to be ready March 20, will be entitled the Resurrection number. Each of these special numbers will have a cover. This Resurrection number is what might be termed an Easter number. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.10
We also expect to get out a General Progress number, dated May 10; the third will be the Independence number, or Fourth of July number; the fourth will be a Thanksgiving number, and the fifth a Holiday number. This is referred to on page 64 of the BULLETIN; and page 65 contains other matter in regard to our publishing work. These special numbers will be of the regular size and price. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.11
Now as to the results of this Signs work, I want to read two or three testimonials. Here is one just received from Brother C. T. Shaffer, of Forsyth, Montana. I will read only a part of his letter; he says:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.12
“All my labor with the ‘Special’ was in towns that I had canvassed thoroughly with the regular issue only a month or six weeks before. It was really a re-canvass, yet I found that I could take subscriptions for one year where I could not sell a single copy. People told me they would not read a single copy of such a paper, and then stop. If they took it at all, they would take it for one year. Also in several of the towns visited, young people have come to me on the street, - people that I was not acquainted with, - and say, ‘Say, mister, you are coming to our house with that paper, aren’t you? We want it.’ Such proceedings were an astonishment to me, yet why should not such things happen in this time of the message? I secured seventy-one regular subscribers on my re-canvass, and ninety on my canvass six weeks before. The district canvassed is 338 miles long, and contains about 7,000 English-speaking souls. On this trip, in addition to the 161 subscribers, I sold approximately 500 copies of the Special number. I found instances where as many as three families were reading the paper from one subscription. At Miles City the brethren took a day off during my visit, and sold papers enough nearly to clear the local tract society of its debt. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.13
“I respectfully request that a special number of the same general size and character be issued, and put in the hands of every member of the Seventh-day Advent church able to walk and talk, early in next December, and push its sale, especially during the holidays. Some trouble may be had in getting rid of the 1,000,000 copies contemplated in this 1898 edition; but I believe that twice as many can be sold next December as were sold this year. I intend to attempt the execution of my belief. Now is the time when all must do something. May the 200,000 mark be reached in the subscription list for the Signs before the close of 1899.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.14
I wish that more might get the same spirit, and manifest the same interest, that Brother Shaffer does in his work. I believe there are. The Spirit of the Lord is laying a burden upon persons there to take hold and canvass for our periodicals. Here is another letter from J. J. Hughes, of Kearney, Nebraska:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.15
“As a result of our work here, beginning with the Signs work, April 25, we closed to-day with the baptism of ten souls and the organization of a church of twenty-two members, and ten or twelve other Sabbath-keepers, some of whom will soon unite with us. We also have a house of worship well under way. The work with the Signs is responsible for a large share of this, and we hereby give it credit. May the Lord bless the Signs in its mission for the lost. There are others interested, who, we trust, will soon come in. Our Sabbath-school attendance averages about forty.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.16
Here is what came in another letter, from Omaha, Nebraska:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.17
“All lines are moving along nicely here in Omaha. The Lord is blessing Brother Warren in finishing up his work. The Signs has done a great work in helping the tent work here. Of the twenty-five or thirty who have come out, from ten to thirteen are those who have had the Signs delivered to them from six to nine months.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.18
These are only samples of what we get. There are doubtless those here who could give testimonials that, wherever the Signs has been used as a pioneer paper, there has been an ingathering of souls, and the work of the minister and Bible worker has been made easier because of it. I wish you would consider these different phases of the periodical work: (1) the taking of the paper in clubs, and sending it out in the usual way; (2) the sale of the paper on the street and in business houses, and from house to house; and (3) the work of putting canvassers in the field to secure subscriptions, following something the same line we do with our subscription book work. It seems to me that before the periodical work goes as it ought to go, it will have to be organized just as thoroughly as our subscription-book work has ever been. It is a different line of work; they can not be carried on together. The subscription-book work is an important work, and we should do in that ten times what we have done. But the periodical work has come before us, as rather a new thing. The feeling has been that we could not sell the Signs. It has been demonstrated that we can. The question now, is this: Shall we increase the price of the Signs? As it is now, it is published at a loss. We lost nearly $4,000 last year. The Pacific Press feels that it is a good missionary work, but it would be too heavy a draft on the office to keep that up. Two or three years ago, when the price was cut down from $1.50 to $1, the General Conference Association took hold of the work, and it was understood that they would share half the loss. They did this for one or two years, but last year they asked to be relieved from that responsibility. We relieved them from it; but is it right to publish the paper continually at such a heavy loss? We want you to consider that. If we attempt to increase the price, we may discourage the workers, and the circulation would decrease instead of increase. Our object is not to see how many books we can sell, or how many papers we can distribute, but to get the truth before the people. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.19
A. O. Burrill: How large a subscription list would be necessary to continue the present price without loss? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.20
C. H. Jones: That is just what I was coming to. The circulation now is about 45,000. If we could have a circulation of 100,000, we could publish the paper just as it now is, without changing the price. When the price was reduced, it was the understanding that we should try to reach a subscription list of 100,000. Since then, we have improved the appearance of the paper very much. When this low price was inaugurated, the Signs did not have any illustrations, - or very few, at any rate, - and it was printed on cheaper paper; but now we have increased the editorial force, secured contributors, are printing it on much better paper, and are putting in many more and better illustrations, all of which have added to the cost; still, we have not increased the price. But could we have a circulation of 100,000, we could continue the price of one dollar a year. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.21
The testimony of our canvassers everywhere is that the illustrations help sell the paper, and secure subscriptions. A thought has just come to my mind that I want to present to the delegates. You responded liberally in the matter of sending the Signs to the editors in all the States; and now what would you think of sending a copy of the quarter-centennial edition of the paper to every minister in your conferences, provided we stand half the cost of mailing? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.22
We should all take hold of the work. The whole Seventh-day Adventist body should be one grand missionary society. On page 11 of “Home Missionary Work,” we read, “Let the missionary meeting be turned to account in teaching the people how to do missionary work.” Our people are ready to do missionary work, but they do not know just how to take hold of the work. It is left with us to lead out in this work, and teach the people how to do it. “The very simplest modes of work should be devised, and set in operation among the churches.” Do not get some great work, something they can not make a success of, but the simple methods of work. Here is Christian Help work, and work with our periodicals and papers. I believe we are getting the Spirit of the message; and when we go to our homes, our people everywhere will be aroused to take hold of the work. God is waiting to see his people move. I feel more determined than ever to take hold of every line of work, and any line of work, that the Lord would have me. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.23
W. W. Prescott: I have listened with much interest; and if I did not feel that the matter was of the very deepest importance, I should not have stayed in this meeting at all. I heard what Brother Sisley said about the falling off of work in the Review and Herald Office, and he knows that I talked over the same matter with him before coming to this conference. The Lord has let his chastening hand fall upon the Review and Herald Office, because its officers would not heed his voice; and I do not look for prosperity to come back to it until his voice is heeded. So while we are listening to these things, and are urged to find canvassers, and to bring back prosperity to the office, it is of no use, because it will not come that way. Now you must have noticed that while the blight has come upon the office, prosperity has come upon the individual canvasser. The individual canvasser is selling more books, in proportion to the time he works, than he used to. That is prosperity to the individual canvasser. At the same time, the blight has been increasing on the office. Now our first duty is to remove the cause, not to try to cover it up, not to try to force prosperity upon it. We individually have a responsibility in this mater; and when the Lord points out, in the clearest words, what the difficulty is, it is of no use to try to find the reason somewhere else, and to remedy it in some other way. This is what I especially want to call the attention of this conference to, because I believe there is a duty upon this conference with reference to it. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 123.24
Further: We often get at things the wrong way, and seek to gain prosperity in our own department, or our own field, by giving our whole attention to our own department and our own field, and thinking and planning and working simply for our own department and our own field. That is not the way to bring prosperity to the work. I have been seeing some things at this conference that I have not seen before, and some Testimonies have been shown to me at this conference that I never saw before, which make all these things the plainer to me. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.1
These brethren who were associated with me in General Conference Committee and the Foreign Mission Board during the years previous to 1897, know what experiences we passed through in getting appropriations made for Australia. I could not understand it then, and I do not say that I took the right course at all. I simply say that because I had confidence that it was the Lord calling for the money and for the workers, I favored, sending them, and voted to do so when the question came up; and yet all the time I could not reason it out; my reason was against it. I would vote for it, and then turn right around, and say to the brethren, “Here is Australasia, with only three million people; and see the money and the laborers that field is swallowing up. I can not understand it:” yet because I felt sure that the Lord’s voice was in the case, I did not dare vote against the proposition. I did not see the thing right, else I would not have reasoned that way; for faith does not reason so. Still, I did not dare go against it. The boards and committees used to argue against it, and I would argue against my own feelings; then voted for it. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.2
Since this conference has begun, I have been able to see more clearly why that was, and why it is, and I think you will see, before we finish, that it applies to this question in hand. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.3
“Think of the necessities of our mission fields throughout the field. The London mission is in distress and need of help. There is a most solemn and important work to be done in that vast city. We have able workmen there, but God designs that they shall have advantages to do the same work that Christ did when he was a minister to this world. So in Scandinavia and in the Central European fields. Means are required to advance the work in its different lines. There is altogether too much spasmodic work. In India and in many other countries, much hard labor is required, in order for the people to understand the minister, or the minister to understand the people. In those countries where there are the fewest impediments, where the people speak our own language, be sure that the needed facilities are provided. In England and Australia the truth can be carried by those who speak English. Then let these countries have educational advantages, and means to advance the work, and train the workers to carry the truth into darker heathen nations. God requires that every institution in America shall assist in providing these facilities.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.4
Now I can tell you in a word where this hits the publishing work. This is the royalty question, by which money was cut off from those fields. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.5
“By building up the institutions in the English-speaking countries, they will have several plants constantly increasing in usefulness and facilities. Thus the work may be done far more rapidly. The Lord has sent to these places his servants who have had experience, and who can carry forward their several branches of the work. To withhold means from them is to neglect the Lord’s direct requirements. Not one hundredth part of the work has been done that would have been accomplished if the workers in America had imparted to others of their great mercies.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.6
What has been presented here this morning as a cure for these difficulties, - that is, to spur up the work in America, - is not the thing. What is needed is to provide facilities in other fields; that will stir up the work in America. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.7
“They would have seen prosperity in England; they would have sympathized with the workers who are struggling with difficulties there, and would have had the heart to say, ‘All ye are brethren.’ The strengthening of the work in English-speaking countries would have placed them where they would have had twenty-fold more influence than they have had to plant the standard of truth in many places.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.8
All that seems very plain to me. There is much more; but what has been read gets the matter before us. I will now read a short extract out of a letter from brother A. G. Daniells:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.9
“For some reason the providence of God has located Sister White in this country, and his spirit is continually urging her to exhort us to press forward with our work. The word that comes to us continually is to enlarge the border of our habitation, to lengthen our cords, and to strengthen our stakes. Of late, she expresses the idea that the providence of God would have us consider this a new world, the same as America was when the truth was first planted there. She seems to feel that Australasia bears the same relation to the British Empire that the United States bears to the rest of the world.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.10
I have seen that coming in different ways during the last few months. You see how reason looks at it. Living in London, with six million people in that one city, and in a country which you can ride across in four hours, and hardly be out of sight of a town all the time, how could I reason that Australasia, with only three million people, could be the center of influence for the British Empire? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.11
I will read further: “In a conversation with her recently, she told me that we ought to establish large facilities in this country for the training of workers to send to all parts of the British Empire. I am inclined to think that none of us fully appreciate the providence of God in locating his servant in this field as he has done. I can not think that it is a mere matter of chance or happen so. She did not want to come here; and when she came, she had no thought of staying more than two years; but the cloud seemed to settle here, and has never lifted; so she has never felt free to leave.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.12
It seems clear to me, from all the course of events through this conference, and from what is before us right now, that our prosperity in our home field turns upon the way we treat these foreign fields from now on. I would like to see no resolutions adopted, but the thing itself done right here; so that from this time forward it would only be necessary for Sister White to send here, and say how much they needed, and then she would have it. That will bring prosperity to our own field. I am not especially pleading for England now. England is no more my field than your field. I wish we all knew that the field is the world. The man who comes from any particular field can give information from that field; but the field is the world. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.13
Why should all the attention of this conference be turned to the circulation of one paper in the English-speaking tongue, - a paper which already has a circulation of 45,000 copies, - while there is another paper, published in London, with a field of 40,000,000 English-speaking people, in which there are only 800 Sabbath-keepers, which is struggling on with a circulation of only 13,000 copies, and yet that is a circulation of seventeen copies to every Sabbath-keeper in the field? [Voices: Good.] Why should it not be just as true with the Bible Echo in Australia? The question of the circulation of Present Truth in London is simply the question of how long the office can stand that sort of work. Last year it stood it, and at the end of the year came out just even. Now we want to increase the circulation of that paper. It has more than a thousand more on the list than it had last summer. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.14
S. H. Lane: Do the canvassers pay their own carriage on the papers? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.15
W. W. Prescott: Yes, sir. They pay half a cent for the paper, pay their own carriage, and sell the paper for two cents. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.16
E. J. Waggoner: I was looking over the number of Sabbath-keepers to find the proportion of Sabbath-keepers to the total population. The report gave the number of workers in proportion to the population: but since every Sabbath-keeper should be a worker, I looked up the proportion of Sabbath-keepers. I find that the United States has one Sabbath-keeper to every 1,600 population, while Great Britain has one Sabbath-keeper to every 50,000. The proportion is even larger in many European countries. To make the comparison even more clear, I will make this statement: If the larger part of the population of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains was in the Southern Peninsula of Michigan; or if the population of Michigan and Indiana or Michigan and Illinois were in Calhoun County, we would have the situation there to work with that we have in England. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.17
W. W. Prescott: Suppose that were true - that all the population were brought into the Southern Peninsula of Michigan, and then such a population in Calhoun County. What would you think under those circumstances, if there were but 800 Sabbath-keepers in Michigan, to give the message to the whole United States? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.18
I will simply add this, and then stop: Let us do our duty to the work abroad; this is the cure for the feebleness of the work at home. The first place to start is with Australia. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.19
It was moved and seconded to adjourn. M. C. Wilcox: Will this publishing work be continued longer? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.20
The Chair: Yes; the whole day will be given to this work. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.21
Adjourned. Benediction by Elder W. T. Knox. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.22
Plans Suggested - Circulation of Periodicals - Subscription Books - How Trade Books May Reach the Market - E. E. Miles’s Idea of It
TWENTY-FOURTH MEETING, TUESDAY, 3 P. M., FEBRUARY 28
Prayer by Elder G. E. Fifield. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.23
E. A. Sutherland: During the last two or three days I have received encouraging letters from the college at Battle Creek, and I have been greatly pleased to learn that there is a general desire on the part of the teachers and pupils to keep in touch with the work in this conference. The telegram is as follows: “Fast day. In the midst of meeting. True ring. God is with us.” This is signed by the secretary of the faculty. I thought it would be of interest to these delegates to know that the students and teachers are fasting and praying for the success of the work here. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.24
A. T. Jones: I want to call attention to some points that Brother Prescott referred to as to the effect that the secret of the lack in the distribution of literature has on the institutions themselves. The Lord has pointed out where it lies; and he has told us how to remedy it, and what the result will be when it is remedied. There is no need of going blindly about it, groping in darkness. I will read in that connection, so you may all know. This I am about to read was written July 27, 1897, - since the last General Conference, you see:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.25
“God requires things to be set in order. He calls for men of decided fidelity. He has no use in an emergency for two-sided men. He wants men who will lay their hand upon a work, and say, This is not according to the will of God. It is this miserable thing in dealing with wrongs that God has condemned. The work that will meet the mind of the Spirit of God has not yet begun in Battle Creek. When the work of seeking God with all the heart commences, there will be many confessions made that are now buried. I do not at present feel it my duty to confess for those who ought to make, not a general, but a plain, definite confession, and so cleanse the Lord’s institutions from the defilement that has come upon them... Unless there is a thorough reformation and turning unto the Lord, he will surely turn his face from his institution, the publishing house.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.26
Here is an extract from a letter dated Dec. 9, 1897, referring to this same thing:- “It is these things that turned the face of God from the Review and Herald Office.” In September, 1897, the word came: “Unless there is a thorough reformation and turning unto the Lord, he will surely turn his face from his institution, the publishing house.” Then later, the word came on Dec. 9, 1897, saying: “It is these things that turned the face of God from the Review and Herald Office.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.27
“Take no false panacea for wounds and bruises. Go to Jesus. Tell him that you must be cleansed and restored. There is not one beyond hope if you will come just as you are. You may put on counterfeit garments of righteousness. You may smile, and say that all these little difficulties are made up of little or nothing. But God says to you in Battle Creek, ‘Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.28
Under date of Aug. 29, 1897, I read:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.29
“Reformation has not yet begun in Battle Creek. Changes in places and positions have been made, but the hearts of those who have not been molded after the divine similitude, are not changed. They see not, nor understand, over what they have stumbled. God would have the office of publication kept pure and clean by righteous principles.” Now the promise is: “Then he will advance his work through consecrated workers.” There is the disease; there is the remedy; and there is what will follow when it is done. When this word is followed, and the institutions are cleansed, the right principles are espoused, the literature will go all right. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.30
F. H. Westphal: I have listened to these Testimonies with some interest; and I have been thinking of the needs of Argentina, in connection with the publication of our Spanish paper. If there are any of our offices of publication, or private individuals, who have a hand-press that they could give, to be used to the glory of God, we could use such a press to advantage in Buenos Ayres. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 124.31
I. H. Evans: I feel interested in this question of the circulation of our literature. Granting all that has been said to be true in regard to the bad condition of our office, it seems to me that it would be unwise not to lay some plans by which there may be co-operation in getting our literature distributed. The thing will never grow better by standing still. Granting all that the delegate from England mentioned, I can see no wisdom in laying no plans to get our churches to work in America. It is true that the foreign fields need help. They must have it, and it is in the hearts of this delegation to grant it to them; but it is equally true that we have a large field here in America. Thousands of our people ought to be set to work in the distribution of our literature in one form or another. Many of these can not go to foreign fields. If they should wait until they could go, before they worked, nothing would ever be done. It seems to me that it is wisdom for these brethren, while we are here together, to lay some plan by which the distribution of our literature can be greatly increased. In years gone by, when we had more prosperity, we could not say that it was owing exclusively to our deep spirituality, but it was partly owing to co-operation and a spirit of enthusiasm. What we need to-day is enthusiasm; and to get our churches, our conference officers, and our brethren and sisters everywhere, to take hold of the distribution of this literature. Therefore I would like to have the secretary of the Committee on Plans and Resolutions, who has some suggestions already prepared, to present them here, and allow these delegates to consider the propriety of their adoption. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.1
H. P. Holser: I have a few suggestions which have been handed in to the Committee on Plans and Resolutions; and the committee returns them to the conference for consideration or not, as the conference may wish:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.2
“1. That the General Conference appoint a general canvassing agent, who shall work under the supervision and pay of the General Conference. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.3
“2. That our publishing houses be advised to appoint and support a general canvassing agent for each district. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.4
“3. That we request the State conferences to appoint State agents who shall devote their time to developing canvassers, and to extending the circulation of our literature. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.5
“4. That we call the attention of our ministers and workers to the importance of using their influence to secure a wider circulation of our literature. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.6
“5. That our schools and publishing houses co-operate in conducting canvassing schools. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.7
“6. That some means be provided to secure a larger circulation of our foreign periodicals and literature.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.8
The Chair: These suggestions are now before you for consideration. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.9
The Secretary read Suggestion 1. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.10
L. C. Sheafe: I move its adoption. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.11
G. E. Fifield: I second the motion. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.12
J. H. Kellogg: I believe that this is returning to a plan which existed a number of years ago. I know something about the publishing business. I was put into the Review office when I was about twelve years old, and, under the instruction of Elder James White, I remained there until I was about twenty years of age. I am fully persuaded that the publishing houses have a sufficient margin in the printing of books to be able to pay their own canvassing agents; and I see no reason why the tithes, which are to be used for the ministers, for the preaching of the gospel, must be used in paying the book agents. I can not see any propriety whatever in that resolution. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.13
A. T. Jones: Will somebody tell what the general agent is for? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.14
The Chair: Perhaps the Committee on Recommendations could give us some light on it. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.15
H. P. Holser: I would say that this is not a measure adopted by the Committee on Plans and Resolutions. It is a measure handed in, and we pass it in to you for consideration. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.16
C. H. Jones: It did not come before the committee. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.17
A. T. Jones: I can tell you that I do not believe in it a particle. If nobody can tell what it is for, or what the “general agent” is to be paid for, I do not think much argument is needed against the proposition. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.18
J. H. Kellogg: I would like to know what is meant by “publishing houses.” It may be well to offer an explanation, or statement, now. For a number of years the sanitarium has maintained a publishing department for the publication of Good Health, and the circulation of health literature. It has been maintained as an educational part of the sanitarium; but the Good Health Publishing Company, as this department has been termed, has not been generally recognized in our conference proceedings and other arrangements, as a publishing house, except during the last year. About a year ago the General Conference, by action, recognized the Good Health Publishing Company as one of the denominational publishing houses. Since that time the Good Health Publishing Company has been incorporated; and the educational department of the sanitarium, heretofore known as the Good Health Publishing Company, has turned over its property and its interest to the incorporated company, which is incorporated on the same basis as are our other publishing houses, so that all the profits go to the denominational work. The profits of the Good Health Publishing Company are devoted to the maintenance of our Medical Missionary College, which is an expensive school to maintain. This expense is partly paid by this publishing house, and partly by the sanitarium. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.19
I wish also to say that the Modern Medicine Publishing Company has placed all its books in the hands of the Good Health Publishing Company; and so all our books and health literature at the present time are in the hands of the Good Health Publishing Company, for sale everywhere, as our other publications are sold by the other publishing houses of the denomination. I wish to say further that the Good Health Publishing Company is ready to pay its proportionate share of the salary of a general canvassing agent, who shall have general charge of the canvassing work. It will pay its share, pro rata, according to the literature disposed of. It seems to me that all the publishing houses should be proportionately responsible for the salary of such a worker. For instance, under his administration, the Good Health Publishing Company would sell a certain number of books during a month, the Pacific Press Publishing Company a certain number, and the Review and Herald Publishing Company a certain number. At the end of the month these publishing houses could settle with the agent, each paying an amount proportionate to the amount sold by each house. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.20
A. T. Jones: I have doubts about any general agent’s paying for what he costs, for the reason that I have never seen any Seventh-day Adventist yet (and really, I never expect to see one) who ever has read, and will read, all the books that are to be canvassed for, so that one is qualified to instruct agents to canvass for all the books. I would a good deal rather see more canvassers in the field than more agents. I would a good deal rather see a man go out and sell books, than go out to try to hunt up people to sell books. From what little experience I have had, I have found it exceedingly hard to get men who can sell books. Those who can sell them would a good deal rather go out and get others to sell them than to sell them themselves. I wish we could get men to sell books. Why, if a man makes a success in selling books, and others see that there is something in it, there will be a whole lot of young men and women who will be anxious to sell books, too. Wherever he goes, the work will follow him, and those who see the results of his work will be anxious to try it, and he will be building up the canvassing work wherever he goes. That is what I mean when I say I would like to see some agents who will sell books, rather than to see them hunt up others to sell books. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.21
H. H. Hall: I think, brethren, we have too large a field to expect any general agent to cover it all. When we try to spread one man over an entire district, it is about as far as he can go. The idea of a general agent covering the whole territory is altogether impracticable, it seems to me; and I could not, therefore, vote for the resolution. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.22
The question was put, and lost. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.23
The secretary then read No. 2. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.24
C. H. Jones: I think that the publishing houses now, as a general thing, are doing that. I do not know whether it is by vote, or not; but they have done it the last year. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.25
C. Santee: How is Brother Z. Sherrig supported in his work? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.26
W. C. Sisley: He is paid by the Review and Herald Office. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.27
C. Santee: As far as our field, or rather the Western field, is concerned, it seems to me very evident that a man of this kind to attend our canvassers’ institutes, etc., is a necessity. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.28
We have heard some solemn Testimonies in regard to the lacks in the publishing houses; but I know that although there have been grave mistakes made there, and although they have received these Testimonies pleading with them to right up these matters, some of these Testimonies have come to the other end of the line. We have been told that we have not done our duty in keeping books, and tracts, and denominational literature on the shelves. I believe we have been guilty in these things. As this is so, I think I voice the sentiments of others when I say that we are trying to cultivate a different spirit in regard to the canvassing work; and I think that our efforts, perhaps, will be successful. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.29
In regard to this home work, I read in No. 6 of the “Special Testimonies to Ministers and Workers,” page 59: “Our people are doing work for foreign missions, but there are home missions that need their help just as much as these foreign missions. We should make efforts to show our people the wants of the cause of God, and to open before them the need of using means that God has intrusted to them, to advance the work of the Master both at home and abroad.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.30
Now it does seem to me that while we are being especially moved in regard to the work in what is called the foreign field, - and I am glad that this is so, - I feel that it is not best for us to take our eyes entirely off the real work in the field in our States here and there, and the work that we ought to be taking hold of and pushing forward there. That is one reason why we should especially understand that the States are responsible, as well as these publishing houses, if we do not do more than we have done in carrying out the instruction of the Spirit of God in distributing the literature that has been printed in our office. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.31
The Chair: It seems from the statement of the managers of the publishing houses, that this arrangement is already in effect, and therefore this suggestion carries no force. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.32
C. H. Jones: I would not want any one to understand that I am not in favor of this plan, for it is already in operation as far as the Pacific Press is concerned. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.33
The next recommendation was called for, and was read by the Secretary. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.34
R. A. Underwood: Now we have heard considerable about the so-called decline in the circulation of our literature this morning, and some reasons were given as the cause; but if we could go back and study the case, I think we would see that the same causes, as far as the Testimonies are concerned, can be traced back for from ten to twenty-five years. Now it is a fact that there are three or four conferences that have sold just as many books during the last three or four years as they ever did. These were right in the field at the time when the general depression was felt the most. How did they keep up the old-time energy and the old-time results in putting the books into the field? - The ministers in those conferences, the presidents of the conferences, the members of the conference committees, and the church elders were full of the idea of getting our literature into the field. And our brethren who were sent out as canvassers were regarded as in a work just as sacred as the ministry. If we and our brethren are to take hold of the canvassing work, we must ourselves sense its importance. Then we need not lay the fault on somebody else, but let us take it ourselves. I will take it with you. Let us say that we have not done our duty by this branch of the work, but by God’s grace we will reform. And when we do reform, and do our work in the way it should be done, we shall not find fault with some one else, and say they are the fellows to blame. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.35
I know of one conference where it has been the practice of the brethren, as they met in prayer-meeting, to mention in prayer the names of those who were having a little hard time of it. I have been at some of their meetings when the canvassers would walk in from twenty-five to a hundred miles. That spirit spread to some of the other brethren, and they went into the field. What we want is a revival of the old-time energy, and to be vivified by the power of the Holy Ghost. When this is done, we shall see the canvassing work supported by the ministers and elders, and the work will go forward to a glorious victory. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.36
E. T. Russell: The Lord has wonderfully blessed the canvassing work in our conference during the last year; and we believe that that blessing is largely due to the influence of a good State agent. I am not much in sympathy with the idea of a State agent going out to rustle up canvassers, and dodging here and there, and getting a promise from persons that they will engage in the canvassing work. Often they will promise to engage in the canvassing work in two or three weeks, or two or three months; but the fact is that in the majority of cases they do not materialize. We have realized the best results in our State by having our State agent go out with some of the companies, and then select one or two of the most suitable canvassers to go with other companies, and all stay right by them. If you do not stay by a new canvasser, he soon gets discouraged, and returns home. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 125.37
I am very much in favor of the State canvassing agents. I must say, as Brother Underwood has, that I believe that they are one of the most important factors in connection with conference work. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.1
E. E. Franke: I am thoroughly convinced that Dr. Kellogg struck the key-note of this whole subject a moment ago. I am heartily in favor of State agents and of the canvassing work in general; but I am satisfied that the State agents ought to be paid by the publishing houses instead of by the conferences. There are many good reasons for this. The publishing houses have more money than our conferences; and when our ministers are compelled to labor for from eight to twelve dollars a week, and the ordinary clerks in many of our publishing houses get fifteen or sixteen dollars a week, it seems to me some of this surplus money might be spent in paying the State agents. I am satisfied that a reform is called for in this matter. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.2
O. A. Olsen, acting as chairman: What is your further pleasure? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.3
M. C. Wilcox: I understood there was a motion that we pass on to the next suggestion. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.4
The Secretary, reading: “That we call the attention of our ministers and workers to the importance of using their influence to secure a wider circulation of our literature.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.5
The Chair: Are there any remarks on this suggestion? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.6
S. H. Lane: I think the proposition before us in reference to ministers’ taking a deeper interest in the circulation of our literature is so apparent that one needs to say but little on it; yet it is a fact that we might do more than we do, - and when I say we, I include myself. I remember a time when the only agents for our literature in the field were the ministers. We never used to think of starting out with a tent without a box of books; and we would put them on the stand before us every night except Friday night; and when we were through preaching on a subject, we would take up a book, and give a short canvass on it. I have known ministers to sell from three to ten dollars’ worth of books a night; and I have known of our selling from fifty to two hundred dollars’ worth during the summer. I have been pained to see our tents equipped with almost every convenience except books. Night after night they were not advertised. I do not attribute this to a lack of interest on the part of the ministers; but we now have tract societies. In those early days when we sold books as I have said, we had no tract societies; indeed, the first institution of the tract society was the old book fund; and after it was established, and we started out with tents, the ministers were too poor to give away tracts; and sometimes a package of tracts or a small collection of books was given to us, to give away to the poorer members of our congregation. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.7
The canvassers went into the field, and the ministers were forbidden to sell subscription books; we were forbidden to sell the helps; and gradually we have stopped selling books, until to-day there are very few books sold by our ministers. I believe there should be a reform on that point. I do not believe in giving the tract societies such a monopoly that when a minister has an opportunity to sell a book, he can’t do it. I will tell you why. From the preaching, some want to hear more, and would buy a book. “But,” says a canvasser, “it will spoil our territory.” No, I beg your pardon, my brother canvasser, it won’t. It will simply advertise your work. Some will say, I saw a book over at the neighbors, and I have been wanting one ever since. If you can supply such a book, I shall be glad of it. Instead of hurting the canvassers’ sales, this will help them. We used to say, to a new convert: “My brother, we have the Review, the Signs, the Instructor,” - and by the way, the Instructor in those days, preached the third angel’s message. I am sorry it doesn’t to-day. I don’t believe, brethren, that any book ought to be issued from our presses that doesn’t preach the third angel’s message. The sooner we come to that point, the better it will be for the books, for us, and for the presses; and if the Youth’s Instructor can not say a word about the second coming of Jesus Christ, and the Sabbath question, let us do away with the whole thing, and have only those publications in which we can put our power and might, and circulate them everywhere. Why not say: “Here is the Review; it gives the reports from all over the world,” and get those who accept the truth to take it for three months, six months, or a year? I believe if we would do this, the Review and Herald, and the Signs of the Times lists would be materially increased. Let us get to work as ministers, and demonstrate by our works that we are in favor of this resolution. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.8
E. P. Boggs: I want to second the remarks by Elder Lane concerning our ministers having the privilege of selling our subscription books. I have been engaged in the canvassing work about nine years, and never have I been in any way injured, or has my work been interfered with by a minister’s selling one of our subscription books. I would be glad, if I were going out to canvass, to have the minister visit the families he would naturally visit in the course of his rounds during the week, and place a book in the homes of the leading people, where I would naturally go. When they would say, “We have that book,” I would be just as glad they had it as if I placed it there myself. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.9
J. W. Westphal: One of our canvassers lent one of our books to a man in the vicinity of Santa Fe, and I happened to pass through that place, and visited the same individual, and he purchased from me ten books as the result of reading that one. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.10
The Chair: It is now time for recess. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.11
M. C. Wilcox: May I ask that the suggestion be read again? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.12
The secretary again read the suggestion. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.13
M. C. Wilcox: What I am going to say may not be considered as bearing directly on that question, but we are ministers, and are all interested in the circulation of our literature, and the Signs of the Times is literature. It has been quite prominently mentioned in the report given by the president of the Pacific Press Board, and it would not be out of place to say a few things in regard to it. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.14
The large circulation of the Signs ought not to interfere in any way with our foreign work, or with a larger work, that should be done with our foreign papers. I have a burden for our papers in foreign lands; and the more burden I have for the Signs, the more burden I have for the other papers also. Hardly a week goes by that I do not think of the great cities of the Old World, with their teeming millions in England, in Australia, and the English-speaking people in India and South Africa. Every time these papers come to me, I wish that they had as large a circulation as the Signs, because through them many of these people must listen to the truth. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.15
But the circulation of the Signs in this country, and of our other pioneer publications also, ought to be that which should develop workers from among the lay members in our churches. It is true that many of our members are simply dying from want of work. If they would go to work in the field, they would feel their own need as they can never feel it in any other way. And then, feeling their own need, they would be led to seek Him who alone can supply their need. The development of laborers in this way means the development of laborers in other lands. It gives more opportunity for our ministers and other workers to be sent to foreign fields. The more we can interest our lay brethren and sisters in their work at home, the more opportunity it will give our ministers to go to fields beyond. That is what the Lord wants us to do. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.16
We have been told, again and again, and it appeals to the reason of every one of us, that our great cities ought to be entered; and we have thousands and millions of people in this country who have never heard the truth. They are largely in our great cities, where next to nothing has been done; and it seems to me that we could take an example from what has been done, and what is being done in England. If as many of the Signs of the Times were circulated in proportion to the number of Seventh-day Adventists in this country, the number would be over 800,000. But we would not expect this, as there are other periodicals to be circulated. During all this time, workers would be developing and educated for other lines. We would be developing men and women, not for this field alone, but for all the world. One of the plans that it seems to me ought to be considered in this respect is that workers should be sent into the large cities; and if one conference has more large cities than another conference, why not take good workers who have been developed in these lines in another conference, and send them out into these large cities, not only to canvass for our papers, but to do Bible-reading work, etc. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.17
There is another great need for our periodicals, among what would be called the lower class of men; that is, those whom many might call “accursed.” I refer to the saloon-keepers, bar-tenders, keepers of dives and low-down dens. It has been demonstrated that the Signs of the Times can gain a respectable entrance to such places as these; that our sisters can go into such places, and go respected and come out respected, and will be received again and again respected. Those who are there will respect the women and the work they are doing. Thousands of these will never hear a sermon. We can not send any one there to give Bible readings, unless it should be some men; and these will not receive so much consideration. But through our literature, this class can be reached, as has been demonstrated in the large cities. There are other classes in our large cities that will never be reached in any other way. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.18
In order to sell our papers, they must be illustrated, and the better it is done, the better they will sell, and the longer subscriptions can be taken for them. It is expensive to get original illustrations. We have a number of pioneer papers in the Scandinavian, the German, and other languages, in India, Africa, Australia, and England; and could we not pool our interests in this respect, so that all these papers can be nicely illustrated at a cost greatly reduced from what it would be if each had to do the work separately? At the present time the Signs is leading out in this work of illustration, because it has had to have new illustrations to meet the demands. We are with you to push the Lord’s work with all our power and ability in every land. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.19
R. I. Francis: I am much interested in this subject; and from my limited experience, I find that thousands of people to-day are hungry for good literature. I believe that we have this literature. You know that the people will read a newspaper when they won’t look at a book. The Signs should go, and I am satisfied that all the Pacific Press people ask is our co-operation: they will do the rest. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.20
N. W. Allee: I am glad that this question is up for consideration. I would call your attention to a statement in the report of the Southern field, in the last paragraph of page 17 of the BULLETIN, in regard to the Signs: “In regard to the advancement of the general work in this field, I would suggest that special efforts be made to establish local and church schools, and to organize systematic work with the Signs of the Times in cities and towns, and the medical missionary and canvassing work.” My experience in this field is that the use of the Signs of the Times in that field is one of the best methods of getting the truth before the people. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.21
It is hard to talk upon any of these lines, without involving another; and I am thankful that our work is so interlinked. The methods in one field may not be the methods of others; but there are general principles underlying all. I have thought that I would like to submit a plan to this conference. We want some definite plan that is adapted to that particular field, more than general ideas. We want to get to work. I have observed in my field that where there is a systematic method, which is continued for a sufficient length of time, there is always a good interest awakened. When the proper person can be found to go into a city and stay there week after week, and month after month, and get his route of subscribers, deliver these papers by himself week by week, invariably there is an interest created. So far as we have tried that, we have found it to be one of the best methods. I am sure that the man who can handle 500 copies of the Signs each week, delivering them to the persons who will read them, will accomplish more in six months than four of the best ministers can do in a whole year. Perhaps you think that is an extravagant statement; but it is not. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.22
There are large cities in the South. We have over fifteen million people in District 2. We should be distributing at least a hundred thousand Signs in our large cities. The majority of the people of the South have not yet heard this message. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.23
I am not going to ask you for ministers for that field. I do not want you to think I do not value the ministry, for I do; but, brethren, I think there is a work to precede preaching in a good many places in the South. I would much prefer to have men take up this work in that field, and be encouraged to do it, and supported in it, where they can not make an entire support for themselves in the paper work. I am sure that the results would warrant the outlay. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.24
In one Southern city we have fifty thousand people, and two ministers, who are each receiving $10 a week; they are excellent workers, too. I am satisfied that a good man engaged in the circulation of the Signs in that city would accomplish more than four times as much in six months as those two ministers will in a year. Which would be the cheaper? The wages of those two ministers will support eight or ten good Signs canvassers in as many cities. I have been studying this subject from a financial standpoint. The General Conference is paying its laborers in that field about $450 a month, taking all classes. That does not include the visiting General Conference brethren from other fields, who come in to help us occasionally. I have seriously thought that it might be better to encourage in a substantial way some of this Signs work, and thus give an impetus to the cause in the South. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 126.25
From my experience, I feel like making an earnest appeal before this body for the privilege of encouraging that line of work, and giving these workers the assurance that they will have some support; for I am sure that they can not make a support simply by selling the Signs. I am sure that these workers will bring many into the truth, and not nearly so much will be required to support this work as to work by other methods. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.1
D. H. Oberholtzer: In our conference we have been making a strong effort to secure some result of this sort. We would like some practical methods. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.2
D. W. Reavis: I move that the right to sell subscription books in their public meetings be restored to our ministers. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.3
Dr. J. H. Kellogg: I offer the following substitute:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.4
“Resolved, That it is not, in our opinion detrimental to the interest of the canvassing work that ministers should sell our denominational books, and take subscriptions for our denominational papers, and that they should be allowed the usual agent’s commission on the same.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.5
The Chair: Will the mover accept the substitute? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.6
D. W. Reavis: I will. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.7
A. J. Breed: I would second that motion. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.8
H. W. Cottrell: I presume the tract societies have some rights in this question: therefore perhaps we ought not to pass the resolution, but simply make it a strong suggestion. But I do think it is a proper thing to do. I really think that the thing in our minds is to get the truth before the people. Personally I would grant the privilege to all the New England ministers to sell all they wish. I think the minister should have the profits on the sale of the books as truly as the writer of the book should have the profits of the books that he writes. I believe that if there could be a general understanding, or agreement, on this question, there would be many books sold that otherwise would be lying on the shelves. I certainly wish this might pass as a strong suggestion from this body, and then be carried out. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.9
The question was called for. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.10
E. E. Miles: I rise to a question of privilege. I am not a delegate. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.11
The Chair: Do you wish to speak to the resolution? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.12
E. E. Miles: Yes, sir. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.13
The Chair: If there is no objection on the part of the delegation, you may speak. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.14
E. E. Miles: If I did not have a burden upon my heart, I would not rise to speak. It has been said that your time is worth $2.50 a minute. If the chairman will time me, I will draw a check to-morrow for $2.50 a minute for the time I occupy, and add $1 to it. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.15
The particular point that I want to get at is the trade-book business. For five years I have had this on my mind, and the burden has been growing heavier during this time. I have appealed to our publishing houses for books to sell to the trade. Just after your last General Conference, the answer came to me from the Review and Herald Publishing Company to this effect: You are in District 1. That district is under the control of the Pacific Press Publishing Company; therefore we refer you to Brother T. A. Kilgore. I went to Brother Kilgore for books. He had received a letter referring to this application. He reasoned this way: If the thing was to be referred to him, he, in turn, must refer it to the local conferences of the district. Therefore Brother Kilgore said: I refer you to the New England Tract Society. Previous to this time I had appealed to the New England Tract Society for books. They understood that to let me have them would conflict with the canvassers; therefore they restricted me to the city of Boston, and to the retail dealers only. They thought they might experiment a little on the city of Boston, by confining the work to the limits of that city. Therefore you see where I was. When we got that around, it was not the United States, or the general field, which they wished me to occupy, but District 1; then it was not the Atlantic District, but the New England Conference; then it was not the New England Conference, but the city of Boston; and then it was not the city of Boston, but a few retail dealers in the city. I did go to them, and sell some books, and am selling them some up to this time. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.16
Now you see that this resolution touches the question, doesn’t it? The books that I wanted to sell were not the large subscription books, but those smaller books called “helps;” and as I understand it, there is where the thing stands up to this hour. We practically have no right to sell anything that is issued for the canvassers. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.17
I noted with interest the speeches made, and reports given, by the managers of our publishing houses. I noticed that the manager of the Review and Herald said not one word about the trade-book business; the manager of the Pacific Press Publishing Company did allude to it, but said it was a matter for the managers of the publishing houses to take hold of. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.18
Now I would like to see this conference put itself on record, as it is probable they will in passing this resolution, with the understanding that it is broad enough so that ministers, or other workers who are not ministers, who have it in their hearts to go to the trade, and sell books to them, will have the opportunity to do so. It will never come about in any other way. These brethren here can not sell books to the trade; they never will. Our publishing houses will never sell books to the trade. It has never come that way. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.19
You go back to the beginning of the canvassing work. How did it come? - An individual here and there went to selling books. What was the result? - There was a demand for books, and that demand was supplied. How will the trade books be obtained? - In the same way; somebody will have enough liberty granted him to make an experiment on his own account. He will demonstrate the fact that books can be sold through the trade and the news agencies; then there will be a demand, and that demand will be supplied. Isn’t that so? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.20
C. H. Jones: Has not the Pacific Press offered to secure your services to do that very thing? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.21
E. E. Miles: Yes, sir; but my reply to the Pacific Press was that I did not want to tie myself up in an office. It was suggested that I connect with the Pacific Press Publishing Company in New York. What would that be? - That would be to tie myself up in an office in New York, or at least it would be to have a publishing house back of me, directing my efforts; and therefore I would be hampered. I said to Brother Jones, Put your man in there, and let him make an experiment. There is room for more than one man to operate in this field. You need me in the field where I am to-day. (I was in the West, selling thousands of books to the trade.) I have lately been handling my dictionary here in the East, and in this way I have become acquainted with a large proportion of the dealers throughout the eastern part of the United States and the middle West. I have had dealings with these men all over the United States, and in other countries, and have become personally acquainted with many of them. Now when I go to them and renew orders for dictionaries, they are saying to me, Haven’t you got something else for us? Last September I went to a concern in the city of New York, which has been selling the dictionaries for two or three years. They said to me, Haven’t you got something else? I went to Brother Kilgore and said to him, “Will you let me try to sell ‘Spiritualism’ to those people?” I knew I was getting on forbidden ground; but Brother Kilgore just broke over a little there, and trod on the toes of the canvassers: He said, “Yes, you go and see what you can do.” I went down there the next day, and said: “I have found something that is just what you want.” They looked the book over, and said, “You leave us a copy, and we will examine it.” That was a book from another publishing house. Then I showed them “Spiritualism,” and told them what I thought that would be. They said, “We can use that; get us a copy.” I went back to the Pacific Press, and made arrangements with Brother Kilgore to furnish the books. What did that mean? - Those people put out a million catalogues. It would cost $10,000, at a cent apiece, to mail these catalogues. And there was an opening to put in “Spiritualism,” with a cut of the book, to be mailed before Christmas, to eight hundred thousand people, leaving two hundred thousand in reserve. That cut was not delivered, and so did not get into the circular. When I heard of that in Minnesota, it came near taking my life. It seemed to me that rather than to have that fail as it did, I would give every cent I had in this world. I could not eat. I do believe that our publishing houses are not awake to the opportunities that are before them in the matter of getting our books before the people through these means. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.22
A. T. Jones: That’s so! GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.23
E. E. Miles: Now there are difficulties in the way of the trade-book business that I have not time to mention to-day, at $3.50 a minute. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.24
Voices: $2.50 a minute. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.25
E. E. Miles: I am going to add a dollar; and I am going to pay it, too. How can I do it? I will tell you - by selling books through the trade. I have not received a cent from our people for work I have done since the fall of 1893. Everything I have done - time, traveling expenses, incidentals, has been paid for from the business I am doing. I am putting enough into the cause to pay from my tithes and offerings, the best minister we have. What did I say that for? Simply to boast? - No, no! Simply to show that something can be done. I am willing to risk something to have it done. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.26
Now I see Brother [C. H.] Jones is aching to get up and reply. I want to anticipate a little. I do believe our brethren are waking up to this idea, and I have come up to this conference with great anticipations, and great hopes; and yet it did seem as if the thing was going to pass by without anything but just an incidental notice. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.27
What do I mean by this trade-book business? - I mean that we must make books for the trade; possibly some of these “helps” can be fixed so they will sell; but we must have men to make books that will meet the demands of the times. What then - When they have done that, and got them into the trade, what shall we have? - We shall have all our ministers and canvassers here to go right on with the work, just as they are doing; and at the same time we shall have every newsboy on the trains and all these people at news stands working for us. The clerks in our book stores will be working for us, selling present truth. Then we must have subscription books in the hands of agents not of our denomination. Can this be done? - Certainly. There are concerns to which I am furnishing books who are issuing catalogues advertising books on which are the imprints of denominational and subscription-book houses, that they put out as their own catalogues, and we can do the same. We can have books made that will meet the demands of the times, and will be full to the brim of present truth, and we can get them into the hands of these different subscription-book companies so that all their agents will be working selling present truth. The brethren ask me, “Haven’t you got that little dictionary now so that you can come back and preach the truth with us?” I know they don’t understand it at all; so I say, “I don’t think so.” I try to make them understand what my burden is. Brother Jones wrote to me, and wanted me to take a place in this district as general canvassing agent. I haven’t a particle of burden for that. Why - Because my life is thrown into this line, - has been for five years, - and it has been here for a purpose, under God. I do not care one cent whether I am engaged directly, or have any prominent part in this work, if I can only be the means, under God, of stirring this thing up, so that other men will take hold of it. Let the publishing houses put out their own men. I don’t ask that they shall have anything to do with me, or I with them, unless it is to their advantage. But I am in this line, if I have to make my own books and sell them myself. That is the way I feel about it; and I expect that, directly or indirectly, I am going to be connected with this just as long as the Lord lets me live. I have no idea that I shall ever have any burden for anything else, because I think this is a work God wants me to do. I am in it, and am in it to stay until our work is done. In October I sold $100 worth of Review and Herald publications, mostly, however, “Making Home Happy.” I thank you for the time you have allowed me. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.28
M. C. Wilcox: May I ask for the reading of the resolution again? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.29
Chairman: The Secretary will read it. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.30
The Secretary re-read the resolution. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.31
Voices: Question, question. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.32
The Chair: As many as favor the adoption of this will say, Aye. Opposed, No. Unanimously carried. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.33
M. C. Wilcox: In behalf of Brother C. H. Jones, who is called away, I would like to present the following and move its adoption. It has been discussed quite fully, and I think it will take no time. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.34
“We recommend, That an earnest effort be made by all our conferences to give our pioneer paper, the Signs of the Times, a wide circulation. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.35
“(a) By taking clubs and mailing the paper to interested readers. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.36
“(b) By selling it on the streets of our cities, in business houses, and from house to house, working up regular routes, and delivering it in person. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.37
“(c) By regular canvass for both long and short-term subscriptions. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.38
“(d) By its use by our Bible workers in prosecuting their work.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.39
Voice: I second the motion. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.40
The Chair: As many as favor it say, Aye. Opposed, No. Carried. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.41
On motion, the meeting adjourned. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.42
The only power which God has for the propagation of the gospel in the world, through men, is the Holy Ghost. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 127.43
Important Communication From Australia - The Work for this Time - Work for Outcasts - The Gospel Wagon - Camp-Meetings - Meeting-Houses and Church Schools - Relation of the Ministry to Medical Missionary Work
TWENTY-FIFTH MEETING, WEDNESDAY, 9:30 A. M., MARCH 1
Elder Geo. A. Irwin in the chair. Prayer by Geo. B. Wheeler. Record of previous day’s proceeding approved. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.1
The Chair: Some communications for the conference came in the mail from Australia this morning. Shall they now be read? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.2
Voices: Certainly. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.3
The Chair, reading:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.4
THE WORK FOR THIS TIME
We are standing on the threshold of great and solemn events. Prophecies are fulfilling. The last great conflict will be short, but terrible. Old controversies will be revived. New controversies will arise. The last warnings must be given to the world. There is a special power in the presentation of the truth at the present time; but how long will it continue? - Only a little while. If ever there was a crisis, it is now. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.5
Decided efforts should be made to bring the message for this time prominently before the people. The third angel is to go forth with great power. Let none ignore this work, or treat it as of little importance. The truth is to be proclaimed to the world, that they may see the light. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.6
This is our work. The light that we have upon the third angel’s message is the truth light. The mark of the beast is exactly what it has been proclaimed to be. All in regard to this matter is not yet understood, and will not be understood until the unrolling of the scroll; but a most solemn work is to be accomplished in our world. The Lord’s command to his servants is, “Cry aloud; spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.7
There is to be no change in the features of our work. It is to stand as clear and distinct as prophecy has made it. We are to enter into no confederacy with the world, supposing that by so doing we could accomplish more. If any stand in the way, to hinder the advancement of the work in the lines that God has appointed, they will displease God. No line of our faith that has made us what we are, is to be weakened. We have the old landmarks of truth, experience, and duty, and we are to stand firmly in defence of our principles, in full view of the world. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.8
It is essential that men be raised up to open the living oracles of God to all nations, tongues, and peoples. Men of all ranks and capacities, with various gifts, are to stand in their God-given armor, to co-operate harmoniously for a common result. They are to unite in the work of bringing the truth to all nations and peoples, each worker fulfilling his own special appointment. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.9
There is a wide field of action, and in their plans and devising, all need to consider the result. Everything is to move according to the divine plan. The whole body must be fitly joined together, that each member may promote the designs of Him who gave his life for the life of the world. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.10
As the work advances, dangers arise that need to be guarded against. As new enterprises are entered upon, there is a tendency to make some one line all-absorbing; that which should have the first place becomes a secondary consideration. The church needs fresh power and vitality; but there is great danger of taking on new lines of work that will waste their energies instead of bringing life into the church. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.11
THE WORK FOR THE OUTCASTS
Of late a great interest has been aroused for the poor and outcast classes; a great work has been entered upon for the uplifting of the fallen and degraded. This in itself is a good work. We should ever have the spirit of Christ, and we are to do the same class of work that he did for suffering humanity. The Lord has a work to be done for the outcasts. There is no question but that it is the duty of some to labor among them, and try to save the souls that are perishing. This will have its place in connection with the proclamation of the third angel’s message and the reception of Bible truth. But there is danger of loading down every one with this class of work, because of the intensity with which it is carried on. There is danger of leading men to center their energies in this line, when God has called them to another work. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.12
The great question of our duty to humanity is a serious one, and much of the grace of God is needed in deciding how to work so as to accomplish the greatest amount of good. Not all are called to begin their work by laboring among the lowest classes. God does not require his workmen to obtain their education and training in order to devote themselves exclusively to these classes. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.13
The working of God is manifest in a way which will establish confidence that the work is of his devising, and that sound principles underlie every action. But I have had instruction from God that there is danger of planning for the outcasts in a way which will lead to spasmodic and excitable movements. These will produce no real beneficial results. A class will be encouraged to do a kind of work which will amount to the least in strengthening all parts of the work by harmonious action. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.14
The gospel invitation is to be given to the rich and the poor, the high and the low, and we must devise means for carrying the truth into new places, and to all classes of people. The Lord bids us: Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. He says: Begin in the highways; thoroughly work the highways; prepare a company who in unity with you can go forth to do the very work that Christ did in seeking and saving the lost. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.15
Christ preached the gospel to the poor; but he did not confine his labors to this class. He worked for all who would hear his word, - not only the publican and the outcast, but the rich and cultivated Pharisee, the Jewish nobleman, the centurion, and the Roman ruler. This is the kind of work I have ever seen should be done. We are not to strain every spiritual sinew and nerve to work for the lowest classes, and make that work the all in all. There are others whom we must bring to the Master, souls who need the truth, who are bearing responsibilities, and who will work with all their sanctified ability for the high places as well as for the low places. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.16
The work for the poorer classes has no limit. It can never be got through with, and it must be treated as a part of the great whole. To give our first attention to this work, while there are vast portions of the Lord’s vineyard open to culture and yet untouched, is to begin in the wrong place. As the right arm is to the body, so is the medical missionary work to the third angel’s message. But the right arm is not to become the whole body. The work of seeking the outcasts is important, but it is not to become the great burden of our mission. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.17
THE GOSPEL WAGON
In our efforts to reach the people, there is danger of adopting methods that will not produce the best results. Plans may be followed which seem to excite much interest for the time; but the effect proves that the work is not abiding. The use of the gospel wagon may accomplish some good; but in most cases the after-results will be disappointing. People will be attracted by the music, and will listen to the addresses and appeals that are made. But the workers pass rapidly from place to place, and there is not time for persons to become established in the faith. The impressions made are soon effaced. Little seed has been sown that springs up and bears fruit. When the season is ended, there will be few sheaves to be gathered. Experience will show that the results are not proportionate to the expenditure. The work is too much like that of carrying a torch through a district in the night. The places where the torch-bearer goes are light; but not many tapers are kindled from his torch, and when he has gone his way, the darkness is almost as great as before. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.18
In this manner of working there is danger of depending too much on outward display to attract the people. The mission of Christ was not conducted in this way. Outward display is not to characterize our work. We must not give the impression that we link amusement with the solemn work for this time. If the workers have a real love for souls, they may find more effective methods of labor. Other plans could be devised which would be less expensive, and would have a much better after-influence. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.19
And this method of working will not have the best effect upon the workers themselves. Outward attraction and display encourage sensational ideas by which some of the workers may be spoiled for any effective service. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.20
In this manner of life they are likely to obtain a shifting, changeable experience. Plans should be followed by which each working force may know what kind of work it is doing, and may be able to gather up the sheaves. Expend your money in a work in which each worker may be able to see something of the results, and know that God was with him. We want to have daily an individual experience in the things of God. And each laborer should be learning to build up the work, so that it shall be solid and abiding. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.21
CAMP-MEETINGS
In contrast with the use of the gospel wagon, another work has been presented to my sight. Tents were being taken to different places during suitable seasons of the year. Camp-meetings were being held in many localities. These were conducted by able, God-fearing men, assisted by suitable helpers. Children’s meetings were held, and revival meetings, to bring the people to take their stand for the truth. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.22
In many places it is next to impossible to find entrance to any house of worship. Prejudice, envy, jealousy are so strong that often we can find no place in which to speak to the people the word of life. If camp-meetings can be held in different places, those who wish to hear can have the opportunity. Souls that are starving for the bread of life will be fed. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.23
Instead of having mammoth camp-meetings in a few localities, more good would often be done by having small meetings in many places. Let these be held in cities and towns where the message of present truth has not been presented. Help those who are interested to attend, if necessary providing them with food and lodging. And let the meeting continue two or three weeks. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.24
This should be followed up by a tent-meeting and Bible work. Experienced laborers with their assistants should remain in the field to search out all who are interested. They should work as if searching for the lost sheep. Many who come to the camp-meeting merely to hear or see some new thing, will be impressed by the truth, and some will take their stand to obey. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.25
All this will require consecrated, self-sacrificing labor. At a camp-meeting it may sometimes be difficult to hold the principal speakers for several weeks to develop the interest that has been awakened. It may be impossible for all our people to remain till the close of the meeting, and it may involve considerable expense to retain the ground, and keep standing a sufficient number of family tents to maintain the appearance of a camp-meeting. It may be at a sacrifice that families remain camping on the grounds to assist the ministers and Bible workers in visiting and Bible study with those who come on the ground, and in visiting the people at their homes, telling them of the blessing received at the meetings, and inviting them to come. No doubt it will be difficult to secure a sufficient number of workers to carry forward the work successfully after the meeting. But the result will justify the effort. It is by such earnest, energetic efforts as these that some of our camp-meetings have been instrumental in raising up strong working churches; and it is by just such earnest work that the third angel’s message must be carried to the people of our cities. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.26
In these meetings we should not at first present doctrinal subjects, of which the hearers have no understanding. Hold the attention of the people by presenting the truth as it is in Jesus. The very first and most important thing is to melt and subdue the soul by presenting our Lord Jesus Christ as the sin-pardoning Saviour. Keep before the people the cross of Calvary. What caused the death of Christ? - The transgression of the law. Show that Christ died to give men an opportunity to become loyal subjects of his kingdom. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.27
Let the truth be presented, not in long, labored discourses, but in short talks, right to the point. Educate, educate, in regard to thorough, whole-souled service. Thorough consecration, much prayer, an intense earnestness, will make an impression; for angels of God will be present to move upon the hearts of the hearers. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.28
Let there be singing and instrumental music. Musical instruments were used in religious services in ancient times. The worshipers praised God upon the harp and cymbal, and music should have its place in our services. It will add to the interest. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.29
Let there be personal labor for the unconverted. Invite all who are not satisfied that they are prepared for Christ’s coming, and all who feel burdened and heavy laden, to come apart by themselves. Let those who are spiritual converse with these souls. Pray with them and for them. And do not let the work stop here. Visit them at their homes. Let much time be spent in prayer and close searching of the word. Let all obtain the real facts of faith in their own souls through belief that the Holy Spirit will teach them because they have a real hungering and thirsting after righteousness. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.30
In this way the right kind of education is given to the people in religious exercises, and there is presented also the discipline of organization and order. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 128.31
MEETING-HOUSES AND CHURCH SCHOOLS
When a company of believers is raised up, careful provision should be made for the permanence and stability of the work. A house of worship will be needed, and a school where Bible instruction may be given to the children. The workers should not leave their field of labor until a meeting-house has been built, and a school room and teacher provided. Here is a channel in which the means invested in gospel wagons might be used to secure far greater and more permanent results for good. All this has been presented before me as a panoramic view. I saw workmen building humble houses of worship. Those newly come to the faith were helping with willing hands, and those who had means were assisting with their means. In the basement of the church, above ground, a school room was prepared for the children. Teachers were selected to go to this place. The numbers in the school were not large, but it was a happy beginning. I heard the songs of children and of parents: “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” Praise ye the Lord; praise the Lord, O my soul! While I live will I praise the Lord. I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.1
The establishing of churches, the erection of meeting-houses and school buildings, was extended from city to city, and the tithe was increasing to carry forward the work. There was a plant; not only in one place, but in many places, and the Lord was working to increase his forces. Something was being established that would publish the truth. That is the work to be done, not only in Australia, but in the cities of America as well. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.2
In this work all classes will be reached. When the Holy Spirit works among us, souls who are unready for Christ’s appearing are convicted. Many come to our meetings and are converted who for years have not attended meetings in any church. The simplicity of the truth reaches their hearts. The tobacco devotees sacrifice their idol, and the liquor drinker his liquor. They could not do this if they did not by faith grasp the promises of God for the forgiveness of their sins. The truth as it is in the word comes before high and low, rich and poor, and those who receive the message become workers with us and with God, and a strong force is raised up to labor harmoniously. This is our work. It is not neglected in any of our camp-meeting labor. It is a part of every gospel mission. Instead of setting every talent to work for the lowest outcasts, we should seek in every place to raise up a company of believers who will unite with us in uplifting the standard of truth, and working for rich and poor. Then as churches are established there will be an increase of helpers to labor for the destitute and the outcasts. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.3
THE RELATION OF THE MINISTRY TO THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY WORK
Both home and foreign missions should be conducted in connection with the ministry of the word. The medical missionary work is not to be carried forward as something apart from the work of the gospel ministry. The Lord’s people are to be one. There is to be no separation in his work. Time and means are being absorbed in a work which is carried forward too earnestly in one direction. The Lord has not appointed this. He sent out his twelve apostles and afterward the seventy to preach the word to the people, and he gave them power to heal the sick and to cast out devils in his name. The two lines of work must not be separated. Satan will invent every possible scheme to separate those whom God is seeking to make one. We must not be misled by his devices. The medical missionary work is to be connected with the work of the third angel’s message, as the hand is connected with the body; and the education of students in medical missionary lines is not complete unless they are trained to work in connection with the church and the ministry. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.4
There are in the ministry men of faith and experience, men who can say: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; ... that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.” These men are to instruct others. The plan of calling workers away from their fields of labor to attend ministerial institutes is not as a rule the best for this time. Let men be trained by actual labor, under the instruction of experienced workers. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.5
The medical missionary work is not to take men from the ministry, but to place them in the field. Wherever camp-meetings are held, young men who have received an education in medical missionary lines should feel it their duty to act a part. They should be encouraged to speak, not only on these special lines, but also upon the points of present truth, giving the reasons why we are Seventh-day Adventists. These young men, given an opportunity to work with older ministers, will receive much help and blessing. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.6
In following up the interest after a camp-meeting, helpers are needed in various lines, and these occasions should be as a training-school for workers. Let young men work in connection with experienced laborers who will pray with and for them, and patiently instruct them. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.7
There must be no belittling of the gospel ministry. No enterprise should be so conducted as to cause the ministry of the word to be looked upon as an inferior matter. It is not so. Those who ignore the ministry are ignoring Christ. The highest of all work is the ministry in its various lines, and it should be kept before the youth that there is no work more blessed of God than that of the gospel minister. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.8
Let not our young men be deterred from entering the ministry. There is danger that through glowing representations some will be drawn out of the path where God bids them walk. Some have been encouraged to take a course of study in medical lines who ought to be preparing themselves to enter the ministry. The Lord calls for more men to labor in his vineyard. The words were spoken, “Strengthen the outposts: have faithful sentinels in every part of the world.” God calls for you, young men. He calls for whole armies of young men who are large-hearted and large-minded, and who have a deep love for Christ and the truth. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.9
The measure of capacity or learning is of infinitely less consequence than the spirit with which the work is done. It is not great and learned men that the ministry needs, it is not eloquent sermonizers. God calls for men who will give themselves to him to be imbued with his Spirit. The cause of Christ and humanity demands sanctified, self-sacrificing men, those who can go forth without the camp, bearing the reproach. Let them be strong, valiant men, fit for worthy enterprises, and let them make a covenant with God by sacrifice. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.10
The ministry is no place for idlers. God’s servants are to make full proof of their ministry. They will not be sluggards, but as expositors of his word they will put forth their utmost energies to be faithful. They should never cease to be learners. They are to keep their own souls all alive to the sacredness of the work and to the great responsibilities of their calling, that they may at no time or place bring to God a maimed sacrifice, an offering which cost them neither study nor prayer. The Lord has need of men of intense spiritual life. Every worker may receive an endowment of strength from on high, and may go forward with faith and hope in the path where God bids him walk. The work of God abideth in the young, consecrated laborer. He is quick, earnest, powerful, and he has in the counsel of God an unfailing source of supply. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.11
God has called this people to give to the world the message of Christ’s soon coming. We are to give to men the last call to the gospel feast, the last invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Thousands of places that have not heard the call are yet to hear it. Many who have not given the message are yet to proclaim it. Again I appeal to our young men: Has not God called upon you to sound this message? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.12
[Recess was here taken for ten minutes]. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.13
The Chair, at close of recess, continuing to read:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.14
THE EFFECTIVE USE OF MEANS IN MISSIONARY FIELDS
It is the very essence of all right faith to do the right thing at the right time. God is the great Master-worker, and by his providence he prepares the way for his work to be accomplished. He provides opportunities, opens up lines of influence and channels for working. If his people are watching the indications of his providence, and stand ready to co-operate with him, they will see a great work accomplished. Their efforts, rightly directed, will produce a hundred-fold greater results than can be accomplished with the same means and facilities in another channel where God is not so manifestly working. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.15
Our work is reformative, and it is God’s purpose that the excellence of the work in all educational lines shall be an object-lesson to the people for the consummation of the last great work to save the perishing. In entering new fields, it is important that the work be so established that a correct representation of the truth shall be given. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.16
In all our plans for missionary operations these principles should be considered. Certain countries have advantages that mark them as centers of education and influence. In the English-speaking nations it is comparatively easy to find access to the people, and there are many advantages for establishing institutions and carrying forward our work. In other lands, such as India and China, the workers must go through a long course of education before the people can understand them, or they the people. And there are great difficulties to be encountered at every step of the work. In America, England, and Australia, many of these impediments do not exist. America has many institutions to give character to our work. Similar facilities should have been furnished for England and Australia. In these countries the Lord has able workmen, laborers of experience. These can lead out in the establishment of institutions, the training of workers, and the carrying forward of the work in its different lines. God designs that they shall be furnished with means and facilities. The institutions established would give character to the work in these countries, and would give opportunity for the training of workers for the darker heathen nations. In this way the efficiency of our experienced workers would be multiplied a hundred fold. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.17
The duty of providing facilities for this work the Lord has in great measure laid upon the churches and institutions in America. These churches and institutions were built up by the labors and sacrifices of the Lord’s servants. Large donations have been made to establish the institutions in Battle Creek, and in other places. Now God calls upon them to use some of the means in their hands to forward his work in other lands. It all belongs to God, every dollar is his, and he is not pleased with their neglect to do the work which so much needs to be done. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.18
By building up the institutions in the English-speaking countries, they would have several plants constantly increasing in usefulness and facilities. Thus the great work for this time might be far more rapidly accomplished. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.19
THE SITUATION IN AUSTRALIA
When the General Conference sent me and my helpers to Australia, our people should have understood the situation, and should have provided us with means and facilities for establishing the work in this country. For seven years we have labored here; but except the publishing house in Melbourne, we have no institution that can give character to the work. In our school work something has been done; but we have not yet the means for erecting our main hall, which will contain the chapel and recitation-rooms. We have not means for the necessary improvement of the land and equipment of the buildings. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.20
The health work is in still greater need. We should have a sanitarium in some location near Sydney, with branches in Newcastle and in some city in Queensland. But we have made scarcely a beginning. The building at Summer Hill, which we are now using as a sanitarium, is in a good location; but it is not at all adapted for a health institution, and it has to be managed in a way that can not make a correct impression upon the minds of those who patronize it. We might have a much larger number of patients if we only had a suitable building. Wealthy men come to our sanitarium, look at the miserably constructed bath-rooms, and say, “I can never consent to take treatment in such a place,” and in disappointment they leave the institution. But the place is the best we could provide with the means at our command. We have to pay a high rent, and this eats up the funds which we might otherwise use for needed facilities. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.21
Little help will be given us by the doctors in this country. There is occasionally one who appreciates the principles, and speaks well of our work; but the physicians generally do not want sanitariums established, and they will make it as hard for us as possible. The hospitals here are numerous, but the nursing is not on the best lines, and in some of them patients are roughly handled. We should have an institution which is a commendable example of right arrangements and right methods as well as of right principles. A good sanitarium here would count more in giving efficiency to our work than it could possibly do in America. But time is passing, and we have nothing to do with. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.22
In connection with the sanitarium in Sydney, a hospital is needed at Cooranbong. This would furnish a retreat for convalescents, and for a large class of patients who need the benefit of country air and surroundings. And nothing could be a more effective help in medical missionary lines. There is no physician at Cooranbong, or in all the surrounding districts. In sickness the people have to send to Newcastle, twenty miles away, for a doctor, at the expense of $25 for a visit. The people are poor, and we are constantly called upon to give advice and treatment to the sick, and to minister to the needy and suffering in many ways. This work helpers connected with the hospital would be able to do. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 129.23
The hospital is needed at once. Dr. Kellogg has raised means for furnishing it, and we had hoped to erect it ourselves; but as yet we have not been able to accomplish this. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.1
Here we are in this new world, with only a very few churches, mostly composed of poor people, who are not prepared to give financial aid to the work. How can we meet the requirements in establishing churches, schools, and conferences, and in building up the medical missionary work? We have been straining every nerve to meet the most pressing demands of the work just now. Help must be furnished for the erection of a house of worship for the company of believers just raised up at Brisbane, and very soon a church must be built at Newcastle. The Health Food Company must have help to erect a building for the work they are about to establish in Cooranbong. The school is struggling to provide sufficient accommodation for its students for another term. And there is the work of helping the poor, lifting up the bowed down and oppressed, clothing the naked, and feeding the hungry, all of whom are just as precious in the sight of the Lord as the same class in America. So the work that we desire to do in erecting our hospital is still undone. Directions have come from Battle Creek to push forward the medical missionary work, to start a health institution, to put this work in the forefront. But we can not make brick without straw. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.2
The actual state of new enterprises is closely watched in this country. In medical and educational institutions, the value of the work is estimated by the moral, intellectual, and financial forces that are engaged for their advancement. The fact that men of ability are forced to work as we have been compelled to do here, determines in the eyes of the community the breadth and efficiency of the church that can permit such a state of things to exist. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.3
It was not the design of God that our work in this country should be so hard and advance so slowly. It is his purpose that there shall be a true pattern in Australia, - a sample of how other fields shall be worked. The work should be symmetrical, and a living witness for the truth. God would have us cherish a noble ambition. He desires that the character of our work shall be in harmony with the great truths we are presenting to the world. Everything that shall be done here should be solidly established, as an object-lesson to be applied to spiritual things. The work should be such as to inspire students and those who are to become missionaries with hope, zeal, and sanctified ambition, and put new life into the elements found in this new world. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.4
But men, if left to work at cross-purposes with God, will spoil the web. While we have been wading through difficulties, and constantly handicapped for want of means, large institutions in America are continually adding to their already abundant facilities. They are absorbing donations that are sorely needed in missionary fields, and are expending means in lines of work that will not accomplish one hundredth part of what might be accomplished with the same means and facilities in this country. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.5
Means has been absorbed in various impulsive movements that do no real good. But if for every expenditure you could show good results, that would not change the principles you should work upon. You were helped in raising funds to make a beginning, and now God requires you to restrict your supposed wants, and give of your abundance to start the work in this new world. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.6
A CONTRAST
While I was in Queensland, our present situation was presented to me by the figure of a building in process of erection. The builders were full of earnestness and determination to complete the work, putting into it their very best efforts. But the second time I came to look at the building, it was not half completed, yet the builders had gone to other work. I said, “What does this mean?” The answer was, “We began to build, but were not able to finish. We had no money with which to purchase material, and had to stop building.” Again an illustration was presented before me. There were elaborate buildings, abundant facilities, and many plans for new improvements. I asked, “Who owns these buildings?” The answer was, “They are supposed to be the Lord’s property.” “Well, who owns that building not half yet completed?” “O, that, too, is the Lord’s building; but the workers could not complete it; for they had nothing to build with.” This represents the comparative situation of the work here and in America, - the great lack in one place and the superabundance in the other. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.7
My Teacher said, “This is chargeable to the devising of men, but no reflection should be cast upon God. The abundance in one locality was amply sufficient for completing the unfinished building, and providing facilities for carrying on the work in other localities. God is not partial. He does not work in this way. The stewards entrusted with the outlay of his means chose to build up that which was under their own supervision, but the same enterprise in the new world of Australia they leave in the condition represented by the unfinished building. Never should God’s stewards show such marked selfishness and partiality. Such policy and principles are wholly worldly. They should find no entrance among God’s people. The Lord is dishonored before the world and before the heavenly universe. That house must be built. The sanitarium in Sydney must be put in working order. The Lord never works capriciously. He designed that his work should stand before the world more evenly proportioned.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.8
At the Brisbane camp-meeting, and during our visit to Rockhampton, our brethren were raising money to carry on the work of building the college hall for the school at Cooranbong, - work which had come to a standstill for want of funds. Our brethren in Queensland are poor, and have large families to support. While they were being drawn upon to raise the amount apportioned to their colony, they were told of the promise made by the General Conference, that for every pound raised in this country, the conference in America would donate a pound. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.9
In the night season I found myself presenting these matters before our brethren in America. I told them what poverty existed in this country. I dreamed that one of our stewards brought in the amount collected from men, women, and children in Queensland. The promise of our American friends that we should receive pound for pound had encouraged these hard-working people in Brisbane to give to the very utmost of their ability. Then the responsible brethren in America turned to the ones who were so anxiously waiting, to see what they would do. They said: “We thought you understood that we can not now fulfill our promise to duplicate your gifts. Circumstances have made this impossible.” I find myself waking up in the night, and crying, “O Lord! pity thy poor people, whose managers do not consider the wants of the cause in this land. They can not see afar off.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.10
God has waited for you in America to send your gifts where the fields are white for harvest. Should you not have some thought as to how you could gather from your conferences the means which you promised our school, giving us pound for pound, according to that which we could raise? Shall that agreement be broken when, by strong appeals, the means are gathered in here from those who are sacrificing almost the necessaries of life? Have our brethren no thought with reference to all these workers, so crippled and bound about? We can see the great harvest-field, but are almost without facilities for gathering in the sheaves. Shall the cold-hearted, unbrotherly neglect manifested by our American brethren continue? God has bidden us to call, and call again. He says, “Break up this calculating policy. The means is mine, the work is mine.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.11
Are our brethren afraid that we can not possibly use the means to such advantage as they can use it? Let them try us. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.12
THE LORD’S INSTRUCTION
I seemed to be in a meeting where our necessities were being reviewed. We were considering what should be done. One stood up among us, and the word of the Lord was spoken: “Those in America can relieve the situation here, and should have shared with you their abundance years ago. The sanitarium at Battle Creek has been blessed of God. He has imparted to it abundantly, and in its prosperity it might impart to the work he has signified should be done in Australia. The managers there could have done a large work in establishing and equipping a sanitarium in Australia, had they placed themselves in the situation of the workers in this field.” I was bidden: “Bear the message clear and definite. God demands of them work which should have been done when I sent my workers to break new ground in Australia. While the aggressive warfare was being carried on, and the light given upon health reform, institutions should have been established to give character to the work. The sanitarium at Battle Creek could and should have given of her abundance to relieve the situation in Australia.” The neglect to do this has placed us years behind. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.13
Of all countries, Australia most resembles America. It is her sister. All classes of people are here. And the truth has not been presented and rejected. There are thousands of honest souls praying for light. God’s watchmen are called to stand on the walls of Zion, and to give the warning, “The morning cometh, and also the night,” - the night wherein no man can work. While the angels are holding the four winds, a message is to enter every field in Australia as fast as possible. There is no time to be lost. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.14
The Lord says to his people in America: “When I send my servants to establish my work in a new field, and build up the interests essential to give it character, I call upon my people to sustain that work with their prayers and with their means. Because they have neglected to do this, the appearance presented by the health institution in Australia is objectionable. It is not a proper object-lesson; for it is no just representation of the truth. The medical missionary work in that country, which should have been a noble work, is a work of which God is ashamed. The testimony borne by such meager representation brings the most sacred truth into disrepute; it dishonors God. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.15
“When my servant whom I have called to make known my will was sent to Australia, you in America should have understood that you had a work to do in co-operation with her. Who was it that carried out my directions in laying the foundation of the institutions in America, which have grown to such large proportions? And when my servant was sent to establish the work in a new field, could you not see that he who owns all the gold and silver was calling for your co-operation? You had obtained a standing fully abundant and ample. And when the work was to begin in another field, I would be with my servant to indicate the work; and you should have been ready to aid in lifting up the standard of truth by precept and example in a way that would recommend it to a gainsaying world. My watchmen are to call upon all to come to the gospel feast, to do high service for the Master. Could you not discern that when the same work was entered upon in Australia, it required means? The God of heaven has been dishonored. You have found a place to invest means in various enterprises, as if it was a virtue to leave my work in other lands to struggle in poverty and nakedness. You have not shared your abundant facilities as you might and should have done, even though the sacrifice required might appear large to you. If you have a share in the world’s redemption, you must consider the workings of God. In Australia it has required a great sacrifice to establish the medical work even in a meager way, while you have had everything, and yet continue to purchase that which you could do very well without. Place your money where the work of God demands help, that the medical missionary work in that new field may be made a success. The work in Australia should have been placed on such a basis that after a time it might become self-sustaining. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.16
“Upon whom has the Lord for so many years laid the burden and travail of soul for the work in America? Who has borne the burden and wretchedness of the people who are constantly working at cross-purposes with God? The needs and errors of the laborers in responsible positions have called for a heavy, soul-wearing work. Did you suppose that any amount of wages could be a recompense for this? Nothing that earth can give is sufficient value to recompense the travail and burden of soul, the agony of mind, that have been felt in seeing the people endangering the work of God, and making it necessary for him to withdraw his prospering hand from the publishing association and from the conference. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.17
“Then the test came upon the sanitarium. God has given them prosperity, not to be a means of self-exaltation, but that they might impart of their substance. When my servants were sent to Australia, you should have understood that God would work through them, and you should have exercised liberality in apportioning means to advance the work. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.18
“The medical missionary work should ere this have been established upon a solid foundation. There should be no withholding of means. The Lord has let his chastening hand fall upon the Review and Herald office, because they would not heed his voice. Self-sufficient managers hedged up the way, that his work should not advance. The Lord now calls upon the Battle Creek Sanitarium to extend their work, and to assist in placing the health institution in Australia upon a proper basis, and make it a signal to exalt the truth.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 130.19
The time has come when no physical, mental, or moral power is to be wasted or misapplied. The Lord would have you no longer confine to a few places at home all the great facilities that concern the moral and spiritual advancement of his work. The word of command is: “Go forward. You to whom I have given much are called upon to impart. Place your means where it will help now in giving light to darkened nations and to the islands of the sea.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.1
Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying: “I have spared your life to do my work; and wherever I send you, go, and I will send my angel with you. In no case should you be feeble in your request for the advantage of means. Wherever I send you, go, and speak my words. I will be thy mind, I will be thy judgment. All the advantages are mine. The means and facilities are mine, and there should be no withholding. But selfishness, a desire to control, has kept the advantages in one place, so that everything is overbalanced. Call for the means God designed you to have long ago. Hold up my banner. Give honor to no human instrumentality, but to God, that my name may be a praise in the earth. The Lord, he is God, and before him there is no other. My work in Australasia has been greatly hindered. Money has been used unwisely in America, in the great centers, so that there is distress for means to build up the work in new places. But go not forth in hesitancy. I will be with you. Ask of my people the means that should have gone to advance the work in the Australasian field, the new world to which I have sent you. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.2
“Those who stand in responsible places in the work need wisdom in regard to the best methods of proclaiming the last message of mercy to the world. I have a work to be done in Victoria, in New South Wales, in all the Australasian fields. Call for the means which ought to have been flowing there, where there are so few facilities to build up my kingdom, where it will tell the most in magnifying my name.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.3
Again the light given me is: “The Lord has sent you to take hold of this work. What you have done in America under the direction of God is to be done in planting the standard of truth, and building up the work in Australia. In America they should know that you need to be supplied with the means required for the work. You have been too slow in calling for the help that is essential.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.4
The work should be established in this country, and it will be; for thus the Lord has said. We might be years in advance if our brethren in America had stood unflinchingly to their duty, to hear and obey the word of the Lord. Let no more time be lost. You who have so many advantages, do your work unselfishly. It is God’s work we are doing, and you will not find the work in your hands restricted, if you follow the will and word of God. Share your advantages with us in this field, that the work may stand on a true basis, and have the influence and character it should possess. Your minds may not now be prepared to see the importance of surrendering yourselves to do what ought to have been done when we were appointed to come to this field. You may not be able to see all the particulars involved in this request of God to impart. But the special work has been laid out, and you are called upon to do your God-given duty in our onward march in this country by furnishing us with facilities for our work. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.5
Christ’s dignity and office work are in imposing such conditions as he pleases. His followers are to become more and more a power in the proclamation of the truth as they draw nearer to the perfection of faith and of love for their brethren. God has provided his divine assistance for all the emergencies to which our human resources are unequal. He gives the Holy Spirit to help in every strait, to strengthen our hope and assurance, to illuminate our minds and purify our hearts. He means that sufficient facilities shall be provided for the working out of his plans in this field. I bid you seek counsel from God. Seek him with the whole heart, and “whatsoever he saith unto you, do.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.6
“Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.”
ELLEN G. WHITE.
GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.7
A MISAPPLIED MESSAGE
The message, “Sell that ye have, and give alms,” is now to be given. But there are many who do not understand the object of this message. It is not the purpose of God that the revenues of the church shall be largely absorbed in the work for the poor and outcast classes. This work might be presented in such a way that every dollar would be drawn from our people, and there would be no resources left for aggressive warfare in new fields. But our brethren in America, who are engaged in medical missionary lines, can, by appealing to the people outside, obtain help, because theirs is not a denominational work. They should not draw their funds largely from our churches. The resources of the church are needed to support the gospel ministry, and to carry forward the work in new fields. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.8
The special work for this time is not to be restricted under the plea of giving to the poor. A lesson on this point is given in Christ’s words to Mary at Simon’s feast. In gratitude for her brother’s restoration to life, and in full faith in Christ as her Saviour, Mary broke her alabaster box of precious ointment and poured its fragrant contents on the head and feet of her Lord. Indignation was expressed at the supposed waste. Some, even of Christ’s own disciples, who ought to have known better, said, “To what purpose is this waste?” They thought that the ointment was thrown away when poured upon his head and his feet. “This ointment might have been sold for much,” they said, “and given to the poor.” When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, “Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.9
Was anything wasted in breaking their box of ointment as a gift to Jesus? - That gift was no waste. It is true that the ointment might have been sold for bread and clothing; thus a small number of destitute persons might have been fed for a short time; but it would have remained to be seen whether they would have been really benefited. Mary could not have bestowed that gift which to her seemed a faint representation of Christ’s boundless love. Mary’s act was immortalized; for it showed her love for her Saviour. Christ himself bound up that sacrifice of love with his own sacrifice, the greatest the world has ever seen. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.10
Mary represents the church, and her act has a lesson for the church in all ages. Christ has not bidden us bestow all our labor and all our gifts upon the poor. We have a work to do in behalf of those who are fulfilling his commission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.11
The increase of the ministry will require an increase of means; for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Bear in mind, my brethren in America, that the Lord requires of you self-sacrifice. The sacrificing is not all to be done by one class. There is altogether too much spasmodic work. When you expend money, consider, “Am I encouraging prodigality?” When you give to the poor and wretched, consider, “Am I helping them, or hurting them?” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.12
I understand that a plan has been thought of, for the erection of additional buildings in Battle Creek to accommodate the poor. God has not laid the burden of this work upon his people. The churches should not be sapped of their funds for such an enterprise. The special work to be done at this time, no interest must interpose to hinder. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.13
Think of the necessities of our mission fields throughout the world. The London mission is in distressing need of help. There is a most solemn and important work to be done in that vast city. God designs that his workmen there shall have advantages to do some of the same work which Christ did when he was ministering in this world. So in Scandinavia and in the Central European field, means are required to advance the work in its different lines. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.14
The Lord has presented to us that the enemy is still seeking with all his power to center the work in Battle Creek, contrary to the word of God. A movement to erect more buildings there, and to gather in more people who might better never see Battle Creek, will bring results for evil that are not now foreseen. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.15
Not all the institutions now at Battle Creek should have been there. Our people have found excuse after excuse for establishing new enterprises and erecting more buildings; but these excuses are no more valid with God than are those now urged for the enterprise contemplated; that is not the way of the Lord. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.16
Our churches are barely able to hold their ground against opposing forces. But they are told if they take hold of the work for the poorest classes, the Lord will bless them. But no blessing will come to any enterprise that has against it the Lord’s plain “Thou shalt not.” And God has long been warning his people not to center any more responsibilities in Battle Creek. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.17
The present time is burdened with eternal interests. We are to unfurl the standard of truth before a world perishing in error. God calls for men to rally under Christ’s blood-stained banner, give the Bible to the people, multiply camp-meetings in different localities, warn the cities, and send the warning far and near in the highways and byways of the world. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.18
Our brethren have not discerned that in helping us to do this work, they would be helping themselves. That which is given to start the work here, will result in strengthening the work in other places. As your gifts free us from continual embarrassment, our labors can be extended; there will be an ingathering of souls, churches will be established, and there will be increasing financial strength. We shall have a sufficiency, not only to carry on the work here, but to impart to other fields. Nothing is gained by withholding the very means that would enable us to work to advantage, extending the knowledge of God and the triumphs of truth in regions beyond. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.19
However large the income or the possessions of any person, any family, or any institution, let them remember that they are only stewards, holding in trust the Lord’s money. All profit, all pay, our time, our talents, our opportunities, are to be accounted for to him who gives them all. The Lord would not have the first thread of selfishness woven into the fabric of his work: he is constantly proving us to see if our work is free from selfishness and pride. Those workers will have the richest reward, who prove that they love God supremely and their neighbors as themselves. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.20
The spirit of covetousness and selfishness, like threads drawn into the web, has been working in our American institutions, until the spirit that should control them has been lost sight of. This has deprived them of great blessings. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.21
If the workers in America had imparted to others of their great mercies, they would have seen prosperity in England. They would have sympathized with the workers who are struggling with difficulties there, would have had the heart to say, not only in a word, but in action, “All ye are brethren.” The strengthening of the work in English-speaking countries, would have given our laborers a hundred-fold more influence than they have had to plant the standard of truth in many places. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.22
AN APPEAL FOR HELP
Now at the beginning of the year 1899, seeing the work that might have been done in this field, and that is not done, and knowing the will of God in the matter, I appeal to my brethren in America. I can hold my peace no longer. I say to our churches, If you have property in lands or money consecrated to the work of God, we need a portion of it just now. I ask you to send us help without delay. Your gifts need not pass through any conference organization. The more the people in Battle Creek have had to work with, the more they have sought to gather, and the less they have felt the necessity of advancing the work in other English-speaking countries. The more these stewards can gather from the churches, the less they feel like sharing with the workers who have toiled faithfully in other fields. Let your liberalities come to us direct. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.23
You owe the Lord much, vastly more than you comprehend or can ever compute. Will you recognize this obligation? God will recognize every effort made to help us in lifting the standard of truth in every city and in every suburb. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.24
One of the most effective aids in bringing the light to the people here will be a well-equipped sanitarium. In this enterprise the boards and managers of our sanitariums in America have a special duty to help us. Let the help be given while there are those of experience here to manage the interests of the work. The Lord who has made you beneficiaries of his grace and recipients of his bounty now calls upon you to withdraw some of the means from the varied channels to which it is constantly flowing. Let it be put where it will make a showing, distinct and decided in this missionary field. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.25
The Battle Creek sanitarium has received thousands of dollars in donations which should be passed over to institutions in other countries, which are struggling for an existence. And more than this, the profits of the sanitarium should be largely used in helping similar institutions in needy circumstances. I am now directed by the Lord to call upon you to do something for us, and to do it without delay. Some division of your funds must be made for this purpose. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 131.26
Is it not just as important that the half-finished building represented to me should have money and facilities to complete it, as it was that the institutions in Battle Creek should be built up? Have not I a right to demand in the name of the Lord that this should be done? Will you not help us to gain a foothold here, that we may stand as co-workers with you in America? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.1
The enemy will invent every device in his power to prevent the light from shining in new places. He does not want the truth to go forth as a lamp that burneth. Will our brethren consent that he shall any longer succeed in his plans for hindering the work? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.2
Time is rapidly passing into eternity. Will any one now keep back from God that which is strictly his own? Will any one refuse him that which, though it may be given without merit, can not be denied without ruin? The Lord has given to every man his work, and the holy angels want us to be doing that work. As you shall watch and pray and work, they stand ready to co-operate with you. When the understanding is worked by the Holy Spirit, then all the affections act harmoniously in compliance with the divine will. Then men will give to God his own, saying, “All things come of thee, and of thine own we freely give thee.” May God forgive my brethren that they have not done this. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.3
The very being who fills all heaven with splendor, and who is worshiped by the heavenly host, came to our earth, humiliating himself as a man, that we might be exalted to share his glory. Shall not we also sacrifice that others may be lifted up? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.4
I have tried to set things before you; but the attempt falls far short of the reality. Will you refuse my plea? It is not I who appeal to you; it is the Lord Jesus, who has given his life for this people. In my request I obey the will, the requirement of God. Will you improve this opportunity of showing honor to God’s work here, and respect for the servants whom he has sent to do his will in guiding souls to heaven? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.5
“But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work (as it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness); being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this service not only supplieth the wants of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God; whiles by the experiment of this ministration, they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them and to all men; and by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!” ELLEN G. WHITE. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.6
The Chair: Well, brethren, here is an earnest appeal to us. What shall we do with it? Shall we begin right here to reform, or shall we forget what manner of men we have been, and continue doing as we have done? I, for one, want to have a part in this, and I will give $100 to go to that field. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.7
J. H. Kellogg: I am sure that all the sanitarium managers will agree with the instruction to which we have listened this morning. We are very grateful for this Testimony, because it makes clear to us what our duty is. I received a part of this Testimony about two weeks ago, just before coming here. I read it over, and felt convicted that it was from God; and the next morning I cabled to Sister White that we would send her $5,000 within sixty days. We have sent half of it already, and we will send the balance within the sixty days. We propose to do our duty. Our success at the sanitarium - whatever success we have had - has been due to the fact that we have tried to listen to the voice of God. This has been the voice of God speaking, and we recognize it, and propose to heed it. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.8
W. W. Prescott: It is very clear now why we were not permitted to have any names presented before us yesterday. The Lord has something else for us. This has a bearing upon this very subject of nomination of leaders, which we all can see. I can not speak officially for the British Conference. In fact, one of the English-speaking fields mentioned in that Testimony as being needy, is the British field. But the appeal is not for that now. As Brother Irwin said, Shall we read it, and go on, and do nothing, or shall we do something? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.9
Voices in congregation: Do something. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.10
W. W. Prescott: I propose this, that we send a cablegram to Sister White, saying that we will send $25,000 to Australia immediately; and that that be followed up until we are restrained from giving anything more for Australia; and that it come from personal donations and from the conferences. I say, further, that although I can not, because I ought not to, say what the English field will give from its funds, yet I feel free to say that Mrs. Prescott and I will give $100 toward this fund for Australia. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.11
W. T. Knox: I am glad to hear this appeal. It made a great impression upon me, and I see very clearly the duty of the people and our conferences toward these needy fields. I can not say what California will do in this matter; but I will say this, that the people of California will do according to their ability. Within the last few weeks we have sent some $1,400 to Sister White; and since coming here, I have advised our secretary to send another $1,000. This is due to some correspondence between us and that field. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.12
The Chair: It seems to me that it would have a good impression upon the brethren, if we who compose the General Conference, to whom this communication is addressed, and to whom it has been read, can feel clear to lead out in a donation here. It seems to me we ought to give opportunity to those who feel free to give $100 or more or less, now, to do so. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.13
F. H. Westphal: I am glad to see this move. Having been in a foreign field, I know something of the conditions, the circumstances, and the needs. I am glad to see this spirit of leading out to help such fields as Australia, because I know that such a spirit will also reach further. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.14
Voices: I will give $100! I will give $50! I’ll give $100! Another $100 here! GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.15
The Chair: The Secretary will please take the names. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.16
The Secretary, attempting to take the names as fast as they come in: You are calling them off too rapidly. I can not get them down fast enough. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.17
The Chair: Let the stenographers take your names. They can get them as fast as you call them off. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.18
NAMES AND AMOUNTS
| Geo. A. Irwin and wife, | $100 00 | |
| J. N. Loughborough and wife, for | ||
| Cooranbong Hospital, | 100 00 | |
| W. W. Prescott and wife, | 100 00 | |
| A. O. Burrill and wife, | 100 00 | |
| R. A. Underwood and wife, | 100 00 | |
| H. Shultz and wife, | 100 00 | |
| D. J. Hibben and wife, | 38 04 | |
| E. E. Miles, | 75 00 | |
| Mrs. S. M. I. Henry, | 25 00 | |
| W. H. Edwards and wife, | 25 00 | |
| Hattie Brown, | 1 00 | |
| Allen Moon, | 25 00 | |
| J. D. Gowell and wife, | 100 00 | |
| S. H. Lane and wife, | 100 00 | |
| R. M. Kilgore and wife, | 100 00 | |
| J. W. Westphal and family, | 100 00 | |
| F. H. Westphal and wife, | 50 00 | |
| C. C. Crisler, | 25 00 | |
| J. H. Morrison and wife, | 50 00 | |
| W. T. Bland and wife, | 100 00 | |
| H. P. Holser and wife, | 100 00 | |
| J. O. Corliss and wife, | 50 00 | |
| W. A. Wilcox and wife, | 50 00 | |
| C. M. Christiansen and wife, | 50 00 | |
| W. C. Sisley and wife, | 100 00 | |
| W. A. Hennig, | 50 00 | |
| A. F. Ballenger and wife, | 50 00 | |
| H. H. Hall and wife, | 25 00 | |
| A. W. Heald, | 5 00 | |
| J. M. Rees, | 25 00 | |
| C. A. Hall, | 25 00 | |
| J. H. Kraft and wife, | 25 00 | |
| R. S. Donnell, | 25 00 | |
| T. B. Stewart and wife, | 100 00 | |
| Wm. Covert, | 25 00 | |
| H. W. Decker, | 25 00 | |
| G. B. Thompson and wife, | 25 00 | |
| A. T. Jones and wife, | 50 00 | |
| W. T. Knox and wife, | 25 00 | |
| C. McReynolds, | 50 00 | |
| W. T. Millman, | 25 00 | |
| M. C. Wilcox and wife, | 25 00 | |
| E. A. Sutherland and wife, | 50 00 | |
| Alberta L. Little, | 50 00 | |
| N. P. Nelson and wife, for sanitarium, | ||
| $50, also $50 for Scandinavian | ||
| Sanitarium, | 100 00 | |
| I. H. Evans and wife, | 25 00 | |
| A. J. Haysmer, | 25 00 | |
| E. L. Stewart and wife, | 5 00 | |
| O. S. Hadley, | 30 00 | |
| Ida V. Hadley, | 20 00 | |
| T. A. Kilgore, | 10 00 | |
| L. T. Nicola and wife, | 10 00 | |
| W. B. White and wife, | 10 00 | |
| J. A. Brunson and wife, | 10 00 | |
| E. J. Waggoner and wife, | 10 00 | |
| John F. Jones, | 5 00 | |
| C. M. Everest, | 10 00 | |
| L. R. Conradi and wife, | 20 00 | |
| J. L. Johnson and wife, | 10 00 | |
| J. A. Holbrook and wife, | 10 00 | |
| G. A. Nichols and wife, | 25 00 | |
| T. H. Purdon and wife, | 10 00 | |
| L. C. Sheafe, | 5 00 | |
| H. J. Farman and wife, | 5 00 | |
| E. E. Andross, | 10 00 | |
| C. Rasmussen, | 5 00 | |
| H. W. Reed and wife, | 10 00 | |
| E. K. Slade, | 10 00 | |
| Carrie Robbie, | 10 00 | |
| G. E. Langdon, | 5 00 | |
| D. C. Babcock, | 5 00 | |
| E. A. Merrell and wife, | 5 00 | |
| F. W. Howe, | 5 00 | |
| W. S. Shreve, | 5 00 | |
| I. N. Williams, | 5 00 | |
| Eliza H. Morton, | 25 00 | |
| C. F. Stevens, | 10 00 | |
| D. H. Oberholtzer, | 10 00 | |
| Fred Stebbeds, | 5 00 | |
| J. W. Watt, | 10 00 | |
| H. F. Phelps, | 5 00 | |
| A. J. Howard and wife, | 5 00 | |
| A. E. Place and wife, | 25 00 | |
| W. B. Hill, | 2 00 | |
| C. D. Dozier,last of March, | 5 00 | |
| F. M. Roberts, | 5 00 | |
| R. I. Francis and wife, | 10 00 | |
| G. W. Reaser and wife, | 5 00 | |
| S. S. Shrock, | 5 00 | |
| E. H. Harnden and wife, | 5 00 | |
| M. H. Brown and wife, | 10 00 | |
| H. H. Burkholder, | 10 00 | |
| D. Nettleton, | 10 00 | |
| H. W. Cottrell and wife, | 100 00 | |
| L. B. Losey, | 25 00 | |
| Captain Norman, | 5, | 000 00 |
| S. G. Haughey, | 10 00 | |
| L. M. Talbott, | 25 00 | |
| C. N. Sanders and wife, | 50 00 | |
| A. G. Christiansen, | 2 00 | |
| John Clayton, | 25 00 | |
| S. M. Cobb, | 25 00 | |
| H. S. Shaw and wife, | 25 00 | |
| A. G. Haughey, | 25 00 | |
| J. B. Goodrich, | 5 00 | |
| Eugene Leland, | 5 00 | |
| E. A. Curtis, | 5 00 | |
| C. H. Keslake, | 5 00 | |
| W. A. Westworth, | 5 00 | |
| S. A. Farnsworth, | 5 00 | |
| M. A. Altman, | 5 00 | |
| M. A. Stillman, | 5 00 | |
| H. H. Stacy and wife, | 10 00 | |
| Mrs. Van Renssellaer, | 10 00 | |
| M. D. Mattson and wife, | 10 00 | |
| T. J. Eagle and wife, | 10 00 | |
| A. P. Needham, | 5 00 | |
| Albert Carey, | 1 00 | |
| H. E. Rogers and wife, | 10 00 | |
| A. J. Breed and wife, | 25 00 | |
| J. E. Jayne, | 5 00 | |
| L. A. Hoopes and wife, | 10 00 | |
| O. A. Olsen and wife, | 25 00 | |
| M. M. Olsen and wife, | 5 00 | |
| N. W. Allee, | 10 00 | |
| A. A. Livingstone, | 5 00 | |
| Collections, | 48 96 |
The Chair: Those who wish their donation to be given to either the school or the sanitarium may so designate, by informing the Secretary; otherwise it will be left to the discretion of those in Australia. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.19
Mrs. S. M. I. Henry: I can not begin to tell you how full my heart is. You have been so accustomed to this thing that probably it does not affect you as it does me; but it seems to me that there has been re-enacted here in our midst very much such a scene as must have taken place when a letter came to one of the early churches. I have been thinking of the church at Ephesus when that letter came, and they were gathered together to hear it read. It seems that we have had a vivid realization of how those brethren must have felt when the word of the Lord came to them in Paul’s handwriting. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.20
We are one day nearer the moment when our Lord shall come in the clouds of heaven than we have ever been before. To me this day is so much nearer that it stands in an entirely new light. It is a new day to me, and this is a new experience, - an experience so new and so fresh and so sweet, with something right out of the very heart of God, that I cannot begin to express it. I hope you appreciate it, brethren, - you who have grown up in it, and who have had it all your lives. O, such men and women as Seventh-day Adventists ought to be! You ought, every one of you (I am counting myself out; for I am the infant of the family, and you can not expect much of me); - but you ought, every one of you, to be able to go out with such power with this message that you will compel a hearing; that is, that the power in you will compel a hearing so that the people can not but listen, and that they should know that you are speaking as the oracles of God. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 132.21
I will tell you a little experience that has come to me through my correspondence. One of the leading ministers in the denomination to which I used to belong wrote me, not long ago, that it would be necessary to “revise” my conclusions. He said: “You will be compelled to retract your position as a Seventh-day Adventist just as publicly as you took it. You will be obliged to do it.” He thought there would come such a flood of light as to prove to me that I was in error. He was perfectly honest, and simply thought that so many prayers were being offered for me, and so much light was to come in the correspondence from the ministers, and as I was getting stronger in health, that I would see things with a more healthy intellect after a while, and would see that I had committed an error, and believing that I was honest, - he paid a tribute to my honesty from his standpoint, - he thought the time would come when I would see that I was in error and that the time would therefore come when I would just as publicly denounce, as I had taken the position. I wrote a very brief reply to his letter, to which I have received no answer. I thanked him for his letter and for his expression of confidence in me. And I said: “Suppose you were to stand out on your lawn, in the full light of the noonday, and you were looking at an object on your lawn, as a hitching-post, for instance. But suppose some friend should come along, and say to you, when you told him what you were looking at, ‘Why, there is no hitching-post there.’ You will have to come to the conclusion that what you thought you were looking at is not there. Suppose he should sit down and try to convince you that what you saw was not a hitching-post, what would you do?” “Now,” I said, “the correspondence which you and I might have, in which you may try to convince me that the Seventh day is not the Sabbath, and that that which I have found, and which makes me a Seventh-day Adventist, is not the truth, and in which you hope to change the determination to which I have come, is precisely the same sort, and just as useless; and for the same reason that it would be useless for him to try to convince you that what you saw in the full blaze of the noonday sun was nothing. I see it.” [A. T. Jones: Amen.] I have never heard from him; he has given me up. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.1
Now, brethren, you have been seeing, have you not? Well, then, why are you not doing? [A Voice: We are.] Then I am glad of it. Here is a brother who says we are trying to see. Forgive me for putting it in just that way: but it does seem to me that this truth ought to go with such force. O, why did I not get it long ago? Every little while the thought comes to me, Why did I not get it before? and why do not others get it? Why do they not know it? Why are not all these churches left without excuse? Let us answer that question just as soon as we can. Brethren, I am with you, and I am going to work with you. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.2
O. A. Olsen: I am very glad, much more than I can express in words, for what I have seen here to-day. I thank God with all my heart for the plain, distinct message which has come to us. I am sorry that I have not seen these things in the principles which have been brought out to us again and again for years in the past. I am glad for the response which has been made here. I am glad this spirit is coming in. It is the Lord’s Spirit, and this will be the beginning of a new experience in this work. If this is continued, the message will go indeed with a power such as we have not witnessed heretofore. I have been burdened over this work in Australia as the appeals have come in from time to time, and many times we have advanced money when we did not know how to replace it. I am only sorry that we did not do more, but the Lord is at work, and he will do wondrous things for us. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.3
Europe is an exceedingly needy field. England, Scandinavia, and Central Europe have been mentioned; and as the reports have come to you here, it shows that they are also receptacles for the light; and if the Lord helps us to do his will toward Australia, he will also help us to do his will toward these other countries. I take this as a clear intimation that God will also work for his people on the other side of the ocean. I would be glad to second the motion which Professor Prescott has made as looking toward the fulfillment of such principles; namely, the sending of the message to Sister White. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.4
F. H. Westphal: When I left Buenos Ayres, we had in our treasury but three hundred dollars; and did not know how soon we should receive money from the States, or from any other source, for that field. I had a little money of my own in the bank; and I saw that the brethren could continue their labor, at all events. When I got about half-way across the ocean, I thought, “Lord, why did you let me come away from that field?” When I arrived in England, I waited a few days in Southampton, making inquiries respecting the expense of passage across the water. Finding that the passage was cheaper by the American line than by the Hamburg, I presented the matter to the Lord in prayer, and finally cast a lot, and the lot fell in favor of the Hamburg line. I had no sooner got on board than I came in contact with Captain Norman, who is not of our faith, but has just given $5,000 to the work in Australia. After we had conversed a while, I spoke of our great meeting here, the General Conference, and finally invited him to come over with us, and he said he would come, and I am so glad he came with us. [Voices: Amen.] And although I was feeling badly about spending so much money in traveling, the Lord has revealed to me fully what was in his mind. I feel so little in your midst. I have heard the brethren appealing for means, and presenting the needs of different fields, much better than I could possibly do; and these appeals which have been made for other fields show the needs of South America. I am glad that God is in the work. I have experienced some of his leading in South America. The Lord has guided there; and I know that if we commit ourselves to him, he will lead still further, to greater things to the glory of his name. I am glad that the work is the Lord’s and that he can use instruments that possess no abilities to glorify his name. All that is necessary is a devotion to him. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.5
J. O. Corliss: It may be, brethren, that you think I have only ordinary emotions this morning in reference to this matter that has come to us from Australia. I can hardly control myself as I think of the situation over there, and of this appeal that has come. My mind goes back to 1885, when I landed in Melbourne on the 10th day of June, without knowing a soul there, and not a Sabbath-keeper in all that country, besides those who had just landed. All the sad feelings of a stranger in a strange land have been revived in my mind this morning. It is not necessary for me to go through all my experience there, and tell you how, for three months, I walked the streets of that great city, trying to get acquainted with the habits and the customs of the people, handing out the Signs of the Times from day to day. Taking these Signs under my arm day after day, I walked through the streets of Melbourne, handing them out to the people, until they came to know the man who had the Signs of the Times; and when they would meet me, they would say, “Another Signs has come.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.6
We had these stamped with the number and street of our repository for the International Tract Society. As we were holding a little meeting one Sabbath, there came a knock at the door. A gentleman was admitted who had with him a copy of our paper. He said, “I found this paper down the street, and I have come to inquire for you.” He said: “I belong to a church in South Melbourne, and I would like to have some of you come down and take a part in a meeting that we are going to have Thursday night for the examination of the Sabbath question. That is a question that is coming before the church down there.” He asked me if I would go. I said, “Yes.” I went down there that night, and of course one spoke and then another; and in the simplest manner possible we laid before them the truth on the Sabbath question for about fifteen minutes. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.7
Well, we got fifteen of the young people of that church, men and women, many of whom are to-day leading people in the Australian work. The people on the Pacific Coast have met one of the brethren that came out that night. The people over there know him as a very substantial young man. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.8
I remember very well the night when the first public discourse on the third angel’s message that ever was given on Australian soil was presented in Temperance Hall, Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne. We worked all summer in the city of Melbourne; and at the end of the summer had a church of one hundred members, besides a number of floating people who were keeping the Sabbath. And then the question came, What shall we do? How shall we have means? We found we must have something to represent the truth. So we tried to find a place to establish the printing-office. But where was the money to come from with which to establish it? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.9
We went to a man in the city, and said to him, We want material for a printing-plant. We haven’t any money. He said, “Haven’t you any account at the bank?” “No; we are strangers here.” “Haven’t you anybody here who can vouch for you?” “No, sir, we haven’t.” “You must be strange persons to undertake to do business with a firm with no credentials, without any bank account and without any standing in the city.” Well, we told him that we needed the printing office, but we hadn’t anything to start it with. He said, “I can’t do any business with you.” So, with sorrow of heart we went to another firm. We went to this gentleman, and he looked at us. We told him the story. We said, “We haven’t any money, but we must have a printing-office.” We told him what our work was; that we were Seventh-day Adventists, and he said, in a kindly way, “Well, I have never done business that way.” We said, “We were well aware that ours was not a business proposition, but we were impelled to ask what we have. He then asked how much we wanted. We told him we needed everything that would make up a printing-plant. He said, “Haven’t you got any money at all?” We told him we could furnish him ten pounds, - which means fifty dollars. A peculiar look came over his face, but we lifted our hearts to God. He finally stopped and looked at us. Said he, “When can you pay for this?” We said, “In four months.” “Will you give me your note to be paid in that time?” “Yes, sir.” “Another question: Are you willing to insure this plant in my favor?” “Yes, sir; we will do anything you say.” Then, with a kindly look, he said: “I am inclined to let you have it. This is not a business way of doing, yet I feel impressed to let you have it.” He sent a man to put the gas engine and the press in their places, and set up the fonts of type, and put everything in place. I knew there was a thousand dollars at the Pacific Press that we could get hold of, so word was sent for that money. The money came at the end of three months, and I went up to pay it; but the man said, “That is not the way we do business in this country.” I said, “But don’t you want the money?” “Yes, I am in very great need of it to make a remittance to London.” I said, “Then are you willing to take it?” “O, yes, I am willing, but that is not the way we do business. We do not have people do business in that way in this country.” “Well,” I said, “here is the money; and if you want it, you can have it, and I will take up the note.” So he gave me a receipt for the money, and returned the note, and I tell you that note to-day is one of the most precious documents I have in my papers at home. Then he said, “If you want anything more in your printing-office, do not trouble yourself to come down here at all; just make an order and it will be sent up to your place.” From that day to this he has been one of the staunchest friends of our work in Melbourne. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.10
But as the work began to spread, every step of the way these difficulties have been met, but God has been opening the way all the time. And, brethren, I want to tell you I feel to-day that if I had fifty thousand dollars, it would not be any sacrifice to give it to that work, where I spent five years of the best of my life, and nearly all the means that God had given me up to that time. I am not saying this to boast, but to tell you why I feel so deeply with reference to the work in Australia. This morning, as these appeals were made, I said, “O, Lord! why is it that means is withheld from me in this world to prevent my having the privilege of doing something to establish the work there on a firmer basis?” I feel intensely over this matter. I can not tell you how deeply I feel over it, but I thank God for the liberal spirit that has been manifested since these appeals have been made. I know that God will bless you for it; and if God ever gives me funds in any considerable amount, with which to do in this world, as I hope he may some time, not one dollar of it shall ever go to secular purposes, or be used on myself or my family, but it shall be sacred to the work of God. It shall go to establish the work in these different places; and I pray that God may help us all and guide us into liberality of spirit, that we may every day be drawing nourishment from him who is head over all his work. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.11
Meeting adjourned. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.12
MY MOTTO
“To abolish Ignorance by Knowledge; To eradicate Vice by Virtue; To displace Disease by Health; To dispel Darkness by Light.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.13
THE DIVINE WAY IN DIET
Israel’s Experience with Flesh-food - Convenient Food - Sunlight the Source of All Energy - Heavenly Meat - Why Flesh Shortens Life.
Address by J. H. Kellogg, M. D., Sunday 2 P. M., February 26. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.14
At the close of the two o’clock meeting last Friday, a question was asked with reference to why Christ fed the disciples with fish, and I made a reply, basing my remarks upon this passage (Matthew 14:17): “They say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. He said, Bring them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 133.15
But in Mark it says that he divided the fish also. So there is no doubt that the people were fed with fish as well as with bread. The question is, Does this prove that the Lord, in doing this, sanctioned the use of fish, or that he approved of fish as being the most wholesome food? - I certainly think not; for we find, in 1 Corinthians 10:6, that the apostle, speaking of the experience of the children of Israel in the wilderness, says that they lusted after evil things. We turn to Numbers 11, and we find what the evil thing was. We find that it was flesh; and thus we know that flesh is an evil thing. There is no doubt about that. The Lord has told us, directly and distinctly, that flesh is an evil thing, and that the children of Israel, in lusting after flesh, lusted after an evil thing. And yet when we read the account of what the Lord did for them in the wilderness, we see that the Lord fed them with this very evil thing. The Lord himself did it. Here is what the Lord said to Moses: “Say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to-morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days nor twenty days; but even a whole month.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.1
Now here you see that the Lord himself not only gave the children of Israel one meal, but that he gave them flesh every day for a whole month. And yet the inspired apostle tells us that that very flesh that God gave the children of Israel by a miracle was an evil thing. “And Moses said, The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.2
It would take a tremendous amount of flesh-food to feed six hundred thousand people. There were many more than six hundred thousand people; for there were that many footmen. What an amount of flesh-food would be required to feed all those people! Just think of it! Moses could not understand it; he said: “Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them? And the Lord said unto Moses, Is the Lord’s hand waxed short? Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not. And Moses went out, and told the people the words of the Lord, and gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle.” A little farther down we read: “Moses gat him into the camp, he and the elders of Israel. And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.3
Many years ago Audubon, the great naturalist, said he saw pigeons flying in such numbers as to darken the sky. He estimated the number to be many millions. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.4
[J. N. Loughborough: The fifth verse of the same chapter shows what the evil things are.] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.5
This is true. Some of the things named the Lord made to be eaten; but the evil thing they lusted after was fish. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.6
The point I want to call your special attention to here, is that God wrought a miracle: “And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth..... And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, ... the Lord smote the people with a very great plague.” Now the Lord brought the quails for the people, and fed them with quails; and yet he sent a plague upon them for eating the very thing he sent. He sent the quails because they wept for them. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.7
So you see the fact that Christ wrought a miracle to make fish for the people who wanted fish, does not prove that fish was the best food for them. If it did, then certainly he would have to say that God was very unjust and very unreasonable, to make the children of Israel sick in eating flesh that he himself created right there, and wrought a miracle that they might have. This flesh was not good for them. Why did God give it to them? - Because they insisted upon having it. He told them that meat was not good for them. He wanted them to see that he was withholding flesh because it was not good for them. The plague was not an arbitrary measure. Certainly, the Lord never made anybody sick. The children of Israel ate flesh every day for a month. They ate so much that it came out of their nostrils. That means that they vomited it. That is the way plagues come upon us sometimes. I suppose the flesh at a Thanksgiving dinner, and took became poisoned. I remember a case in which a young man gorged himself with flesh at a Thanksgiving dinner, and took cold the next day, and had pneumonia, and died. Unquestionably it was the Thanksgiving dinner that killed him. Gorging on dead turkey, making a cemetery of his stomach, weakened his resistance; so when the germs came upon him, he succumbed at once. The plagues were there in the wilderness. The germs which caused the plagues were there. While the people lived upon manna, they were above the power of these plagues; but when they feasted upon flesh, they succumbed to the plagues. While their blood was pure, they were safe; but just as soon as they brought their bodies into a condition of grossness, by eating flesh, the plagues broke out among them. This was simply the result of their own sin. The eating of flesh brought them into a diseased condition, where they could not resist the influences about them. The Lord knew what kind of pestilential germs were there in the wilderness. With three millions of people in a wilderness, how long will they remain healthy? Even our own modern sanitary appliances do not keep people healthy, when thus crowded together. You saw this illustrated in the experiences during the late war. When the United States brought together 20,000 or 30,000 men from the whole country, - as healthy men as could be found in all the land, - they were not in camp a week before they began to get sick. It is a fact that three or four men died from disease in camp to every one killed by a Spanish bullet. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.8
[Voice: That is so.] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.9
Yes, I know it is so; I have looked up the statistics; and from them you can see - GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.10
[S. H. Lane: The proportion was about one to five.] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.11
I attribute this almost wholly to bad diet. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.12
[L. B. Losey: I was in a camp up in Minnesota, a most healthy place; and there was a large amount of typhoid fever and other diseases in the camp. I attributed it largely to the kind of food they ate and the way they ate it.] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.13
Now if that is true with so small a number, and with all our modern appliances, what must it have been back there where there were three million people, just out of Egypt, without any of our modern appliances? What an awful condition there must have been around their camps, without any sewerage and other sanitary appliances! That is why the Lord kept them moving. That was the only way they could maintain any sort of health. The Lord knew all about this condition of things, and the necessities of these three million people, situated as they were in a torrid climate and under conditions most conducive to disease; and he knew that unless there was special provision made to keep them above the power of disease, they must all die. God gave manna; and when they ate that entirely, they were kept free from disease; but when they gorged themselves with meat, even though God sent it, they were soon attacked by plagues. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.14
We are in the wilderness at the present time, and we are going through the worst part of it, too, and shall be from this time to the end. We must come in contact with plagues and germs of all sorts. But God has given us bread from heaven; and that is what I want to talk about. What is the bread from heaven? - Fruits, grains, and nuts. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.15
God has promised to give us food which is convenient for us. What food is most convenient? In the first place, what is food? - In a certain sense, air and water are food, as well as what we commonly call food. Bread is food. Anything that supplies the material needs of the body is food. There is a difference in these foods. We have three kinds of foods, - solid, liquid, and gaseous. Solid food is to the body the same as coal is to the engine. Coal in the stove makes heat. Nothing can be a food to the body unless it can burn. It must be something that will combine with oxygen, because it is the combination of these substances with oxygen that makes heat in our bodies, just the same as does coal in the locomotive. The food in the body makes force there, which we manifest through our bodies in the form of muscular strength, the working of our brains, and in other ways. All this energy comes from the food we eat. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.16
The difference between solid foods, such as applies, potatoes, etc., and animals, is that one (the vegetable) is stored energy, and the other is a machine for using the energy. The difference between a horse and an ear of corn is that in the corn is stored up the energy that the horse is to use. If you put corn in the stove, it will burn; and out on the Western prairies, I understand that when corn is worth only fifteen cents a bushel, the people use it for fuel, and it is really cheaper than coal. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.17
[Voice: That is so, and it will burn out a stove much quicker than either wood or coal.] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.18
Yes, because it has such great heat making power. Now, the corn is put into a horse, and the animal gets energy from the corn. The body is a machine, differing from other machines only in that it is the best and most economical machine on earth. The vegetable world furnishes the energy for animals to use. This energy comes from God. It comes down in the sunbeam. Whenever you see a sunbeam slanting through a rift in a cloud, that is a stream of energy coming down from God. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.19
[Sunlight is a germ-killer.] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.20
Yes, it is the greatest germ-killer in the world. Consumption germs can not live fifteen minutes in bright sunlight. This is why we need sunlight in our homes. All germs will succumb to bright sunlight. All the energy in the world comes from the sunlight. For instance, from what does the locomotive get its energy? - It gets it from coal or petroleum. All the steam-engines of the world are run by sunlight. The sunlight falls upon the leaves of the tree, and causes them to take up the carbonic acid from the air, and the roots to bring up material from the earth, make it into vegetable substances. Then these great trees - during the flood, perhaps - were buried in the earth, and became oil-fields and coal-beds; and this energy is taken out in the form of coal and petroleum, and burned. Steam is produced, and in that way our boilers and engines are run. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.21
Now there is a principle in all this. All the steam-engines are run by the sun-light stored up in the earth. You say, How about the water-wheels, and grist-mills, which are run by water-power? - It is just the same thing, because the sun-light falls upon the water, and this causes a vapor to arise. With the air this is carried to the mountains, where, coming in contact with the cool air, it condenses, falls in rain and snow, then runs down the valleys and streams and divers. We watch it as it runs down on its way to the ocean, when the same process is repeated. So you see that every particle of energy in this world comes from the sun. The sunbeam is God himself at work. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.22
We need energy all the time, because we are wasting. The body is throwing off as much heat as three feet of steam-pipe. We are continually losing energy in the form of heat and in the work that we do. When I take up a stone, and put it on a wall, I put just as much energy in that stone as I throw off. If you build up a tower out of stones, and that tower should topple over, when those stones fall upon the ground, they send out the same amount of energy that was taken to pile them up. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.23
God has provided, in the order of nature, that the vegetable kingdom should be the means of storing up the energy that is passed down to the earth from the sun. That is God’s method of storing energy. Otherwise the sun would strike the earth and glance off. There is nothing on the moon to store up energy, no vegetables there, and so the sun-light goes off without doing any good. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.24
Now the very first lesson that God gave man in the beginning, the very first word that he said to him, so far as we have any record, is on the subject of diet. That was his first lesson. He began by telling him what to eat. “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree, yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.25
So you see there is such a thing as vegetable meat, - seeds, nuts, and fruits, - and that was the food that God gave to man. That is vegetable meat - that is heavenly meat. Now the seeds, nuts, and fruits have energy stored up in them: and they are the natural diet of man. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.26
We do not have to go into any discussion over this. We do not have to study a man’s physiology and anatomy, or anything else about him, to find out what he should eat. We find it right here in the Bible. It is a beautiful thing that the zoologists and biologists and anatomists, who study man from a purely scientific standpoint, arrive at the same conclusion. Men who do not believe in the Bible at all, who perhaps have never read the Bible, who do not know that that verse is there in the first chapter of Genesis, study man’s hands and teeth, and stomach, and alimentary canal, - his whole anatomy, and they call attention to the fact that a man’s structure is wonderfully like that of the ape, the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the ourang-outang; and that those animals eat seeds, nuts, and fruits. From this they conclude that these things must be the natural diet for man. It is not simply a few fanatics that say this, nor a few vegetarians, but it is the most eminent anatomists, the most eminent scientists, of the world. So, considering man from his structure, we must regard him as a fruit- and seed-eating animal. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 134.27
As I have said, we do not have to go to scientists at all. We find it right there in the first chapter of Genesis. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.1
[Voice in congregation: Is the potato included in the seeds and fruits?] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.2
No, sir. We can not eat potatoes, unless we cook them first. Adam did not have any cook-stove, and he had no means of cooking; so he could not use potatoes, as they have to be cooked. When we take up the subject of cookery, I will show you why potatoes and other vegetables have to be cooked before being fit for food. The process by which fruit is ripened is exactly what is accomplished in the cook-stove in preparing vegetables for the table. You know you can take a green apple and eat it, and be awfully sick; yet if you take the same kind of an apple and cook it, it will not make you sick. The cooking does what the ripening does, but not so perfectly. It converts the starch of the green apple into dextrin and sugar. That is what the process of digestion does for starch. But I will leave this part of the subject for another time. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.3
Let us consider our proposition a moment longer. There are two classes of living things, - vegetables and animals. These are the two classes of living things. Vegetables are non sentient, living things, while animals are sentient, living things. Animals can feel and think, while vegetables can not; nevertheless, the vegetables are living things. Animals are beings. They are force-consuming machines, while vegetables are simply force, or energy storing things. The vegetable world stores up fuel for the animal world to burn; the vegetable world stores up food for the animal world to use. Let us see what situation a man is in, what a man is doing when he eats an animal, or any animal which eats another animal. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.4
For instance, when a lion eats rabbits, what is the lion doing? - Why, he is doing the very same thing as would be done in feeding a stove with kerosene lamps. The stove is to burn fuel, and the lamp is to burn fuel. They are both force-consumers; and so it is just the same to feed large animals with little animals as it would be to feed a big stove with little stoves. If you put a kerosene lamp in a stove, and there is some oil in it, say half a pint, left from the gallons and gallons of oil which the lamp has burned, the stove will burn the half pint of oil, and then the lamp will remain in the stove as rubbish. But if we keep throwing in lamps, we shall by and by have a good deal of rubbish there, shall we not? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.5
The animal is a machine. Aside from the energy it has in itself, it also has the power of utilizing energy. When you burn fuel in a stove, what will be left behind? - Ashes. What goes out of the chimney? - Smoke. The very same thing happens when you and I take food. If you put corn in a stove, there will be ashes left behind, and the smoke will ascend through the chimney. If you feed that same kind of corn to a horse, there will be ashes and smoke. The nose is the chimney of the horse; and smoke is being poured out all the time, and it is a deadly poison, and the very same kind of poison that goes out through the chimney of the stove. If you take the ashes of the stove, and pour water on them, will the ashes dissolve? - They will, to some extent. The same thing is true of the ashes of the food that the horse eats, - the ashes of the corn. Some of the ashes does not dissolve, and is carried off through the bowels; and some does dissolve, and is carried off through the skin and kidneys; so you have the very same thing as you have in the stove - smoke and ashes. These are poisons, are they not? As you keep on putting that fuel into the stove, after a while the fire becomes choked by the accumulation of the ashes, does it not? The ashes have to be cleared away. The animal can, of itself, throw off the ashes. Suppose you disconnect the pipe from the chimney of a stove, and stop up the mouth of the pipe, and shut the stove up tight, what will occur? - The fire will be killed, will it not? It will be smothered by the smoke. Suppose you put something over the top of the chimney of a kerosene lamp, will the lamp burn bright? - No; it will very soon go out. Why? - Because the smoke is poison to the light, and puts it out. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.6
Precisely the same thing is true with our bodies. The fuel put into our bodies is digested. Some of it is assimilated, and some of it becomes poisonous. Some of it, which is soluble, remains in the body for a time, and passes off slowly through the kidneys and skin; other parts of it pass through the bowels, and in that way all is gotten rid of. So when you put fuel into a stove, there is always some ashes, is there not? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.7
In every animal there are three things, - living matter, food and dead matter; in every vegetable there are two, - living matter and nutrient matter; no poisons, or dead matter. The tree takes in food, and converts it into living matter; and in the tree there is always some food that has not yet been converted into living matter. In the animal we have three things, - food that has not been used, - or nutrient matter, living matter, and dead matter. Now did you ever think of that? This dead matter is the ashes. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.8
[A Voice: No matter how highly meat is flavored, or how it is dressed, there is the broken-down tissue, the dead matter.] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.9
That is it. I am talking of the best animal that ever lived, and it is not entirely a question of disease. There is dead matter in the animal, because the animal is like the stove, that leaves ashes behind; or the locomotive, that sends out smoke and cinders and other things; because the animal is a working machine, just the same as the locomotive is. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.10
[A Voice: The arterial blood flows out; and the venous blood, with the impurities, the dregs, is left behind.] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.11
That is it; these things are always left in. The kidneys strain out the poisons from the body; but this is simply an extract of the body, and the body has more or less of it in it all the time. What the liver strains out in the bile is nothing more nor less than extract of the body, and there is always more or less rife in the body. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.12
Now see how much lung poison - carbonic acid poison - there is in the body. If you put a rope around a man’s neck, the poison will accumulate sufficiently to kill him in four or five minutes. The body is so full of poisons, and is so near the death point, that it takes only three or four minutes after the lungs cease to carry it off, for the poison to accumulate to a fatal amount. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.13
Well, to come back to the point again: the animal, as we stated, contains three things. I am an animal; and I have, in my body, food, living matter, and dead matter. Now suppose I eat vegetables, what do I do? - I add food and living matter to the food and the living matter that are in my body. But suppose I eat an animal, what then? - I add food, living matter, and dead matter, so I add to the dead matter that is already in my body the dead matter that is in the body of the other animal. Now can you see that? [Voices: Yes.] There is no escaping that. When I eat the vegetable, I get pure food, just as the Lord made it for us. God did not put any poisons in the vegetables; there is no dead matter in them. But when I eat the animal, I take the food that is there, and the living matter, also the dead matter; so I add to the dead matter in my body, which is already so near the danger-point, the poisons of the other animal’s body. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.14
Now that is the reason the use of flesh shortens life, - because it adds to the accumulation of dead matter in the body; and by and by it overcomes the life-force, and brings death. That is the way death came; for if Adam had not sinned, and had continued to eat the perfect food, he might have lived right on forever. God made man immortal, not mortal. Man is naturally immortal, not naturally mortal. Some of you will say that is a heresy; but if you will consider the matter, I am sure you will agree with me. The only reason man dies is because he sinned. It is only disobedience that brings death; there could not have been any death if there had been no disobedience. That is not to say that man has intrinsic immortality; for God only is immortal; but God gave to man the privilege of being immortal if he would obey him, man always being in the position where, if he disobeyed God for a moment, he was subject to death. He had to depend upon God’s continually pouring into him a continual stream of his energy; and so long as that stream kept coming in uninterruptedly, just so long man might live; but the moment man sinned, he interrupted this continuous stream of God’s energy, and was subject to death. And the only reason we may hope to live in the future world, is that we shall be forever obedient, because we shall be continually in touch with God, receiving from him power enough and life enough to keep us above the power of death. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.15
Death comes by the accumulation of death within the body. It has accumulated to an extent which makes it impossible for the life to overcome the death-dealing agencies within. Every animal has death within him. The vegetable has living matter and food, but no death in it; but the animal has food - living matter - and death. The dead matter gradually accumulates until the body loses its power to overcome it and eliminate it. If we could throw it all out perfectly, our blood would be pure, and our bodies would be pure, and we would be above the power of disease; but through our inability perfectly to eliminate all the dead matter from our bodies, it gradually accumulates, by the taking on of other dead matter, until the amount of death in the body has reached the point where the body can no longer live. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.16
Now here is a reason for the disuse of flesh-foods that no one can possibly dispute. It puts the matter on a strictly scientific and Scriptural basis, and there is no possible getting away from it. It is not a question whether the animal is a healthy one or not; it is only a question of whether it is an animal or not. There is no better reason for feeding one animal with another animal than there is for feeding a furnace with small stoves, or a stove with pieces of other stoves. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.17
But I will close, and let you have a breathing-spell before the opening of the next session. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.18
HUMAN BUILDING MATERIAL
“Man is built out of the food he eats, and the body can be no better than the material that enters into its construction. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.19
“If he eats unnatural food, he becomes unnatural, sickly, cross, inharmonious; he takes medicine and increases in unnaturalness. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.20
“It is natural for man to be strong and vigorous, physically, mentally, morally; and nothing but natural food will make this condition possible. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.21
“The most natural food is the food that nourishes each element of the body in proportion to its natural requirements. When Nature designed man, the same Intelligence provided the material suited to the requirements of the design, among which is the marvelously perfect food product, whole wheat.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.22
THE CAUSE
“Here’s to the cause, and the years that have passed!
Here’s to the cause! It will triumph at last.
The end shall illumine the hearts that have braved
All the years and the fears, that the cause might be saved.
And though what we hoped for, and darkly have groped for,
Come not in a manner we prayed that it should.
We shall gladly confess it, and the cause - may God bless it -
Shall find us all worthy, who did what we could!”
GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.23
REPORT FROM BRAZIL
As we look over the work in Brazil, and see what the Lord has done in the short time since laborers were called here to proclaim the message of peace, we feel to exclaim, “God hath wrought wonderfully.” The work began in May, 1893, with one colporteur; others have been added from time to time, until we now have ten. About ten thousand dollars’ worth of books has been sold, and the Lord has blessed these seeds of truth to the salvation of souls. Aside from the colporteurs, we have two ministers, one Bible worker and four teachers. Our little flock numbers a few over four hundred. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.24
Our tithes are increasing year by year, amounting to over sixteen hundred dollars last year. One hundred and thirty were baptized during the year, forty-six of whom are Brazilians. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.25
I have tried to keep the Foreign Mission Board well informed of the work, and as I have made a report to them, I need not say more along these lines. The work is onward in Brazil, and the workers are all of good cheer. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.26
We have many perplexing things to grapple with, and some things are so void of justice that much patience is needed; but the Lord is our strength, and in him we trust. In our finances we deal in six different moneys, and all have to be computed into money that has no basis. One month fifty cents may be worth seventy cents, and the next month only thirty cents. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.27
Our needs are many, and we are waiting on the Lord to supply them all. We are trying to develop workers here as fast as possible, but we would be pleased to have another good German teacher, - a man of age and experience in Bible teaching, as well as in secular work. The medical missionary work should soon be started in Brazil, and for this a man of faith and courage is needed. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.28
There is no doubt that this General Conference will be more important and profitable than any previous one. The Lord’s will be done. Now, brethren, if during this feast the Lord calls any to come to Brazil and labor, please do not be afraid to move to this beautiful country. Be sure that the Lord desires you to come, then come, and the Lord will never leave you, nor forsake you, even in Brazil. W. H. THURSTON. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 135.29
BIBLE STUDY. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. Study by A. T. Jones, Friday, February 24
The Army of Xerxes Against Greece - The Establishment of the Vision - The Children of Robbers - By Peace Destroys - His Policy. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.1
Yesterday morning we sketched the lines of prophecy down to the fall of Rome, so that we could get the idea of God’s handwriting in history. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.2
In the eighth chapter of Daniel there is a phase of history developed that is not suggested in the seventh. Now you know that the eighth and eleventh chapters of Daniel begin with Media Persia; then comes Grecia; then the division into four; then these followed by the two, - the king of the north and the king of the south. In the first verse of the tenth chapter we see that the king that was then reigning was Cyrus. Then said the angel: “There shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all.” These were three from Cyrus, and the fourth was the fourth from Cyrus, - not the fourth with Cyrus, but the fourth from Cyrus. The first of these was Cambyses; the second was Smerdis, or Gomatis; and then Darius the Persian, of the book of Ezra; then Xerxes. Xerxes of the Bible is Ahasuerus of the book of Esther. He is the fourth, who would stir up all against the realm of Grecia. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.3
That feast at the beginning of Esther, at which Ahasuerus - Xerxes - gathered together all the governors of all the provinces - that was the grand banquet at the close of the council which Xerxes had called together to deliberate about his expedition against the realm of Grecia; and all the realm was literally stirred up for the expedition. Herodotus drew up a list, giving the names of the nations, describing the dress that they wore, and the armor that they bore. I have taken that history, and set it down bodily in the “Great Empires of Prophecy,” where you can get at it. This list alone occupies four pages of the book. I will read you the numbers of them: “The army of Xerxes, including what is brought out of Asia, and that have gathered in Europe, amounted to 2,641,610 fighting men.” That was the army of fighting men alone. They were counted after they crossed the Hellespont, just as men would count sheep, and Herodotus recorded it. So he proceeds: “Such, then, being the number of the fighting men, it is my belief that the attendants who followed the camp, together with the crews of the corn-barks, and of the other craft accompanying the army, made up an amount rather above than below that of the fighting men. However, I will not reckon them as either fewer or more, but take them at an equal number. We have therefore to add to the sum already reached an exactly equal amount. This will give 5,283,220 as the whole number of men brought by Xerxes, the son of Darius, as far as Sepias and Thermopylae.” And he gathered them from all the nations, of the empire. He crossed from Asia into Europe at the Hellespont, and marched straight to Thermopylae, and there was fought the famous battle of Thermopylae. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.4
Whether Seventh-day Adventists, other Christians, or men who care nothing for Christianity, who have studied history at all, - everybody knows that the battles of Marathon, and Thermopylae, and Salamis, and Plataea are the key of history. The turning point of history from the East toward the West was in those four great battles, though Marathon occurred in the reign of Darius. Xerxes, though winning at Thermopylae, lost thousands of his army. Salamis was a sea-fight, in which his whole navy was defeated, and largely destroyed. Then Xerxes fled; and thousands of his army perished as they hurriedly marched away. He hurried as fast as he could into Asia, taking with him a considerable body-guard. More than 300,000 were left under Mardonius to try again the conquest of Greece in another campaign. Mardonius marched back into Greece, and his campaign culminated in the battle of Plataea, in which he and the whole army perished. Practically all whom Xerxes brought into Greece never saw Persia again. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.5
That, in brief, is the story of his stirring “up all against the realm of Grecia.” People may study that outside the Bible, and they do; but, when it is not studied in the Bible, nobody gets the philosophy of it. The philosophy of it is only in the Bible. Why did history turn at that point from the East to the West? Why is it that Marathon and those battles are the key? Thermopylae, Marathon, Plataea, - what was the cause of these? - “O,” some one says, “the burning of Sardis.” That stands out before men; but there is a cause yet away back; in the Bible alone you get the philosophy of it. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.6
When the angel touches Grecia, he drops out all the rest of the history of Persia, and takes Grecia. “A mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.7
Then it is the king of the north and the king of the south, clear down to the sixteenth verse. But in the fourteenth verse you have this word: “And in those times there shall many stand up against the king of the south: also the robbers of thy people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; but they shall fall.” But the margin is the true reading there. What does it say? - “The children of robbers.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.8
At that time many shall stand up against the king of the south. All the power of the king of the north and his allies was mustered against the king of Egypt; but at that time the children of robbers exalt themselves. What for? - “To establish the vision.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.9
Then when we reach the power, what is done? - The vision is established. What, then, is the object of all the prophecy in the book of Daniel, in these lines of prophecy - I mean to that point? - To bring us to that point, and to establish the vision. All the eighth chapter, and all the eleventh chapter, of the book of Daniel, up to this verse, are given for that one express purpose. There are other lessons in it; but the great leading thought, the one great aim, is the establishment of the vision. That is the thread-thought that is through it all; many other things are hung upon this thread: but that is the one thing, - to bring you and me to the power, and the rise of that power, which establishes the vision. That power is the object of the vision. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.10
Now who are these children of robbers? What power is that? Here is some more history: When, after the death of Remus, Romulus “found the number of his fellow settlers too small, he opened an asylum on the Capitoline Hill;” and “all manner of people, thieves, murderers, and vagabonds of every kind, flocked thither.” Such was the origin of “Rome, the city of strength and war and bloodshed,” - “this city which was destined to shed more blood than any [other] city of the world.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.11
“The most of these, if not all, were of course men: but in order that they might become a nation, there must be women. To secure these, Romulus ‘asked those in the neighboring cities to unite themselves by marriages to his people. Everywhere they refused with contempt,’ saying to him, ‘Open an asylum for women, too.’ Then Romulus had recourse to a stratagem, proclaiming that he had discovered the altar of Consus, the god of councils (an allegory of his cunning in general). In the midst of the solemnities the Sabine maidens, thirty in number, were carried off. ‘From this rape there arose wars, first with the neighboring towns, which were defeated one after another, and at last with the Sabines.... Between the Palatine and the Tarpeian Rock a battle was fought, in which neither party gained a decisive victory until the Sabine women threw themselves between the combatants, who agreed that henceforth the sovereignty should be divided between the Romans and the Sabines.’” - “Great Empires of Prophecy,” page 217. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.12
That is the origin of Rome. What were the men at first? - Robbers. And how did they get their wives? - They stole them. And the children of these men are children of robbers. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.13
[S. H. Lane: Do not some discountenance that whole story?] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.14
O yes; and a good many others discount the story of the Bible of ancient times, - of Assyria, Babylon, etc. But all the researches and archaeological discoveries that have been made confirm the story of the Bible. So with Roman history. Only two or three weeks ago a pavement was discovered, with writing upon it, that demonstrates the truthfulness of one of the points in early Roman history that had been doubted, and practically set aside by the modern wise-acres. So although they discount it, it is the truth, and you may know it is the truth; because the Bible says that Rome is the children of robbers. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.15
Thus when you reach Rome, that establishes the vision. What is the object of all the vision in the book of Daniel up to that point? - To bring us face to face with Rome. And from that date to the end of the world, the world has to deal with Rome, in one phase or another. It may not be the actual form of the government of the rulers of Rome; but either in form or in spirit the world has to deal with Rome from that day until the end of the world. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.16
This is as far as we will go now in the eleventh chapter of Daniel. Now turn back to the eighth chapter, because this is all summed up in that chapter. Verse 20. The angel explains what these things mean: the ram is the kings of Media and Persia; the rough goat is the king of Grecia. Four kings shall stand up out of the nations; but not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, “when the transgressors are come to their full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.” This is the same power that is over there in the eleventh chapter and fourteenth verse - the children of robbers. What is it, then? - Rome. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.17
“A king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. And he shall destroy wonderfully,” - more blood was shed by Rome than by any other nation that was ever on the earth, - I read it a moment ago. “He shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and he shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy,” - not through policy, - but through his policy. It is his own, you see. Not the policy of another. It is his peculiar policy, distinguished from all others. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.18
“Through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand.” And what? - “he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many.” By peace shall destroy many! Destroy people by peace! GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.19
[Mrs. S. M. I. Henry: The margin says “by prosperity.”] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.20
[A. F. Ballenger: The Revised Version says, “And in their security shall destroy many.”] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.21
The text is true. By peace he shall destroy many. The peace of Rome is destruction to those who have it. There is a whole lot of history in that one clause. I do not say that the margin is not true, or that this Revised Version is not true. They are all true, and it takes all of them to express the full meaning in the original word. But the text itself is true, and I want to stick to the text. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.22
[Voice: Is it in the spiritual reign or temporal?] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.23
Altogether. It will come out presently. It is by peace that he destroys many. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.24
[Mrs. S. M. I. Henry: Making them believe they are all right, when they are not?] GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.25
Yes; his very promises of peace to the people bring destruction, if they trust them. That is Rome. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.26
“By peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.” To what time does that bring us? - To the second coming of Christ, to the Stone cut out without hand. Then is not the history of the world, from the rise of Rome to the end of the world, in these two verses? From the time that the children of robbers exalt themselves, to the end of the world, we have Rome to deal with, but what did the exaltation of the children of robbers do? - Established the vision. Then what was the object of all the prophecies before it? GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.27
Now let us glance at Rome in her history, just as it is spoken of here. “A king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences [dark schemes], shall stand up.” Now put those two expressions together: “Through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper,” and “by peace shall destroy many.” The policy of Rome was a peaceful policy; but what was the result of it? - “Shall destroy many.” Also he shall “destroy the mighty and the holy people:” he does nothing but destroy.
(Continued.)
GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.28
A LETTER
The following letter from one of our State agents indicates how Sister White’s new book is appreciated by representative men:- GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.29
“There was great rejoicing in our home when it [“Desire of Ages”] came. I have been feasting upon it ever since, and I can truthfully say it is the best book I ever received from man. Too much can not be said in its favor. “C. F. DART.” GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.30
Prices, $3.50; $4.25; $5; and $7. Address your State tract society. Pacific Press Pub. Co., Oakland, California. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.31
Extra copies of this issue will be sent for five cents each. Address, International Tract Society, Battle Creek, Mich. 137 The Daily Bulletin Of the General Conference “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” Proverbs 11:14. GCDB March 2, 1899, page 136.32