General Conference Bulletin, vol. 6
THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS
A. G. DANIELLS
A Review of the Work for the Last Quadrennial Period, and the Outlook for the Future ELDER A. G. DANIELLS.
This is certainly an inspiring occasion. It is one to which we have looked, and for which we have planned, for a long time. And now, as this Conference opens, and while it continues, thousands of our fellow believers who can not be with us in person will be with us in spirit, and will offer continual prayer to God in behalf of this meeting. Surely we should not fail to join them in this intercession. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.5
The Delegation
It may be helpful to us to take a brief glance at our delegation. Nearly three hundred fifty delegates have gathered here for this thirty-seventh session of our General Conference. They include thirty-nine of the forty members of the General Conference Committee; all but one of the twenty-one presidents of the union conferences; eighty-five of the one hundred two presidents of the local conferences; the superintendents of nearly all of our mission fields; and the chairmen and secretaries of General Conference departments. And with all these there are many ministers and laymen, as well as officers and leaders of the different local departments of our work, who have been sent as delegates. Never before in our history has there been such a large gathering of the men and women upon whom have been placed the responsibilities of leadership in this cause. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.6
This delegation has come from all parts of the world. It represents North and South America, from Alaska to Cape Horn; all of Europe, a large part of Asia, and the most of Africa. Australasia and the most of the island groups of the Pacific are also represented. In this vast stretch of territory we have twenty-one union conferences, one hundred two local conferences, and sixty-nine separate mission fields. Fifty-three of these mission fields are located within the territory of union conferences, and are under the care and management of these conferences. Sixteen of our mission fields lie outside of conference territory and are under the supervision of the General Conference Committee. The territory represented by this delegation contains a population of fourteen hundred million people, and to them we are proclaiming the third angel’s message in about sixty different languages. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.7
We are profoundly grateful to God for having enabled us to enter such a large part of the great field, and for having brought so many who are bearing the burdens of this cause in all parts of the world together for this Conference. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.8
Brief Review
The last session of our General Conference was held at this place in 1905. At that Conference it was decided that hereafter our Conference sessions should be held only once in every four years, and this decision has met the approval of our people generally. This quadrennial period, which seemed so long when looking forward to it, has passed very quickly to those who have been hard pressed with the work. As we review the experiences of this time, we realize that it has been crowded with rich blessings from God. He has given us the most favorable opportunities for carrying forward his work in both the organized territory and the mission fields. While there have been evil influences to contend with everywhere, we would hardly dare to say that we have had any very serious difficulties to meet in any part of the world. Our Captain has surely been on the field of battle, directing and sustaining his forces. This has given courage to his people to go forward. Each year new territory has been entered in the regions beyond, and a good, substantial force of workers has gone to those fields. A large number of volunteers are waiting to go, as soon as we have the funds with which to send them. While there has been a great increase in both tithes and offerings, the funds at our disposal are still altogether inadequate to answer the pressing calls that come to us. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.9
Organization
The growth and extension of our cause demonstrates more clearly each year the value of thorough organization, and the meaning of the instruction that came to us through the spirit of prophecy at the Conference of 1901 with reference to reorganization. We were not told to dis-organize, but to re-organize. There was no intimation that the general plan of organization adopted by our denomination was wrong, but it was pointed out that our plans of administration were too narrow—that the circle was too small, and that the responsibilities of the cause were resting upon the shoulders of too few. We were, therefore, counseled to enlarge the circle of administration, and to distribute the responsibilities of management among a larger number. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.10
Immediate steps were taken to carry out this instruction. Since then the membership of the General Conference Committee has been increased from thirteen to forty. At that time there were but two union conferences, now there are twenty-one, located in nearly all parts of the world. Within their territories are included many important mission fields. To the committees in charge of these union conferences have been transferred countless details of administration which previously came to the General Conference Committee. During the same period fifty-seven local conferences have been added to the forty-five that had been organized up to 1901. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.11
In order to still further distribute responsibilities, a number of administrative departments have been created to take the oversight of special lines of work. There are now seven of these, known as the Sabbath-school, Publishing, Medical, Educational, Religious Liberty, Young People’s Missionary Volunteer, and North American Foreign departments. Each department has a committee of council with a chairman and secretary. The present membership of all these departmental committees is one hundred sixty. All the varied and important interests of the work which these departments represent go directly to the officers and members of these committees for attention. Each department carries forward its particular work with the greatest freedom, yet none of them work independently of the General Conference Committee, or of one another. The work of each is specific, and the general plans of administration are well defined. The officers of the departments counsel freely with the officers of the General Conference Committee, and all work in harmony. Were it not for the thorough organization and efficient management of these departments, I know not how the many important interests of these great lines of work could receive the prompt and careful attention they should have. Were all the important responsibilities of these various lines of work pressing upon a few men, either the work would be seriously neglected, or the men would break under the strain. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.12
Thus the reorganization that has been effected since the Conference of 1901 has drawn into the administrative circle more than five hundred persons who were not there before, and the results show that this change has greatly increased the efficiency of the management of the work. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.13
Statistics
Every one who is working earnestly for the speedy triumph of this cause is interested to know what progress it is making. The reports for the quadrennial period just closed show that eight union conferences have been organized, while twenty-six local conferences have been added. Twenty mission fields have been entered. Two hundred ninety-four churches have been organized, and the number of Sabbath-keepers has been increased by over sixteen thousand. The tithes for 1908 were $1,101,396,—an increase of $410,577 over the amount for 1904. The contributions to missions were $308,000, a gain over 1904 of $163,333. This gain is nineteen thousand dollars more than the total amount received in 1904. The value of literature sold in 1904 was about five hundred thousand dollars. Last year it amounted to $1,286,981. During the four years we have added thirty-seven advanced schools to the previous number, while the attendance at these higher schools has more than doubled. In 1904 there were fifty-four sanitariums, now we have eighty, with by far the largest patronage that we have ever enjoyed. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.14
We are well aware that numbers, money, and institutions are not sure evidences that all is well; nevertheless, in this movement so full of crosses and self-denial, they bear testimony to the confidence and devotion of our people. Men and women do not pay tithes and give their means to a cause in which they have little or no confidence. In turning away from the advantages and allurements of the world and devoting their lives to the sale of our unpopular literature, our young people show a noble devotion to this movement. In sending their sons and daughters to our schools at great expense to prepare them for service in this cause, and then giving them to distant mission fields when they have obtained a preparation, our people show their unbounded confidence in the genuineness of this message and work. And the steady yet rapid advance of these particular features of our work are proof of a growing confidence, zeal, and devotion among us. GCB May 14, 1909, page 8.15
And yet we dare not boast of what has been accomplished. We are by no means satisfied. We can not throw off the conviction that much greater results might and should have come from the expenditure of so much effort and means under such favorable opportunities. And I am sure that all who are here share the conviction that one of the great blessings for which we should seek while at this Conference is a preparation for the accomplishment of far greater things for God in the service he may yet permit us to render for him. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.1
Publishing Department
This department has made great strides in the circulation of our literature during the last four years. At the time of the last General Conference our leading publishing houses had just taken a united, firm stand to eliminate commercial work so that they could devote all their time and facilities to our denominational work. Following this action, the sales of our denominational literature began to increase at a rapid rate, and has continued until now the plants of nearly all our publishing houses are taxed to their fullest capacity to turn out the literature called for. The production and sale of attractive and creditable ten-cent magazines is one of the most important developments of this department during the last four years. The scholarship movement is another. Never have so many of our people been engaged in the sale of our books and papers. We all rejoice to know that last year these sales amounted to one million two hundred fifty thousand dollars. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.2
And still the department has a most important work on its hands in the improvement of the literature we have and the production of a larger and better literature in foreign languages. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.3
Education Department
No branch of our work has shown greater activity in recent years than the educational work. Schools have been established in all directions, and students have filled them to overflowing It has been but two years since the important work of this department has had the full time and service of one of its officers. Steady improvement can be seen wherever one looks. A well-defined system is being developed, and there is a growing confidence in our school work. A good, spiritual atmosphere which is turning the attention of the students to foreign missions, pervades the most of the institutions. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.4
There are, however, some very important problems to be solved, and it is to be hoped that much will be done during this Conference to work them out. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.5
Medical Missionary Department
Our Medical Missionary Department was organized by the General Conference four years ago. The rapid growth of this department of our work has made it difficult to give its various phases all the attention they should have. The launching of so many sanitarium enterprises, and the pressing calls from mission fields for medical workers, have brought such a demand for physicians that it has been next to impossible for the officers of the department to devote their time to its general interests. The chairman has never been free from the care of an institution. Soon after the department was organized, we yielded to a request to release the secretary to take charge of a sanitarium. Then not long after securing the present secretary, arrangements were made for him to combine the duties of secretary of the department and superintendent of a sanitarium. This has not been satisfactory to our medical workers, and now he is released from the sanitarium, so that his whole time may be given to the many growing interests of the department. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.6
But notwithstanding these difficulties, the development of this branch of our work has been very encouraging. The number of our sanitariums has been doubled during the last four years, and to-day we have the largest and best patronage we have ever had since beginning our sanitarium work. We now have in operation seventy-nine sanitariums, forty-four under conference management, and thirty-six private institutions. The most of them are well filled with a good class of people in search of health. The ministry of our physicians and nurses is very successful in all our institutions. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.7
This line of work presents great opportunities for rendering good service to our fellow men. I fear that its great value and importance are neither understood nor appreciated as they should be. Plans should be laid at this Conference for greatly extending the work of the Medical Missionary Department. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.8
Sabbath-School Department
Although the Sabbath-school Department has been organized for years and has been well managed, most earnest, painstaking labor has been given to its most important features during the last four years. Great care has been exercised in the selection and preparation of the lessons. This is the most important and difficult problem of the department, and it is one that requires great wisdom and tireless efforts on the part of the officers. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.9
By faithful and wise efforts the contributions of the Sabbath-schools have been very greatly increased in recent years, and nearly the whole amount is now passed on to mission fields. Nearly two thousand dollars is given by the schools every Sabbath to foreign missions. This is certainly a wonderful help to our missionary enterprises. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.10
Religious Liberty Department
At no time in our history has this important phase of our work required more serious and constant attention than during the last four years. Everywhere throughout the United States, religious leaders have seemed intoxicated with the deceptive notion of making people religious by force. Sunday bills have been kept constantly before the United States Congress. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.11
From the Atlantic to the Pacific, religious legislation and the enforcement of religious laws have been urged upon legislators and city officials. This has called for great activity on the part of the general and local officers of the Religious Liberty Department; and it is a matter for which we have reason to be profoundly thankful that so far the Lord has given us signal victories. The Sunday bill that has been so persistently kept before Congress has met with utter defeat, and has died with the expiration of each session. The same may be said of a number of the bills presented to State legislatures. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.12
Of course we know that ultimately this evil thing will triumph, but our efforts to defeat it as long as possible result in a fuller proclamation of the third angel’s message to the world. We have been gratified with the splendid circulation that has been given the department magazine Liberty. This journal has been started since the last General Conference, and has had a circulation of fifty or sixty thousand copies of each issue. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.13
Missionary Volunteer Department
At the biennial council held in Switzerland in 1907, it was decided to create a Young People’s Department. By diligent efforts the officers of the department have made excellent progress in getting their work under way, and in organizing the field. Most encouraging results of their efforts in behalf of our young people can be seen on every hand. We have a great army of children and youth in our ranks. They require a service adapted to their age and conditions. It must be given to them while young if we would save them. It is this service the Young People’s Missionary Volunteer Department is rendering, and it should have the hearty, helpful cooperation of all our people. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.14
Biennial Council
The biennial council of the General Conference Committee, to be held midway between the sessions of the General Conference, convened at Gland, Switzerland, in the spring of 1907. This was the first meeting of the General Conference Committee ever held outside of the United States. It was well attended by our European brethren, and proved to be a very interesting and profitable meeting. The visit of so many of our American brethren to Europe gave them an acquaintance with our people and their condition and needs, which has enabled them to co-operate more intelligently in the work in those fields than was possible before. It was also a source of encouragement to our people in Europe, and strengthened the ties which bind us together. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.15
Foreign Mission Seminary
It was at this biennial council that the decision was made to change the Washington Training College into a foreign mission seminary. The great need for an army of well-instructed and thoroughly prepared young people for mission fields led to this decision. The second year of the Seminary has just closed. The experiences of these two years furnish ample proof that this was a most important step in behalf of the cause of missions. A large number of the young people who have come to the Seminary have already been passed on to the mission fields, and others are ready to go. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.16
The purpose and the work of the Seminary should receive the most thoughtful consideration and hearty support of our leading men at the base of supplies. GCB May 14, 1909, page 9.17
The sunshine and the shadow are commingled in all life’s experiences. Sorrow is mixed with joy, and pain with pleasure, even in Christian labor. The message is of God, strong in his strength, and enduring in his might; but the instruments employed in its promulgation are mortal men and women,—weak vessels of clay,—that the glory may redound to the Creator, and not to the creature. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.1
Victories are bought through toil and sacrifice, sometimes even to the sacrifice of life itself. The gospel was instituted through the humiliation and death of its divine Author, and its beneficent influence has been extended through all the centuries by similar experiences on the part of its advocates. Such sacrifices have been witnessed during the last quadrennial period, in connection with this last-day gospel message. We are pained to record the death of fifty-one conference workers during this time. Thirty-two of these occurred in the United States, and nineteen in other lands. The following ordained ministers, a number of whom met with us in Conference four years ago, now rest from their labors:— GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.2
Geo. B. Douglass, D. T. Bourdeau, W. B. Hill, C. A. Washburn, C. O. Taylor, N. P. Nelson, and S. S. Ryles, who died during the year 1995; S. H. Lane, E. H. Root, W. N. Glenn, J. B. Stow, O. N. Whetsel, and A. G. Bodwell, who died during 1906; during the year 1907, T. B. Snow, J. C. Middaugh, D. E. Scoles, T. M. Steward, J. L. Baker, N. W. Allee, M. S. Wooding, W. D. Curtis, J. Bartlett; and in the year 1908 Wm. Saunders, A. J. Howard, and M. D. Mattson. Thus far during the present year two true and tried workers have fallen in death, Elder J. M. Rees and Sister Eliza J. Burnham. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.3
We extend to the grief-burdened hearts, sorrowing for the loss of these loved ones, our deepest sympathy. Their sorrow is our sorrow, and their hope of a glad reunion in the resurrection day soon to dawn, our hope and assurance. May the earnest labors of our honored dead lead us to greater consecration of life and effort, to the hastening of the day of final deliverance. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.4
Important Measures Recommended
While many measures might be suggested for the consideration of this Conference, I shall venture to suggest only a few. Some of these seem of vital importance to the interests of the work we are carrying forward, and should, it appears to me, receive special attention. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.5
I. Perhaps the most important question of all for us to consider is the personal spiritual experience of our people. We know full well that that is the fundamental question with which each individual must reckon. Each one should know for himself that all is right between himself and God. He must know that his sins are forgiven, that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him, and that the power of God is giving him continual victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. He must know this. Then God can use him somehow and somewhere in the finishing of his work. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.6
The natural tendency is to fall away—to lose ground. A mighty current is seeking to bear us downward. We are in great danger of losing the saving grace of God from the heart, and becoming formalists. We are in danger of this even while working zealously for the Master. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.7
In view of this, and of the great work committed to us, we should, at this time, set on foot a movement for a great spiritual revival, that will lay hold of our people everywhere and give them a great spiritual uplift. Should not this good work begin here, and be carried by us to all our fields and be continued and extended until our whole denomination is lifted to a higher spiritual platform? GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.8
2. Another question of supreme importance is a campaign in behalf of the great mission fields exceeding anything we have yet seen in our work. Of course we will all assent to this in theory, because our teaching calls for it; but when we place our limitations by the side of the mighty resources required to warn the world, we are overwhelmed and allow ourselves to choose the easiest tasks. Then, too, when our vision becomes focused on the details near by, we lose sight of the greater demands. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.9
But as surely as the work is to be finished in this our day, something far beyond anything we have ever done for the teeming millions in mission fields must now be done. May it not be that such a campaign will be set on foot at this conference? God’s purpose demands it. The great needs of the field call for it. The open doors, the response of the heathen, and the willingness of our people in the home lands encourage it. Then let us do it. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.10
3. The improvement of the literature we have and the production of more is a most important work for which this Conference should make good provision. We are to-day printing and circulating upward of a thousand different books, pamphlets, and tracts. Many of these were written a quarter of a century and more ago. Some of them were written to meet specific issues for the time, which have long since passed away, or the same questions have changed form and need to be met with altogether different reasoning. It appears to me that a strong literature committee, in whom we would have reason to place confidence, should be appointed to thoroughly revise the literature we have, and take steps to see that such new literature is produced as seems required to meet the living issues of the times which are molding public opinion. And further, that this committee be instructed to do all that is consistent to have our views and work written up for the great magazines of the country. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.11
4. Has not the time come for us to formulate more definite and effective plans for securing from our people the gifts and legacies they want the cause to receive? We have abundant evidence that much is lost to our cause each year by neglect to act in time, by mistakes in legal documents, and in many other ways. This can be avoided by careful, watchful effort. Should not some general plan be agreed upon here which can be made operative throughout the whole field? GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.12
Many other measures might be suggested, but all these will come before this body in the recommendations from the committees. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.13
This brief review of the quadrennial period just closed will be greatly enlarged and improved by the reports from the secretary, the treasurer, the presidents of union conferences, the superintendents of mission fields, and the heads of departments. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.14
This is a great gathering of our forces. We are glad to be thus able to meet together. The cost in time and money will be great, therefore the benefits should be correspondingly great. We believe they will, providing we who are here do our part to secure them. I believe every one at this Conference should set his heart on securing for himself personally just what he needs most from God; and having done this, he should press the matter until complete victory is won. These forests about here afford excellent opportunity for retirement for meditation and prayer. O that the showers of the latter rain may fall upon us in large measure, so that on returning to our various fields of service we shall impart a great blessing to all with whom we come in contact! A. G. DANIELLS. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.15
The California Tract Society sends us eighteen yearly subscriptions for the Protestant Magazine. Thus the subscriptions are coming in in groups of five to one hundred copies. Seventy-five cents will pay for five yearly subscriptions to one or more addresses. Order to-day. GCB May 14, 1909, page 10.16