ATTENDING THE EARLY CAMP-MEETINGS by George I. Butler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, May 12, 1885

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 19

ATTENDING THE EARLY CAMP-MEETINGS

By George I. Butler

The camp-meeting season is upon us, with all its responsibilities, perplexities, and burden of wearing labor. Meetings are already appointed for Kansas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, Canada, and Northern Maine. Most of these are annual meetings, where all the business of the Conference, Tract Society, and the Sabbath-school Association for a whole year to come, will be transacted. Such meetings must be of great importance to each Conference. Not only are all matters of business relating to each of these organizations to be considered at these annual meetings, but the spiritual wants of the cause are to receive much attention. The hearts of the people are to be inspired; the wants of the cause to be considered; plans of action are to be formed; and the best arrangements possible which the circumstances of the case will admit, are to be perfected.

Our people everywhere know all this; and it seems almost unnecessary to urge them to attend such meetings as these. We are, however, receiving letters from presidents of Conferences, asking that we do all we can to urge the people to come out to their camp-meetings. They fear many who ought to be there will fail to come, and that they will thus deprive themselves of a great blessing. If many do this, there is a loss to themselves, and in the aggregate a great loss to the Conference.

It is safe to say that if we had no annual meetings the cause would run down, and great loss would result. Of course, if but few attend, the larger portion receive no benefit. The more general the attendance, therefore, the greater the good to the cause and the Conference. Our people are scattered. Many have very little opportunity to hear stirring and heart-searching preaching, which would enable them to see the vast importance of the work of God for this time. Many of our larger churches hear but few discourses in a year. At these general gatherings, experienced laborers,—the best available talent at the command of the General Conference at the time,—are sent to assist these State Conferences by counsel and earnest labor. How can people who really love the cause of God, treat such meetings as these with indifference and contempt? Persons cannot do it, who feel a real interest. Our best brethren and sisters make a practice of attending all such meetings. They find it very beneficial. They feel that they suffer a great loss if any unforeseen circumstance deprives them of this privilege. They are blessed themselves by attending, and their families also are blessed. Many have the inestimable happiness of having all their children with them in the truth, because they have taken pains to take them to these important meetings. Possibly these would have been lost to the cause, lost eternally if they had not done so.

What a feeling of poignant sorrow and anguish will fill the hearts of some world-loving Sabbath-keepers in the great day, when they see that it was their worldliness, their fear of expense, their desire to make money, which kept them at home and deprived their children of these precious means of grace! And their children will be lost forever, because their parents loved the world so well that they would not take them where agencies were provided to save them from ruin. At great expense and labor, just the kind of help provided which they needed; but they kept away for some worldly reason. They could save a few dollars; they could make a little money; but in so doing their children were lost to the cause, having gone into the world, with no love for sacred things. May God help those who think of staying away from camp-meetings to see the danger of this course.

Every revolving year brings us nearer to the great day, closer to the final fearful struggle with the powers of darkness. It seems to us that the spirit that has hold of thousands and millions is unsettling. There was never such a need of earnest laborers in the cause as now. The work for God’s true servants is to cry aloud and spare not; to lift up the voice like a trumpet, and show God’s people their sins. We must not settle down in carelessness now. The truth is spreading to earth’s remotest bounds. Rays of light already reach around the world. The truth is going, and people are embracing the Sabbath, in distant parts of the earth. Toil-worn laborers are crossing the broad ocean going to the most distant islands of the sea to establish important missions. Ships go from the most important seaports of the globe to every land and every clime are being supplied with the precious truth of God. The leading languages of the earth are being used as channels through which to convey the light of truth.

There is an ear to hear the glorious truths of God. The minds of men are astir. They want something better than the old, misty, contradictory notions of the past dark, apostate ages. They want the pure light as it came forth from Christ and the apostles. Satan means to put us all to sleep if possible. The benumbing influences which he brings to bear are being felt all around us; but God has light and truth for us. Will you have it, brethren and sisters, or will you shut yourselves up in your worldly schemes, and deprive the servants of the Lord of the privilege of talking to you of these soul-inspiring themes?

We want you to come out to the camp-meetings. We will all do the best we can to inspire you with the blessed spirit of this work. We have no dullness, no discouragements, no unbelief to talk to you. The light was never clearer, the prospect never more hopeful as now. The period of questioning, of doubt and uncertainty, is in the past. Those who look forward instead of backward, see plenty of light. It is dawning and shining, brethren and sisters, and if you will only look for it you can have it.

This work now is more a matter of sight than of faith. Once, when the pioneers started out, there was but a mere handful of believers, it was a matter of faith. Now, with the rays of light shining all over the globe, the development of Satan’s power already inaugurated, Spiritualism in kings’ courts, appearing all over the earth in its last seductive phase, and with the party already formed for pushing through the Sunday law, the agitation of the subject we now see, and all the other vast array of evidence plainly open to our minds, it becomes more a matter of sight.

Shall we, then, arouse and take hold anew of the work of God? Shall we every one come out to the important meetings to get freshly imbued with the spirit of the work? We cannot write an appeal to every Conference. It would be but a repetition. In every Conference there ought to be a planning of the work, a preparation of heart for these meetings. Put away your trials, brethren, and seek God. Come together for a pentecostal blessing, and you will be disappointed.

GEO. I. BUTLER, Pres. Gen. Conf.