In addressing the brethren and sisters of the Lake Union Conference, no argument need be put forth to convince them that the education of the children is and ever has been one of the vital factors in the spread of God's work. The life and vigor of any denomination is in proportion to its efforts in behalf of its children. God peoples the earth, he develops the plan of salvation, not by making men full grown, but by bringing them into the world as children, that by a gradual process of development his plans may be unfolded. Everywhere is to be seen the lesson that we should have learned long ago; that is, that every child should be trained for the service of Christ. And to perpetuate the work of Christ in the earth definite and well directed efforts should be made to save the children.
The Lake Union Conference has a right to pride itself upon the development of its educational work. It was in this union conference that the church-school movement received its first impetus, about six years ago. Well do I remember a meeting of students in the chapel at Battle Creek College. Two churches in the State of Indiana, possibly unconscious of the fact that they were the forerunners in a great movement, had made application for teachers to train their children. The request was made known to the students. To complete a course was then the ambition of our students. To be prevented from doing this was to them a sacrifice, indeed. They listened as the appeal was made for teachers, and finally two young women volunteered to give up the year's work, and entered those churches in Indiana, and began the training of their children. That was the beginning of a movement which has had a steady and rapid growth from that time on.
During no period of its history, however, has greater progress been made than since the last meeting of the Lake Union Conference, in the spring of 1902. At the present time there are one hundred church-schools in the Lake Union Conference, divided as follows among the individual conferences of the union conference: Ohio, eight; Indiana, fifteen; Northern Illinois, eight; Southern Illinois, three; Wisconsin, twenty-two; East Michigan, thirteen; West Michigan, twenty-three schools and thirty-six teachers; North Michigan, nine.
Scarcely had the effort to educate the children begun until it was seen that a work of no less importance must be carried on for the youth. Definite instruction was given through the spirit of prophecy concerning the opening of intermediate industrial schools, which should provide an education for the youth after they have completed the usual course offered by the elementary schools.
The growth of the intermediate schools has been gradual. There are today within the bounds of the Lake Union Conference five well-established schools of this order. First in point of time is Cedar Lake Industrial Academy, at Cedar Lake, Mich. The second one established was Bethel Industrial Academy, at Bethel, Wis. Then followed the opening of the school at Sheridan, Ill. Less than two years ago the brethren of Indiana began the work of their first intermediate industrial school in improvised buildings in Boggstown. At the opening of the current year they took possession of buildings which were erected especially for school purposes. Still more recently the brethren of the Southern Illinois Conference opened an intermediate industrial school at Du Quoin.
There are a number of other centers where, in the near future, recognized industrial school work will be carried on, but in which the work has not yet been fully developed. At Owosso, Mich., there has been conducted a church-school having two teachers, and the conditions are such that an intermediate industrial school would find there a good patronage.
The Wisconsin secretary will tell you of several places in that State where small intermediate schools should be established in the near future. She will tell you also of the work in that State which has already been begun for the Oneida Indians.
At Wolf Lake, Ind., a school has been conducted for the last four or five years, and conditions there are very favorable to the establishment of a regular intermediate industrial school.
Briefly let me refer to developments in connection with the training-school of Lake Union Conference. Two years ago at the time of our biennial meeting, Emmanuel Missionary College was little more than such in name. The move had been made from Battle Creek. There were definite plans on foot for the building up of this institution, but what you see to-day, and possibly more than you have been able to see, is the result of developments under the blessings of the Lord during the past two years. I feel that it would be impossible in the brief time allotted to such a report even to outline to you the effects on the district of the development of the school at this place. The effort to raise means for the establishment of this school, an effort with which you are individually acquainted (I refer, of course, to the campaign for the sale of “Christ's Object Lessons,” which brought our students in direct contact with hundreds of our brethren), has done much to deepen the interest in the growth of the institution, and to bind the hearts of our brethren to this place. The steady flow of young workers from this school into the field—young people who have gone out as teachers, canvassers, and ministers—has had an immeasurable effect. The spirit which pervades this institution is unconsciously reflected in the church-schools.
The fact that this institution accepts and trains only mature students has set the pace for the intermediate industrial schools, and has encouraged the starting17of such schools when otherwise there would have been a hesitancy to undertake such a work. Not one school has been built up but there has been a steady growth of an educational system. This is one of the most encouraging features of the report which I have to make.
I should like also to mention, before leaving the subject, the wide extent of this influence. The bounds of the Lake Union Conference have been unable to confine the spirit which pervades this work. In nearly all our neighboring States small intermediate schools have been established within the past two years. I would not have you take undue credit to yourselves for this, but I believe we have a right to recognize the fact that the light and the blessing which the Lord has bestowed upon the schools in the Lake Union Conference has been seen from afar, and has led others to follow in this way. There are, I feel warranted in saying, almost constant demands for teachers in sympathy with this system of education, to go as instructors and leaders in these various intermediate industrial schools outside Lake Union Conference. It is our privilege to supply them. I speak of it because I feel that our brethren take much the same pride in this as a parent would in the work of his child. The institution is your own. God has blessed in its development. Why should not our young people be able to fill vacancies in needy fields? Had I the time, I would call your attention to the growth of this same movement in various parts of the foreign field.
Let me not pass this subject of schools in Lake Union Conference without calling your attention to the fact that in addition to the institutions already mentioned we have the long-established school at Mt. Vernon, Ohio; and numbered among our educational institutions stand the American Medical Missionary College, the Sanitarium at Battle Creek, the nurses' training-classes in connection with the sanitarium at Madison, Wis., and with those at Moline and Hinsdale, Ill. The church-schools of the Lake Union Conference are at the present time giving a Christian training to over fourteen hundred children. The intermediate industrial schools of this union conference enrolled during the year about three hundred. The Madison Sanitarium has had a training-class numbering thirty-five during the past two years. At Moline seven are in the nurses' class. The number at Hinsdale varies. There are nearly six hundred young people in Battle Creek preparing for active medical missionary work. To this let us add three hundred who have this year spent more or less time in our training-school, and we have in the aggregate nearly eighteen hundred children and young people whose feet are being directed toward the spread of the everlasting gospel. This is but a beginning; for there are in Lake Union Conference over four hundred churches, while the number of schools already established is one hundred, showing that only about one fourth of our churches have established schools for their children.
Reasons for Slow Progress
Possibly you have prided yourselves that what has been done is all that could be done, but dare we take this position? The figures themselves speak to the contrary. In view of the instruction which has been given, why has so little been done to reach the children of the denomination? I think we may attribute it to the following causes:—
1. We ourselves were educated in the public schools, and there is in the hearts of most of us a love for the public school system of education. We cling to the material, and fail to grasp the need of the spiritual, and yet we are faced constantly by that statement from the Lord through his prophet: “Now as never before we need to understand the true science of education. If we fail to understand this, we shall never have a place in the kingdom of God.”
2. I believe that our lack of progress has in a great measure been due to the fact that there has not been the hearty co-operation which should have existed in the conference organization. We have been slow to come to the place where ministerial work for children has been recognized as of equal importance with ministerial work for adults. The educational work has not been opposed, but in many cases there has been passive assent where there should have been decided activity. I think you understand the condition. To-day let me say that I hold a statement from the president of each conference in this union conference giving in positive terms his belief that his conference should place itself on the aggressive in the matter of training its children and youth. This is a great step in advance, and betokens more rapid progress in the future than we have yet been able to witness. May God bless what has already been begun, and bind our hearts together for a steady forward movement.
3. As a third reason why the school work has made no more rapid progress, I must give the lack of trained teachers. There are churches which to-day would gladly have teachers for their children could they be obtained. No appeal from Africa is more touching than the cry for teachers by parents who realize that their children are fast drifting into the world.
Our educational superintendents know what it is to receive these calls, and be unable to answer them. There is a remedy for this situation. It is this: there are still hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist young people teaching in the public schools. They are to be met in almost every church. Has not God a place for them in his own specific work? There are still hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist young people untrained for this work who should be in one of the preparatory schools or in the training-school. Our educational superintendents and our brethren, the ministers, should constitute a vigilance committee from whose activity not one young man or woman in the denomination should escape. I know of no more painful thing than to read such words as these from a man solemnly appointed to look after God's flock: “I am not very well acquainted with the young people in this conference. I think there must be some who should prepare for various lines of work.” It makes one heart-sick to think that there is a single young person in our churches with whom some minister is not personally acquainted. Why should not our ministers know the ambition of their youth? Why should they not, as they go from church to church, hold up to these young people the great need of workers, and urge them to prepare for some definite line of work? Why should they not, as they visit from home to home, meeting parents who have means, brethren and sisters who have no children, raise money to help young people who are financially embarrassed?
There is another avenue from which we shall in the near future draw competent workers. I refer to the teachers who are yet unacquainted with the third angel's message. God has a message of truth for them, and when they see the light which Christian education will bring to them, many of them will accept the whole truth of the third angel's message, and having given their lives to the children, they will continue to work for them. Already we have indications of such a movement, but it has seemed to me that God has restrained us that every opportunity might first be given to the young people who are already acquainted with the third angel's message.
4. As a fourth reason why our schools have not multiplied as they should, I will mention the unstable financial support which most of our teachers have had. The growth of the church-school movement was a local affair to begin with. It could not have been other than that, and it has seemed to me that we have for too long rested satisfied with this condition. I meet it everywhere,—that constant drawback,—poor salaries, few facilities, short terms of school, uncertain support. I do not uphold the teacher who enters the work for the money there is in it. No one can, in view of the facts, flaunt that argument in the faces of our church-school teachers. They have been a self-sacrificing company of young people, if ever such existed. But it remains a fact that the present organization and means of support are decidedly unsatisfactory.
Let me illustrate: I can point you to a school the support of which rested wholly upon a few church-members. This you will recognize as no unusual condition. It seems that the various members who considered themselves able to give support took turns in meeting the monthly expenses of the school. About four or five individuals at first pledged themselves to maintain the school for one month each. Two or three months passed. When it came time for one of the brethren to meet the running expenses, he did not feel inclined to do so, and the school closed. What became of the children? Out of twelve months they were in school possibly three. They remained at home the rest of the time, or what would be more natural, drifted again into the public schools. The teacher of that school became discouraged; and when I saw her, she was teaching a public school, having been pressed into the position by those who had known her in the public school work, and were willing to trust to her care between fifty and sixty young children. I am not giving this to uphold that teacher in returning to the public school work, but it is a statement of actual facts, a condition which has been repeated again and again, a condition that can not but exist so long as our teachers are dependent on local support.
The strength of the ministry has always been in a large measure due to the fact that local support was not depended upon. God has given a system of support. Let us enlarge our borders, and as he has revealed to us greater light and truth, let us welcome into our ranks those who are called to minister to the children.
(To be concluded)
Is This Your School?
THE following letter was recently received by the Sabbath School Worker. Is it true of your school?
“Enclosed you will find money order for thirty-five cents, for which please send the Sabbath School Worker to my address for one year. Please begin with the April number. I have been waiting for the Sabbath-school to send for a club, and there does not seem to be any move in that direction. I will take it myself, for I do not think I can get along very well without it, as I have children under my care.”
Every Sabbath-school should have a club of the Worker large enough to supply each officer and teacher. Where two or more copies are sent to one address, the price is 25 cents a copy for one year. To individual addresses, 35 cents a year. Address Sabbath School Worker, 222 North Capitol St., Washington, D. C.
A Message for the Blind
By L. N. Muck
THE field most neglected is the one we should enter first of all. Perhaps you say, Which field is the most neglected? which is the most needy one? For more than half a century the third angel’s message has been sounded to the people in America, to those who enjoy all their senses. Means have not been spared. Thousands of volumes have been printed and scattered far and wide, bringing the message within the reach of those who see. But thousands who can not see are not permitted to read the blessed gospel for themselves. This class of people has been overlooked. They have been sadly forgotten.
Many people look upon the blind as an inferior class. They do not consider their condition. But what is the message due them to-day? We as a denomination believe that all definite periods of prophetic time are in the past, and the only work that remains undone is that “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached unto all nations as a witness, and then shall the end come.” We are told that the “true message for to-day is one grand harmony of truth,” the keynote of which is, “There shall be delay no longer.” We believe that Jesus is soon coming, is coming in this generation. If we are the true disciples of God, if we are really his chosen people, if we believe that the Lord is soon coming, then we are simply living in harmony with the wishes of God. Each individual should be to-day as John of old—one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord. In order to meet what is just before us we need preparation. We need to seek God earnestly. We need to stand blameless before him. If we are thus living, we are able to point others to the crucified Christ.
A number have inquired, Why do the blind need special attention at this time?—Because little or nothing has been done for them. God is no respecter of persons. He desires all to be warned, to hear the glad tidings that the Lord is soon coming; that the great consummation day is just ahead. That there shall be delay no longer is a message for the blind as well as for the seeing. The message for the blind is none other than the third angel’s message, and we must give it. Can we not sense the times in which we are living? Are we not willing to direct our steps to those nearest our door? If we realize that we are living in the time of the promise, let us tell it to our neighbors. Let us throw out the life-line to the blind.
We believe that the Lord is not pleased with our attitude toward the blind. Thousands of them are without hope in the world; they know not Jesus; they are waiting for us to go to them; we must go quickly. This field is easily worked, and the harvest is ready for the sickle. Where are the reapers? Who will go for us? Can we not join with Isaiah in saying, “Here am I; send me”?
Let us not only desire to obtain everlasting life for ourselves, but may our hearts yearn for those who are in darkness, for those who do not enjoy the blessings that we enjoy. Let us listen to these inspiring words: “I see every eye sparkling with the fulness of joy that runs within. I see on every cheek the bloom of eternal youth and everlasting health. I see every limb lithe and strong. I see the lame man leaping as an hart. I see the blind gazing with rapture on the celestial glory. I see the deaf enchanted with the heavenly melody. I see the dumb joining with loud voice in the anthems of praise.”
After reading these words, are we not inspired to give our lives unreservedly to the service of God? Can we not work in a special way for the unfortunate who are among us? We have on our list at the present time a number of persons who are not only blind, but are also deaf. These persons are appealing to us for literature, and we must supply their needs. Just think of the condition of these dear ones, not only dwelling in darkness, but also in absolute solitude. They can neither see nor hear; they have no way of communication with the outside world.
Helen Keller is the most fortunate of those who are deaf and blind. She is well cared for by friends, but there are many others who are forgotten. Many of these are in the poorhouse, with no one to look after them, not even to give them literature. To reach these persons, and to do what is expected of us, we must have assistance. We must have the co-operation of the people of God.
We are also supplying the institutions for the blind with copies of the Christian Record. These institutions are not prepared to pay for this kind of literature. In order to carry on this work successfully, the different conferences and tract societies must come to our aid. We believe that each one will gladly contribute to this work.
We quote the following paragraph from a communication just received from one of our blind readers:—
“DEAR EDITOR: Your magazine is a great boon to all its readers, and we feel much indebted to you for your efforts in our behalf. I have been a reader of the Record for several months, and desire to send you a small contribution toward its support.”
We are receiving constantly letters of appreciation from our blind readers, and they are doing all they can to aid us in this noble work. Let our seeing friends do what they can. We are watchmen on the walls of Zion. May we so order our lives before God and man that this be not said of us: “And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.” Eze. 33: 32.
We feel called upon to bring the needs of the work before the brethren and sisters, and we must continue to do this until we receive the necessary means19with which to carry forward this work.
“Where are the reapers? O, who will come
And share in the glory of the ‘harvest home’?
O, who will help us to garner in
The sheaves of good from the fields of sin?”
The subscription price is $2 a year. Send all donations to the treasurer of the General Conference, 222 N. Capitol St., Washington, D. C., and all subscriptions to the office of the Christian Record, College View, Neb.
L. N. MUCK, Editor.
About the Special Issue of the Southern Watchman
A Personal Letter
THE following letter was written to the Southern Publishing Association, by Dr. B. F. Richards, 1605 Laguna St., San Francisco, Cal., under date of May 30:—
“DEAR FELLOW WORKERS: A few days ago I received a sample copy of the special number of The Southern Watchman. I have looked it over, and am impressed that the Lord desires that that number should be widely distributed; for it is full to the brim with precious truth. I like its tone. Its ring has music in it that will surely reach souls for the Master. I send you twenty-four dollars; please send me eight hundred copies. I may send for more later.
“Yours in the work of the Master,
“B. F. RICHARDS, M. D.”
Are there not some who read this, who have not yet ordered any of this special issue, that will feel impressed to send in their orders at once for a liberal supply? The price in lots of twenty-five or more to one address is but three cents each. Orders may be sent through your State tract society, or directly to the Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, Tenn. We trust that all will take an active part in giving this number a wide circulation. It is full of the message, and much good will result.
Before Judges, Lawyers, Doctors, and Business Men
Thomas MacMillan, Macon, Ga., Secretary and Treasurer of the Georgia Conference, ordered five hundred copies that of the special Signs number of The Southern Watchman, and under date of June 3, he writes as follows:—
“Glad to report that my wife, little daughter (aged twelve), and I have sold four hundred of the special Watchman, and expect to dispose of the remaining hundred by Sunday.
“We sold these papers on the streets, and in the principal offices of the city, placing them in the hands of the most prominent and influential men, such as judges, lawyers, doctors, insurance and business men, etc. Our daughter, who is naturally timid, found that she could sell considerable, and on one evening had much better success than I.
“We shall probably be able later to dispose of five hundred more in this city, as very little territory has been gone over. It will be quite appropriate to sell this paper until the close of the year.
“I venture to say that this is the best special ever issued by the denomination, and the most attractive and salable. One million copies ought to be sold before this year terminates. It appears to me that no more effective method could be devised for giving the closing message, and none better to get close to the minds and hearts of the people than such a good paper as the one just now being distributed so widely.”
Field Notes
FOUR persons were baptized at Kansas City, Kan., May 14.
A CHURCH of thirteen members was organized at Dunlap, Iowa, May 13.
BROTHER L. H. PROCTOR sends word that twenty-three persons were baptized in Brooklyn, N. Y., during the month of May.
BROTHER L. JOHNSON, who is working among the Scandinavians in Nebraska, reports that eight persons were baptized at Newman Grove, April 30.
A CHURCH of eighteen members was recently organized at Hampton, Iowa. This number will probably be increased by the addition of other Sabbath-keepers residing in the vicinity.
ELDERS A. J. BREED and J. M. Willoughby, of the Upper Columbia Conference, are visiting the churches at Colfax, Moscow, Lewiston, and other places as time will permit before the Colfax camp-meeting.
THE Pacific Union Recorder announces that treatment rooms are soon to be opened in North Yakima, Wash., under the management of Brother A. R. Starr. A young people's society was recently organized at this place.
AT Grand Island, Neb., May 22 (Sunday), says the Nebraska Reporter, two baptismal scenes in marked contrast with each other were enacted. In the Methodist church twenty-two persons, were sprinkled by the pastor with water brought from the Jordan River, while at the riverside seven persons who had decided to walk in the footsteps of their Master were immersed by Elder Graf.20
A CHURCH of fourteen members was organized at Littleton, W. Va., May 28.
FOUR persons were baptized recently at South Woodstock, Maine, two of whom united with the church there.
AT Avon, N. Y., where Brother and Sister Wightman are laboring, nine persons have announced that they accept the truths presented, and are determined to obey them.
ELDER A. E. PLACE reports that the Swedish church in Worcester, Mass., is in a prosperous condition. He recently visited this company, and completed a church organization.
BROTHER C. SORENSON reports five conversions to the truth at Homesey, O. T., where he has been holding meetings. He is now engaged with Brother Hampton in meetings at McLoud.
BROTHER D. K. ROYER, secretary of the Hartford, Conn., church, reports a joyous occasion for that church on Sabbath, June 4, when “five of the young people took their stand for righteousness, determined by the grace of God to keep all his laws.”
A CHURCH of twelve new Sabbath-keepers, of whom all but one are adults, was recently organized at Brockman, O. T., also a Sabbath-school of thirty members; this being the result of tent-meetings conducted by Elder F. H. Conway.
BROTHER DANIEL ISAAC reports that two families at Hoseman, S. D., are rejoicing in the truth which has recently come to them; also that the church at Sutley, which five years ago was led away from the truth by falsehood, are seeing their error, and returning to the faith.
ELDER G. A. SNYDER and Prof. J. L. KAY, of Washington, attended the recent camp-meeting at Tacoma, in that State. Professor Kay will attend the camp-meeting at Corvallis, Ore., and will then return to the Colfax camp-meeting. Elder Snyder will have charge of the work for the sale of “Christ’s Object Lessons” in the Western Washington Conference.
A PRELIMINARY report from the Western Washington camp-meeting at South Tacoma states that eighty-one tents and two hundred and twenty people are on the ground. Among the laborers present from without are Elders W. B. White, J. N. Loughborough, W. A. Spicer, H. W. Decker, Geo. A. Snyder, and J. L. Wilson, Dr. W. B. Holden, and Prof. J. L. Kay. Elder E. L. Stewart has been re-elected president of the conference, the conference committee remaining nearly the same as last year. The Sabbath-school, church-school, and young people's work have been consolidated into an educational department, with field secretary and office secretary, the latter being also the conference secretary and treasurer. By vote of the conference Elder T. H. Watson will spend the coming year among the Indians in the Fort Simpson region in British Columbia.
A Visitor’s Experience at One of Our Sanitariums
A CONTRIBUTOR to The Rock, a weekly paper published in London, writes two articles for that paper, telling of his experience at our sanitarium at Caterham, of which Dr. Alfred B. Olsen is the medical superintendent. The writer says:—
It was a queer Easter I spent in a queer place with a queer name among queer people, who made my acquaintance in a queer fashion, yet the outcome of it all was that, after four days’ acclimatization, I realized that the queerest thing was that I had not thought of it all myself. . . . They seemed to me queer people, for not content with banning intoxicants and tobacco, they even eschewed tea and coffee as injurious stimulants, and had a substitute of their own called “caramel cereal.” They would not even permit of condiments, like pepper and mustard, curry and chutney, regarding all these things as unnatural, for which rebelling nature sooner or later exacted a penalty. Meat of all kinds—whether fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring—was anathema maranatha.
In giving some account of his experience at the sanitarium the visitor writes:—
In brief, we ate, we drank, we slept. Those who, like myself, had been afflicted with insomnia were particularly thankful for the last blessing. To tell how it was secured is to disclose the whole secret of the system of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and of its various branches. No doubt the dietary had a good deal to do with it, being light and digestive, though satisfying. The meals were not merely in a negative sense meatless. There were wonderful substitutes for flesh fare, made from nuts and other vegetable substances, and providing in proteids the same elements of nutrition, without the impurities possibly found in animal food. Due credit should also be given to the baths and exercises. The former treatment was of various descriptions, including massage, fomentations, salt-glow, oil rubbing, and even, where the case required, the electric-light or radiant-heat bath. I can personally testify that a little boy of about ten years of age, who had been troubled with a cough on and off the whole winter, and had swallowed dozens of bottles of ordinary doctor’s medicines with little or no effect, had this danger removed by a four days’ stay—for danger it had become. The manual Swedish movements, particularly the breathing exercises, were joined in by young, old, and middle-aged with gusto and great advantage; personal dignity counted for little, for even ridicule could not kill the enthusiasm for health-giving where the gain was momentarily so manifest.
Both articles are decidedly appreciative in their spirit, and show that the impression made upon the mind of this visitor was very favorable. Thus the knowledge of the good work being done at the Caterham Sanitarium is being extended among the English people.
The One Hundred Thousand Dollar Fund
By W. T. Bland
FURTHER partial list of the donations received on the Washington building fund at the General Conference office:—
Previously reported .......... $11,146 79
A friend ...................... 100 00
Mr. and Mrs. Wm. W. Palmer .... 50 00
Gerhard Duke .................. 25 00
Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Saxby ...... 25 00
J. H. Behrens ................. 22 00
Minnie A. Cheney .............. 20 00
A believer .................... 10 00
Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Satterlee .. 10 00
A sister ....................... 8 00
Mrs. A. F. Angell, Lib......... 6 00
Grace Frizzell ................ 5 00
Sister Booth .................. 5 00
Sister Mahoffy ................ 5 00
Ida M. Fulk ................... 5 00
Sarah Jane Switzer ............ 5 00
Mrs. A. M. Hand ............... 5 00
Melissa E. French ............. 5 00
Lewis Philipson ............... 5 00
Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Dickerson .. 5 00
Joseph S. Fritts .............. 5 00
Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Walter .... 5 00
Geo. O. States ................ 4 00
Mr. and Mrs. D. E. Dickerson .. 3 00
M. C. Morgan .................. 3 50
M. Sevrens .................... 3 00
Sister Clyde .................. 3 45
H. A. Smith ................... 3 00
Mrs. Anna E. Warner .......... 3 00
C. A. Tiffany ................. 3 00
Mrs. C. Baum .................. 2 00
Mrs. J. W. Phillips ........... 2 00
Clara Greisiger ............... 2 00
Mrs. S. M. Wolverton .......... 2 00
Sister P. J. Getty ............ 50
Sister Curtiss ................ 43
Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Bishop ..... 1 00
O. M. Haines .................. 1 50
Ricka Clauson ................. 1 00
Mrs. Bertha Reinhardt ........ 50
Mrs. Lyda Carter .............. 50
Kate De Long .................. 1 00
Mrs. Messersmith .............. 50
Mrs. Asa Champlin ............. 1 50
Mrs. John A. Stickles ........ 1 00
Polly A. Frizzell ............. 1 00
O. K. Nelson .................. 1 25
Sister Utley .................. 1 30
E. Z. Rich .................... 1 00
Mrs. Emma Runck ............... 1 50
Mrs. W. H. Whitehead ......... 25
Hannah Eveleth ............... 1 00
Mr. and Mrs. Kasper Oertley ... 1 00
C. Nelson ..................... 1 00
B. C. Tract Society ........... 1 00
Mrs. Anna Walker .............. 50
Mrs. Coke ..................... 50
Mrs. E. A. Potter ............. 1 00
Fred Holland .................. 1 00
Geo. Peterson ................. 10 00
Total reported .......... $11,544 47
A further list will follow.
W. T. BLAND, Assistant Treasurer.
Volume VIII, No. 36
By L. Johnson
HAVING just finished reading “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VIII, No. 36, I desire to tell all my brethren and all the readers of the REVIEW that its contents have been a great blessing to my soul. The great God Jehovah is speaking to us. I see more clearly than ever before that he does not permit anything to meet us, which, under our circumstances and our relation to him, is not for our greatest good, even if it seems otherwise. If we had been more watchful, more fully consecrated, more ready to do his bidding, and more willing to walk in all the light he has given from time to time, he would have spared us from many of the trials and difficulties we now encounter; but when we, like Israel of old, depart from him, he in his wisdom and tender love, permits such things to come as will cause us to consider our ways, to search our hearts, and to seek him for help. O what a blessed people we would be if we loved one another as he loves us!
My confidence in the Lord as the leader of his people has never been greater than at the present time. He is fully able to do what he has undertaken, and by trusting in him we shall be carried through. Let us therefore praise his holy name, and with the author of the book cry aloud “Homeward bound.”
L. JOHNSON.