Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 29, 1876
TENT-MEETINGS
By Dudley Marvin Canright
BY ELD. D. M. CANRIGHT.
(Concluded)
STRAINING THE TENT.
Unless proper care is exercised, a tent may be easily ruined in one day. As soon as it begins to rain, the ropes and canvas commence to swell and tighten. Then the top should be gradually let down, every little while, as fast as it tightens. It is not necessary to loosen the guy rope; lowering the top is sufficient if the tent is properly pitched. The big guys, however, which hold up the center pole, will have to be loosened, as you cannot let them down. If the tent is allowed to stand during a rain till it becomes too tight, it will stretch the threads in every seam; then ever after that it will leak like a sieve, and will be good for nothing. But a tent should be kept stretched tight all the time in the dryest weather. It looks much better, and is not injured by the wind so much as it is when allowed to hang loose and flap around.
Again, care should be taken not to allow the tent to mildew after a rain. What ruins a tent the quickest of anything is to have a heavy shower of rain come, and then have the sun come out on it, clear and hot. This is what mildews and rots a tent. To avoid this, just as soon as the rain is over, the wall should be put up all around the tent, so as to allow a free circulation all through it. This will soon dry off the dampness before the tent has time to mildew.
ADVERTISING.
What we want is to get the attention of the people; and to secure this object every reasonable effort should be made. This is an age of advertising; everybody expects to advertise. We must do it. Still, circumstances make a difference. In the country, or in a small back village, where everybody knows all that is going on, after the first bills are scattered the neighbors will advertise the meetings enough. But in the larger villages and cities, where there are so many things to attract the attention of the people, a large amount of advertising must be done.
In the first place, we always have a bill of our meetings, setting forth what we shall lecture upon, when, where, etc. One of these should be put in every house, hotel, post-office, shop, and store, in the place. Usually, this will bring you a good audience to start with. Then if there is a daily paper published in the place, a stirring notice of the meeting should be inserted in the paper every day. This will cost but a very little. If there is no daily, make the best use of the weekly paper. Usually the editors of these papers are glad to have anything that is news, anything that would interest the people, written out as articles for their papers; hence the very first thing to be done is to go to the editor or publisher, state plainly what you want, and obtain the privilege of writing short articles, of perhaps one-third of a column to a whole column in length, in each issue, setting forth the substance of your lectures. You will find the publishers much more ready to grant you this privilege than you would naturally suppose. I have never been denied yet. Of course, you want to make them believe that you are going to stir things, that the people will be interested, and that you have something important to say. Then be on hand with just as pithy and spicy articles as you can write.
In a large town you want to make use of a bulletin-board to be put in as many prominent places as you can obtain the use of. Obtain a set of cut letters; then with a brush and a little India ink and white pasteboard or paper, you can print the headings of all your subjects; and put on the bulletin-board each day the subject for the evening. You can have one in front of the tent, at least. Other modes of advertising can be taken advantage of, according to circumstances. Do not be afraid of advertising too much.
SELLING BOOKS.
There is a right way and a wrong way of doing everything. After much careful observation, I am satisfied that the best way to sell books is to put them out as early as the second lecture; i. e., all the books treating upon the prophecies, signs of the times, saints’ inheritance, and those subjects which will be in no danger of creating prejudice ahead of you. Of course I would not put out books upon the Sabbath or nature of man; but you can select about a dollar’s worth of our best publications and offer them separately, or the whole in a package together. Generally you will sell more the first three nights than you will the next ten days. You will find a great many persons who will buy a dollar’s worth immediately, whereas if you put it off a week they will buy none at all.
Always keep on hand a good assortment of books; and every time you introduce a new subject or a new phase of the subject, call attention to some new book or tract. Another excellent way to dispose of books is to put up our smaller tracts in packages worth twenty-five and fifty cents each. These will always go readily. In about two or three weeks put up a $2.50 package of our best pamphlets and tracts. Toward the close of the meeting you will generally sell a good many of these. Hymn books and English Bibles will always sell well, especially at the close of the meeting.
When is the best time to introduce our paper for the purpose of obtaining subscribers? My answer is, The sooner the better. Have a neat, clean copy on hand. Exhibit it in full size, explain all its features, and then try to obtain as many subscribers as you can for six months. You will get several the first week whom you will not get if you wait till after that.
There is always a large mass who will attend on Sunday evening, when some special subject is up, who do not think of buying. They will come from many houses, and from all conditions of life. Among these some of our small and most pointed tracts should be freely distributed. This can best be done by having a brother stand by the door and give a tract to each person as he enters the tent. In this way every one can be supplied with a tract. If you wait till the meeting is closed, many will have gone out during the meeting, and these you will miss. Then where there is a crowd they always go out in such a rush that you will miss many; but take them as they come in quietly, one at a time, and you will reach all. This also gains their confidence on the start. They feel that you are not after their money, and they will be more likely to buy something, or to contribute if you take up a collection. By doing this you will scatter thousands of our little tracts everywhere through the community. Nearly every family will be reached, and persons who do not and would not attend the meetings will read these little tracts at home; and thus seeds will be sown which may bring forth much fruit. This should be done several times during a tent-meeting. Perhaps twice a week would not be too often; at least, whenever you have a large crowd. I hope we shall soon have some tracts prepared especially for this purpose.
Last summer, while in California, we tried an experiment which proved a perfect success. After we had been in the place about a week, our tent master took the Family Physician and canvassed the town for it, just as a regular canvasser would do. He not only sold quite a number of copies, but found many families who were interested in the meetings. They wished to have a talk with us, but for various causes did not feel free to invite us to their houses; but when he came there they were ready and glad to talk with him. Some he supplied with tracts, and others he interested to come again. Some were led to embrace the Sabbath in this way. It worked so well that I became satisfied that it was a good plan, and would recommend it to our brethren generally. We are too afraid of ourselves. Let us have more faith in God, more confidence among the people, and then we shall do more.
WHEN TO INTRODUCE THE SABBATH.
How early in a course of lectures should the Sabbath question be introduced? Of course, circumstances will make a great deal of difference about that, as about everything else; but of one thing I have become satisfied, viz., that it is not best to put it off very long, and allow the people to become wearied out with other things before introducing the Sabbath. Generally speaking, the Sabbath should be introduced within one week; commencing with the prophecies, run down through the messages and strike the Sabbath just as soon as you can. If you put it off two or three weeks, you do not know what may happen to break your interest, and draw off a good share of your audience before you get to the main question. Generally you have the largest audience the second and third weeks, and that is the very time you want to discuss the most important question.
There is a great deal in taking the people by surprise, and by storm, as it were, by pouring in the truth so thick and so fast that they have not time to bring forward or collect their list of objections, while you are going from one subject to another. Keep ahead of them. If you allow a questioning, debating spirit to come in first, you will lose much.
There are so many things to say upon the Sabbath question that it is necessary to begin early. After you have spoken on it two or three times, you can introduce some other question for an evening or two and then return to the Sabbath, always keeping that as the main question before them.
When a man has decided upon the Sabbath, generally speaking, he will promptly receive all the rest; but if he should receive all the rest and then reject the Sabbath, your whole labor is lost. I have been strongly impressed of late that our very long drawn-out courses of lectures are many times a mistake. If we would start in and make sharp, short work we would often have better success than we do with three times as long an effort. Or if it becomes necessary to stay a long time in a place it is not wisdom to put off our main points till a late day. I have known some of our brethren to labor three or four weeks in a place, with a good interest, before presenting the Sabbath at all; and in almost every instance they have failed to accomplish anything. I am not opposed to holding on, and sticking to the work just as long as anything can be gained; but I am opposed to introducing everything but the main question first. Very frequently a good large church has been raised up in less than three weeks’ time; still, no definite rule can be given which will govern under all circumstances.
DISCUSSIONS.
Should we hold discussions during a course of lectures? I answer, No, decidedly; that is, not a regular, set, lengthy debate. I have seen it tried a great many times, and in almost every single instance it has hurt the interest of the meeting. The reason is very evident. A debate, to amount to anything, must take up four or five days. It will call out the whole community; and by the time the debate is over they are all tired and worn out, and hence will not come again for some time, even if they have an interest. They naturally feel, too, that they have now heard all that can be said on the question, both sides of it; hence they do not care to come and hear one side any further. In the next place, a debate will always create a party spirit, and people will take their stand on one side or the other; and this will be against you. It gets up a spirit of controversy which is very unfavorable for the development of a Christian spirit. Then a host of objections will be handed out by your opponent which the wavering will use to excuse themselves for not obeying an unpopular truth.
But it is always a good thing to get your opponent to preach a sermon or two against you, and then take plenty of time to review him. You will naturally have the sympathies of the people this way. They will feel as though he was interfering with you, rather than you with him, and this will throw their sympathies on your side; besides, you will have the last word, which is always a great deal.
If a regular debate must be entered upon during a course of lectures, make it just as short as possible—one or two evenings—then it will not amount to much anyway. If you think it necessary to have a debate, put it off till after your regular course of lectures is over.
COLLECTIONS.
Should we take up collections in new places? I think we have sometimes been too delicate upon this subject in the past. Where we go into a new place, hire our board, furnish our own meeting-house, and pay all our expenses, right-minded people will always esteem it a privilege to contribute something toward our expenses. Most always they ask the privilege of doing this. I think it is perfectly proper and right to make a statement of our circumstances, and then say that whatever any one chooses to give will be thankfully received. We have always done this in California, taking up a collection as often as once in ten days or two weeks. In most places we have received enough to pay all our running expenses.
Nor is it at all necessary to go week after week to a hotel or boarding-house, and pay a high price for your board. A simple2statement of your circumstances will almost always bring out plenty of invitations to visit; or the people will bring food to the tent for you. Instead of injuring you or the people, this always brings them nearer to you. When you spend a day in a family they regard you as one of their personal friends, and will be much more likely to come and hear you, and to interest others to come.
Sabbath meetings should be started just as soon as you have spoken two or three times upon the Sabbath. It is a good thing to appoint prayer-meetings pretty early. Get the people to work just as soon as you can. It will show that you mean work. You can even start a Sabbath-school with good success. As soon as you can get two or three clear cases for baptism, attend to this ordinance. It will give people confidence in your work, and they will see that you are Christians, the same as other people.
TRUSTING
ANYWHERE that Jesus calls me,
Any work he gives to do,
Any trial or affliction
He may call me to pass through,
My glad heart has the assurance
He will help me bear and do.
Oh, the blessedness of trusting
And the full heart satisfied!
Oh, the holy joy of loving
Only Him, the Crucified!
Looking up with faith unwav’ring,
To the wounds in his dear side;
Peace abiding like a river,
Rest the world can never know,
Faith that sees the pitying Father
Whereso’er the feet may go—
Love uprising, filling, sweet’ning
Every cup of pain and woe.
All my soul is filled with blessing
While I sit at his dear feet,
And a consciousness of serving
Makes the hallowed cross more sweet,
While I own thy full salvation
And the cleansing all complete.
If the way be rough and thorny,
Thou did’st tread the same for me;
Shall the servant than his Master
More exempt from trial be?
If I may at last behold thee;
It will be enough for me.
—Sel.
STRICTNESS OF DISCIPLINE.
By J. Clarke
We say sometimes, of those who are very particular and careful in discipline, that they are very strict. And we admire the trait if it is well tempered with good sense and a kind regard for the feelings of others, if it does not descend to fault-finding, and does not mistake the meaning and motives of such as may seem to need advice.
Sometimes a mother is so anxious for the good behavior of her child that she fairly persecutes the poor thing, and is continually correcting it. It is never doing right, nor out of mischief; for all it does seems to be improper in her eyes. Soon she loses the child's affection and respect, and all good, rational authority is at an end. Such a child will be happy to be free from a parental restraint where no traces of affection appear, and the worry of doing right makes it almost a pleasure to do wrong. And as a willful lie meets no greater reproof than the accidental fall of a glass tumbler, perhaps less, the child's moral sense is necessarily very much perverted, the conscience is blunted, and the feelings are rendered obtuse.
Strictness of discipline, to have the best tendency, should be tempered with the purest love and the greatest wisdom; for ignorance will cause mistakes; and mistakes in discipline are, if often committed, grave errors, becoming very offensive and annoying to the injured party, and being often followed by rebellion and hard feelings.
David had the most complete control over his people. He was strict in discipline. He, however, was very cautious of censure. His ablest general was at heart wicked, and his offenses were many; yet David bore long with him.
David says of those in authority, in 2 Sam. 23:3–4, “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.” None but God could frame counsel for men in authority so gentle and wise as this. After the fitful, unsteady, tyrannical discipline of Saul, the predecessor of David, it must have been a delightful change to the people of Israel, when David took the charge of the armies and of the people.
The great secret of David’s success in governing his people was in the fact that he loved God supremely; and consequently he had wisdom given him from God. He kept up continually (with few exceptions) a close and constant connection with Heaven, and light from that glorious place constantly illuminated his mind. Most of his moves were so replete with wisdom and good sense that his people were delighted with their government and their king.
But human nature is ever the same, obdurate and hard to be governed; and the troubles David had with his rebellious subjects attest the fact that no government, however good, will in the end please all. Some will ever be found who will foment discord and dissension. Submission, humility, and love are essential to the happiness of all. If it is necessary for those in authority to possess these good, noble, and God-like traits, it is just as necessary for the governed to be imbued with the same characteristics.
The general prosperity of David’s reign and of the early part of Solomon’s was attributable to the fact that the people were then more faithful and devoted to God. A continual revival attended these years of spiritual and temporal prosperity; souls were converted; God was honored, and everything was prosperous. But when Solomon fell into sin, his people also relapsed; religious dearth followed, and then came anarchy and rebellion.
The Jews, after their captivity, became a very particular people; but they did not take care to live near to God. Their strictness was admirable if it had been kept within proper bounds; but as they were not filled with love to God, Satan took the advantage, and they were left to make mistakes. In their comments on the law, they made many unimportant additions, which paved the way for the terrible apostasy of later times.
Strictness in spiritual things is necessary; it is indispensable; but God must be honored in it all. The great mistake of the Jews was, they allowed self and selfish feelings and interests to get in the way. God was not loved above all other objects; then it was that tradition took the uppermost seat. When the humble Jesus came along, these traditions were in his way and had to be corrected.
Alas, for the strict Jew then! He had not humbled himself before God. He had, for many years, prided himself upon his strictness of principle and life. Now came one who required something more; yes, far more. Jesus required love to God. A great gap was now seen between Jesus and the Jews. They had been many years traveling out of the way; the distance now was great; they could not see the great error of their lives. Alas, for them! love to God was not the highest love. They thought to win Heaven by strict attention to secondary matters. The love of God and of man dropped out of the heart; malice came in, and the Jews ceased to be the chosen people of God. J. CLARKE.
THAT DAY.
By G. V. Kilgore
There is one text of Scripture with which all opposers of the Advent message are acquainted. It is this: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of Heaven, but my Father only.” Matt. 24:36. This scripture seems to them to imply that we can know nothing about the time when that day will come; that it is not our duty to inquire when it is near; and, what is still worse, that we are prying into the secrets of the Almighty when we try to learn of its approach. But their conclusions are so far from being in harmony with Christ’s teaching that they directly contradict what he commanded. After telling of his coming, and the great signs to precede it; and after illustrating those signs by the parable of the fig-tree, he says, “So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it [his coming] is near, even at the doors.”
While they oppose this message and fight so bitterly against its attending truths—such as the Sabbath of God’s law, and other important doctrines which are taught in all the Scriptures—they profess to love Jesus and do his commandments. But if they do not “know” when his coming “is near, even at the doors,” they disobey their Lord and do not his commandments. The Bible plainly shows that near the time of the day of the Lord there is to be a special work done in preparation for his coming; and that a people will be looking for that event, so that it will not come upon them unawares. This is evident from the following scriptures, which apply to the time in question:—
“Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired; before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness; it may be [yes, it is possible] ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” Zeph. 2:1–3; Joel 2:1. Thus these prophets predicted the second advent message, and the duty of all mankind at the time it should be given. The prophet John, in A. D. 96, prophesied of the same things. Rev. 14:6–16. And Paul declares that there will be a people expecting the coming of Christ, on whom that day will not come as a thief. 1 Thess. 5:4.
Yet with all this evidence, and many other scriptures to confirm our knowledge of the coming day of God, men will say, “We can’t tell anything about it.” Thus they contradict the holy prophets, and disobey the Lord that bought them. And by so doing they fulfill Peter’s prediction: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” 2 Pet. 2:1. He also says, “And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.”
So be careful, dear friends, you who incline to follow the teachings of men who scorn the idea of knowing when the day of the Lord is near. When Christ said, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man,” etc., he did not say men should not know when it is near; for just before that he plainly said, “Know that it is near.”
G. V. KILGORE.
THREE HISTORIC REVIVALS.
The first was under good King Josiah. It is reported in the twenty-third chapter of Second Kings.
The temple had gone to decay. Its courts were profaned by the worship of Baal. His vessels and utensils had usurped the place of its ancient sacred furniture. The worship of Baal, and of the sun and moon and stars, had driven out the worship of Jehovah. The very existence of the Bible, hid away in the ark of the covenant, had been forgotten. The king began by repairing the dismantled temple. In the course of these repairs, the workmen came upon the old, forgotten Bible. The high priest gave it to the king's scribe, and the scribe brought it to the king. They sat down together, and the scribe read it aloud to Josiah. What a picture for an artist—that eager reading of the long-forgotten book of the law! There is enough in it, without interpretation or comment, to awaken the king's conscience and his fears. He sends for an interpreter. She answers his summons; for, curiously enough, the theologian whom God appointed at this time to open the word of God to the king and the nation was a woman. She declares the impending wrath of God upon idolatrous Judæa. The king sets on foot a national reform; the people acquiesce. The idolatrous implements are burned; the idolatrous priests are forbidden to go on with their licentious rites; the idols are reduced to ashes; the shrines, and groves, and high places, and altars, are defiled or destroyed. And then the passover, the great feast of the Lord, is kept with rejoicing—such a passover as had not been held since the days of the Judges, seven centuries before.
The next revival was under Ezra and Nehemiah. It is described in the eighth chapter of Nehemiah. Judah had been carried away into captivity. A generation had died in Babylon. War and time, the two great destroyers, had ravaged Jerusalem. Then the providence of God opened the way, and Nehemiah and Ezra took back to the holy city a remnant of God's people. A great camp-meeting was organized. A pulpit of wood was put up in one of the open squares near the city-gate. One man could not reach the whole congregation with his voice, and other lesser stands were put up. The Bible was brought out. The blessing of God was asked upon it. Then Ezra and his assistant preachers read out of the Bible, and commented on it. They did not preach; they only “read in the book, in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading,” and the Bible did its work, the same work it had done two hundred years before. “The people wept when they heard the words of the law.” It convinced them of their sin. It warned them of their danger. It awakened their long-sleeping consciences.
The third revival was that at Pentecost. The history is in the second chapter of Acts. The revival was preceded by a protracted meeting, which lasted ten days. The object of this meeting was to pray for the promised gift of the Holy Ghost. When the Spirit of God was poured out on the church, the public preaching began. We have a report of one sermon. It is not a long one. More than half of it is simple quotations from the Bible, the same Bible which was the means of the revivals under Nehemiah and Josiah. It was not the preaching, it was the word of God which pricked men in the heart. And not till they cried out, “What shall we do?” did Peter cease preaching to them their sins and begin pointing them to an all-sufficient Saviour.
There are some important lessons to be learned from these three historic revivals. They were quiet though intense movements. There was excitement, no doubt, when Josiah was breaking up and burning down the idols and idolatrous shrines and groves; and there was excitement when all Jerusalem gathered at the water-gate to hear the law from a dozen different preachers; and excitement when three thousand souls renounced Judaism and accepted Christianity; but there was no attempt to create excitement. Josiah and his contemporaries simply read the Bible to the people. Ezra simply read and explained it to them, and when they fell to weeping calmed their passionate and useless feeling. Peter played no arts of the orator; neither did he appeal to the imagination, the pity, or the fears, of the people. He simply proved to them out of the Bible that they had killed their promised Messiah, their anticipated King.
These were Biblical movements. It was the same Bible that Josiah read from to the people, both small and great, in the court of the dismantled temple, that Ezra interpreted before the water-gate, and that Peter preached from in the streets of Jerusalem; it was this same Bible that was Luther's cross-bow in the Reformation; it is because he is great in this Bible that Mr. Moody, without the arts of the orator, achieves such results.
These were movements from indifference to repentance, from repentance to reformation, from repentance and reformation to peace and joy in believing. The first work of Josiah was to make the people feel the sin of the nation as he felt it; the first effect of Ezra's preaching was to make the people weep; the first effect of Peter's preaching was that his auditors were pricked in the heart. There is small use in offering medicine to a man who thinks he is well, or a Saviour to a man who thinks he is no sinner.
Intense but quiet conviction is the work of the Spirit, the Bible interpreted and applied is the instrument, and repentance is the immediate object of all true revivals of religion.—Christian Weekly.
ARE THE PLAGUES PAST OR FUTURE?
By Charles P. Whitford
A LARGE class of Adventists believe that six of the plagues are in the past, and that the seventh is now being poured out. Seventh-day Adventists believe these judgments are all in the future. While talking with an Adventist a few days ago, the conversation turned on this subject. I asked him to turn to Rev. 16: 2, which reads as follows: “And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshiped his image.”
I said to him, You do not believe that God punishes men without their knowing or having full opportunity to know, for what cause the punishment is inflicted. To this he readily assented. I said, You believe the first angel’s message was proclaimed in 1844. The first angel’s message is followed by a second, and the second, by a third. Now please read Rev. 14: 9, 10: “And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.”
Here is the warning against worshiping the beast and his image, the very sins found upon those who receive the first plague. Now if the first message was not proclaimed until 1844, it follows that the warning against the worship of the beast was not given prior to that time; because the proclamation containing this warning is not due until the first and second messages, which precede it, have been fulfilled; consequently, the pouring out of the plagues could not occur before 1844.
But if the plagues are in the past, that is, ages in the past, then the third message is in the past. If that is in the past, then the second and first messages are in the past. Consequently, my brother, you are led to deny your own position that the first message was given in 1844, and this leads to the conclusion that the work in which Adventists have been engaged for the last forty years is all a delusion. It has not been in the order of God; because these messages were given ages in the past before the plagues were poured out.
Now, my brother, tell me plainly, how does this look to you?
CHARLES P. WHITFORD.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
We are inclined to think that the American pulpit is lacking in this, that it has not laid down to the people with sufficient emphasis the true definitions of wealth, it has not put the divine limitations upon the use and ownership of means, it has not sufficiently defined the rights of property, and of those who have not property. Our impression is that we ministers have preached the religion of forgiveness too much and the religion of righteousness too little. We have an idea that we need to have a religion of the day of Judgment, a little more than we have. We have an idea we have preached forgiveness of sin in such a way as to make it so easy that men have accommodated their lives to the doctrine; they have gone on and sinned and sinned, and we have even fortified them in their sin by telling them they could be forgiven any time they wanted to be; that all they had to do was to go down on their knees and pray for it. How does it strike you, reader?
If this is true, brethren, then it is time for us ministers to turn the wheel about and head the ship in another direction. If men have got the idea that there is exhaustless mercy in Heaven, with so little care in its outgoings that a man can pray to-day and sin to-morrow, and be as good as if he had not sinned, by another prayer, then we had better preach something else. If there has gotten into our prayer-meetings a habit of gush, a perverted sentiment, what you may call sentimentalism, so that religion is conceived of by our young people as simply “coming to Jesus” rather than doing downright righteousness, rather than being honest in trade and regardful of others’ rights, then we had better change our preaching. And our prayer-meeting folks had better change their manner of praying and exhorting; for we know that religion, when you analyze it down to the last analysis, has but one crystal drop, and you can see clear through that drop, and it spells out this, “obey.”
Let our pulpits henceforth insist that God must be obeyed. If the people wish to know what religion is they should be told that religion is obeying God. Not God up in Heaven somewhere, as you vainly picture him, but God written in human statutes, so far as they are just; God written in human legislation so far as it is wise; God written organically in the fibers of your stomach and the muscles of your legs and arms; God written in the beauty of the world, in the voice of human rights, in the progress of man as truly as in the pages of the Bible. This great universal God, whose great law of righteousness is written everywhere and in everything, must be obeyed; and when man has obeyed, then he has become one with him.—Golden Rule.
AN EXCELLENT MEETING.
By M. Wood
The late quarterly meeting of the New England T. & M. Society, which we looked forward to with such intense interest, is now numbered among the things of the past. In answer to the many inquiries in regard to the meeting, I would say that it was a success. It was blessed of God and honored by the presence of his Holy Spirit. Those in the New Hampshire hills who might have attended this meeting, but did not, met with an irreparable loss. These privileges which we now enjoy of assembling ourselves together are too lightly esteemed by the professed people of God, and some of us, when it is too late, will awake to a realizing sense of opportunities sadly neglected. God has spoken good concerning Israel, and warns us by his Holy Spirit to cut loose from the world, and by a life of self-denial, consecrated to the cause of God, seek for an inheritance in the city of our God, where the inhabitants will never say, “I am sick.”
But to return to a description of the meeting. Elds. Haskell and Robinson enjoyed unusual freedom in presenting the words of eternal truth. Sabbath afternoon, Bro. R. spoke upon the coming of the Lord, a theme of thrilling interest to the patient, waiting, toiling child of God. His discourse was very affecting, and was listened to with marked attention. The flood-gates of feeling were lifted, and the pent-up tears of both old and young freely trickled down smooth and furrowed cheeks. Oh! it was good to be there.
The interest manifested by the brethren and sisters in attending this quarterly gathering far surpassed anything ever experienced in this Conference. There is an ardent desire to arise and come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty powers of darkness. Some came a hundred miles to attend this meeting; others walked from six to ten miles to attend, deeming it a privilege to do so. How does that sound to our brethren who cannot go a hundred yards to attend a prayer-meeting? One gentleman, not a professor, remained until after the evening meeting on Monday, and then walked six miles to his home. Some started for the first time to serve the Lord, determined by his help to keep all the commandments, the despised fourth included. May the Lord of the harvest give sustaining grace!
This meeting was one of the largest ever held in Washington, N. H., and in importance was second to none ever held in this Conference. There were moves made and plans adopted, which will, if practically put into execution, greatly advance the cause of God upon the earth, preparatory to the coming of Christ. But to make these resolves, and pledge ourselves before God to exercise more faith in his cause, to bear the burden assigned to workers in the various branches of the tract work, to give our time, talents, and means toward the promulgation of present truth, and then go home and sit down, quietly folding our hands, is an abomination in the sight of High Heaven.
To us, brethren, is granted the exalted privilege of working with God. Hear Paul: “For we are laborers together with God.” 1 Cor. 3:9. Brethren and sisters, old or young, rich or poor, the invitation to labor in the vineyard of the Lord is extended to all. Come out from your retirement and seclusion, avail yourselves of the privilege thus offered, and identify yourselves with the harvesters for God.