PACIFIC UNION RECORDER ” Then They that Feared the Lord Spake Often One to Another ” Vol. 6 Mountain View, Cal., January 3, 1907 No. 23 The Church Present Truth on the Pacific Coast XLIX. During the summer of 1876 and the following winter, in the North Pacific field, Brethren I. D. Van Horn and A. T. Jones were laboring in Oregon, west of the Cascade Mountains, principally in the Willamette Valley. Salem, Oregon City, Beaverton, and other points near by were worked, in all of which places accessions were gained for the faith. In California, during the winter above mentioned, Bascom fetevens held meetings in Vacaville, and several families accepted the faith. Elder Healy held meetings also at Binghamton, a few miles from Vacaville, and gained some persons to the cause in that vicinity. He also labored at Vacaville, following up the work started at that place. Brother Stevens also held meetings at Lafayette, and a few were brought to the faith as the result of that effort. About this time Brother Briggs, a blind brother from Gilroy, began to speak on the message, first by taking the lead in his home Sabbath-school and church service. The work on the Oakland meetinghouse was pushed as rapidly as possible during the summer and fall of 1876. By October 25 the building was so nearly completed that we moved our meetings from the hired hall to the lower rooms of our own meeting-house. Elder Waggoner and the writer commenced that evening a series of lectures on the present truth in those rooms. This series continued until December 3. Brother and Sister White returned from the East on November 21, and from that time assisted more or less in the meetings. The meeting-house was fully completed and dedicated on April 1, 1877. Elder James White conducted the dedication services. It was reported at the time of the dedication that the cost of the house and lot was $13,000. Of this sum Elder White made a donation of $1,000, the same as he gave to the San Francisco church. As means were paid on his loan to the San Francisco church, he rendered like help to the Oakland church. The church building then erected in after years became too small for the Oakland company, and was sold to the Germans, who moved it to the southwest corner of 12th and Myrtle Streets where it now (1907) stands. There is one agency in the work on the Pacific Coast to which we must not fail to call attention; it is that of the first health institution on the coast, which was built in 1876 and 1877. It was then appropriately called the “Rural Health Retreat/’ at Crystal Springs, Cal. Brother M. G. Kellogg, M. D., and Brethren Will-iam Pratt and Asa B. Atwood entered into a contract partnership to construct the building and start the institution near a beautiful spring of perfectly pure water on the side of Howel Mountain, some three miles northeast of St. Helena, Napa County, and about four hundred feet above the Napa Valley. For this' purpose Brother Pratt donated several acres of land on the mountainside, and invested some money besides. Brethren Atwood and Kellogg donated their labor in constructing a building of sufficient size to accommodate a dozen or more patients, and suitable bath and treatment-rooms for a small institution. The Wilson Brothers spent most of the winter of 1876 and 1877 in constructing the road from the valley up to the site of the retreat building. In the*Signs of the Times of Nqv. 22, 1877, M. G. Kellogg, M. D., announced that he had secured grounds on the side of Howel Mountain, and was about to erect buildings to be called ‘‘Rural Health Retreat,” located by the side of Crystal Springs. During the winter of 1877 and 1878 the two-story building was constructed, and was opened for the treatment of patients' in the early part of the year 1878. This health retreat has not only grown in proportions, but has also been a place where very many have been brought to the knowledge and acceptance of the message. At the present time (1907) the institution has accommodations for over one hundred patients in the large building, and numerous cottages that have been erected on the grounds. The patronage of the institution during the past year has been in excess of any like period since the first opening. Best of all, it enjoys the presence of the Holy Spirit, and its workers seek to know and move in the counsel of the Lord, the great Healer. On April 1, 1877, Elder Uriah Smith from Battle Creek, Mich., opened a Biblical institute in the auditorium of the Oakland meeting-house. This course of instruction continued daily for about seventeen days, and was attended by a class of fifty. It was a means of great good, especially to the young laborers on the Pacific Coast, and to those connected with the publishing work. After this institute a number of beginners went out into the field. Among these might be mentioned, A. W. Bartlett, who has labored with success in various places, but especially in Indiana of late years. Soon after this, Brethren Andrew Brorsen and J. D. Rice went with a tent to Pacheco, Contra Costa County. Here their labors were blessed with success, as a number of persons accepted the message. Among these were the most of the Ireland family, one of whom, J. J/ Ireland, is now secretary of the Pacific Union Conference. Besides these laborers mentioned, others tried the work of the ministry, and were more or less successful as the result of the instruction received in that Biblical institute. J. N. Loughborough. In this issue we print one of the papers recently read at the canvassers’ convention at Healdsburg. We shall try to give other of these papers to our readers later. 2 PACIFIC UNION RECORDER Success Attained—Perseverance Needed We are glad for the privilege of communicating a few words of good cheer to the students and other -workers assembled at the Healdsburg school. It will be cheering to all to learn that we are able to report substantial progress in the circulation of our literature in every country in the world which the truth has entered. During the year 1905, the sale of our publications in all lands increased over a hundred thousand dollars above the record of the preceding year; and, during the year now drawing to a close, we anticipate that the increase will be still greater. The following are the totals of our monthly summaries for the first half of the present year: January, $21,000; February, $15,-000; March, $18,000; April, $23,000; May, $36,800; June, $46,300. The report for July should be given by itself, for it is the highest record made in the denomination for many years, and, as far as we can learn, the best record ever published. It is as follows: number of agents, 611; hours worked, 46,837; orders secured, 17,940; value of sales, $52,218.04. These figures show that our agents averaged 76 hours labor each per month, made sales' amounting to an average of $1.12 each per hour, and that the books sold averaged in value $2.64 per copy. As far as we have been able to learn, the highest record for any one month published during the past ten years amounted to a little less than $30,000. This is a splendid showing for 1906, isn’t it? Now we wish to call your attention very particularly to one of the chief instrumentalities by which these good results have been brought about. Several efforts and enterprises have contributed more or less, but the one which looms up above them all, which has helped more than all others combined to make our book work popular and pleasant in the minds of the people, has been the student movement to earn scholarships. If we are not mistaken, that movement began in a practical, efficient way in Healdsburg College. We wrote out the plan in detail and sent it to all the other colleges, and to the officers of the union conferences in which they are located, and the plan has been quite generally adopted, and is looked upon with favor. This rally by our students has created a wide-awake interest in the sale of books, which has been a greater blessing than can be estimated. At the present time there are strong indications of the movement growing to large proportions during 1907. All our schools are well filled with students. In fact there are more students in our schools at the present time, by hundreds, than there have been before in their history. In Union College at the opening there were 350 adult students. At the very beginning of the term they organized a Canvassers’ Band. This is made up of teachers, influential students, many students who have worked and earned scholarships, and every student they can draft in. This band holds a short meeting several times a week, and once a week they have charge of chapel exercises. One section of the band is studying the part that literature took in bringing about the great Reformation of the sixteenth century. Another section is studying what the testimonies say upon this work, and still a third section is looking up from every conceivable source the underlying principles and science of the business. What do you suppose the results will be from such thorough work throughout the school year? In a few weeks a convention is to be held in connection with Walla Walla College. In a few days a convention will be held in South Lancaster Academy. One is being held here to-day in Healdsburg. Interest is still at white heat in Fernando and Keene, and even in our small intermediate schools, interest in our book work is gaining a stronger foothold. Now, what we want to know is this, What part will the students at Healdsburg continue to act in this splendid, progressive movement whicn they had the honor and privilege of introducing? The attendance is larger than usual. There are many present who have gained some experience in the book work, and some have enjoyed phenominal success. The question of vital importance with us is this, Will we go onward and upward, increasing daily and becoming stronger ’and stronger, or will we fag out, half satisfied with the success already attained? By all means let us answer this question in such a way as to honor God, and bring blessings to ourselves. There is no diminishing, or backsliding, or weakening in God’s way of doing things. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, from the smallest of seeds it grows to be a tree. The apostle says, ¹‘ Let us go on to perfection. ’ ’ This is a good principle for students' to keep constantly in mind. Sometimes we start in bravely and courageously at the beginning of a school year and master our lessons well; but as time goes on, we worry of the daily routine, close study, and hard examinations. In fact we weary of the constancy of the effort. Some students start in like the bumblebee, biggest when first hatched; others begin in a quiet, strong way at the opening of the school year, and their work becomes stronger and stronger until the final examinations. Such constancy, perseverance, and ⁴ ‘ stick-to-it-ive-ness ’ ’ are the qualities which make men and women who can do good service. I once saw a cartoon representing a very large man, with cane and silk hat, walking in at the big end of a long, mammoth horn. At the other end he was represented as a little fellow crawling out and climbing down a ladder to the ground. The cartoonist had heard about fellows ¹¹ who come out at the little end of the horn. ’ ’ This subject of “petering” is so brilliantly and forcefully presented in a little leaflet which came to my desk a few days ago that I will let it tell the rest of my words to you. May the Lord bless you all and give you a good place in His work during the coming year, and above all may He give you a spirit of perseverance and “ stick-to-it-ive-ness ” which will conquer beautifully in the face of all difficulties. ‘‘Petering ‘ ‘ Some things begin small and get bigger. Others begin big and get smaller. In the first class are babies, kittens, diseases, buildings, sins, potatoes, and family squabbles, also several other things. These all begin small and get bigger. In the second class are anticipations, plum puddings, enthusiasms, resolutions, honeymoons, boastings, and flannel underclothes. These begin big and get smaller. ‘ ‘ There is also a class of things of which you really can not tell what they are going to do,—grow or shrivel, swell or shrink, increase or diminish. In this class come men, stocks, bonds, nations, PACIFIC UNION RECORDER social schemes, agitations, revolutions. They may begin small and get bigger, or begin big and get smaller. Some start with a whisper and end with a roar of artillery. Others start with a blare as of fifteen German bands and end like the song of a sickly mosquito. Some start like a snail and finish like an express train. Others start like a racehorse and end up like a tired mule. ■ ‘Now the latter class is peculiarly American. We like to start big in America. When we set out for Klondike we like to announce it in the papers in big headlines, and have a brass band escort us to the station. When we start a club, we like to begin with a $50,000 building, with double-back-action pulley-weights and enameled bath-tubs. If we don’t start it big we are sure it will not be a success. “But we have also a strong tendency to peter. In fact, Peter ought to have been special apostle to the Americans, for I am sure he would have understood us. He proclaimed his courage and enthusiasm with the intrepidity of a Napoleon, and in a day or two was chased from the field by a servant girl. He petered. He petered so everlastingly that that particular kind of a performance has come to be known by his name wherever it occurs. And it is of quite frequent occurrence. ‘ ‘ Most men peter more or less. When they start on a race they feel a strong temptation to spurt on the first lap. Then when the excitement really begins they have to lie down and gasp. When a ’man starts in public speaking he usually wants to tell all he knows in his first speech, and quite often he succeeds. Then when the crowd hear his next effusion they all agree that he has petered. We lay plans for the biggest cathedral on earth, and after a few months’ building, we roof over the foundation and hold a prayer-meeting for the help of heaven to get us out of debt. We start for the moon, but when we get up about one hundred feet we sit down on a chimney top and think. We soar up toward the sun and get no farther than up a tree. We start to turn the world upside down, and end by thinking ourselves luckly if we get our dinner cooked the way we want it. We lift up our two-hundred-pound burden like a feather, but we set it down on the first milestone. We start with three cheers and end with an apology. We do our best work before noon. In short, we peter. “Now, this is the discouraging thing about life. And our only hope in life is based upon those things that do~not peter. If babies' began big and kept growing smaller it would certainly make a hopeless job of it for us all. If our knowledge was large to start with, and grew less and less every day we went to school, we could scarcely blame our teachers for being discouraged. If our love for our friends petered out more and more every time we saw them, our social intercourse certainly would not be a joy forever. ‘¹ Peter never was a success until he stopped petering. Nor will you and I succeed until we do likewise. The man who tries to distance competitors in the first ten minutes, and leaves his exhausted body in the road for them to carry the rest of the journey, is in no sense a success. In taking up a burden it is a mistake to take up one so heavy that after the first day you have to drop it upon another’s shoulder. When a man joins the church he is not a success if he is so good the first month that he has to be a little worse on each succeeding month. And when a young man falls in love he makes a mistake to fall in love so desperately that there is nothing left for him to do but to peter all the rest of his life, when in its trials and irritations his love has need to be at its strongest. ‘ ‘ Never peter. Grow; increase in everything you undertake. It does not matter how small you start, but it does matter how small you grow. Rather than lift a three-hundred-pound weight the first day, and then have to come down to two hundred and fifty the next, and two hundred the next, it is better to begin by lifting one potato the first day, and two the next, and three the next, and so on. By the end of ten years you would be able to lift 3,650 potatoes, which might be more than one thousand pounds. In everything that you do, begin as small as you please, but see that to-day’s record is better—a tiny bit better, anyway—than yesterday’s. Be a little stronger, a little more courageous, a little more faithful, a little nearer God, this week than you were last. If you find you are beginning to peter, you would better either pray to heaven for a change of heart, or else get your friend to shoot you before you spoil your record. The world has no use for peterers, it wants Peters. “It is God’s way to begin small. He once started to save the world. We might have supposed that in revealing the terror of His Majesty and the beauty of His lov.e, He would rend the heavens, and so astonish the world that they would only be beginning to forget about it now after nineteen hundred years. But He did not. He started with a baby in a cow stable. He could scarcely have made a smaller beginning. Look back. Look into that dark cave. A flickering torch casts huge shadows of long-horned oxen on the rough-hewn walls. There is no sound but the low crunching of the cattle as they munch their hay. There in the midst of them is the young mother, forgetting for the moment her discouragement and discomfort and sickness; for there in her arms lies the Babe, her baby boy, and about His face still plays the light of heaven, from which He came, and the unclouded purity of its skies still lingers in His eyes. ‘ ¹0 little Babe of the stable, who would dream that Thou art a King? Who would imagine that from that throne of Thy sweet mother’s arms, Thy power would reach down along the ages, overturning kingdoms, establishing empires, changing the world, and that even today so many proud nations should own Thee as their supreme Lord and King— that Thou, O gracious Babe, shouldst be enthroned in so many faithful hearts, who would gladly lay down their life and all they hold most dear for Thy name's sake. Truly well did he speak, that prophet of old, when he said: ‘Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end.’ ‘ ‘ In all that He does, God begins very small. But the last is always the best. Nothing in which God has a hand peters out. Let us, as God’s true sons, build according to His plans, that of the structure that our hands rear it may also be said, the last is the best.” E. R. Palmer, Sec. Gen. Conf. Pub. Dept. 4 PACIFIC UNION RECORDER PACIFIC UNION RECORDER PUBLISHED WEEKLY By the Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Mountain View, Cal. Subscription Price, Fifty Cents a Year Editorial Committee J. J. Ireland H .W. Cottrell Claude Conard Entered as second-class matter July 6, 1906, at the Post-office at Mountain View, California, under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. Thursday, January 3, 1907. 1907 The happy expressions of New Year’s greeting which hail from every side remind us in no uncertain tones that old Father Time has again reversed his glass and the sands of another year are fast beginning to fall. The twelve months past have been months filled with telling events—events’ which tell more to us as a people than to any other class in the world. The earthquakes, the fires, the floods, the famines, the unrest in social and political circles, the wars and rumors of wars—all these and many more point to greater events wThich the next few years will certainly bring to pass’. We know not what the year upon which we are now entering may have in store for us. It only behooves us to watch the signs as they are fulfilled, and be prepared for anything to which the Lord may call us. Nor can this preparation be made of ourselves. “Without Me ye can do nothing,” is the warning given by our divine Leader. There are none of us but are familiar—yes, and sadly so—with the broken New Year’s vows' and resolutions made in our own strength. How much better to lay all our plans at the Saviour’s feet to be carried out or given up as His providence may direct. Let .the prayer of each heart be at the beginning of the new year as we lay ourselves and our all upon the altar, ‘ ‘Thy will, O Lord, be done.” SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA News Items At the close of the first three months of the present year’s work at Fernando Academy, Professor Lucas turned over from the* net earnings of the academy $400 to be applied on the debt. It was voted that Elder Healy join Elder Corliss at Sacramento during the coming session of the Legislature to do all within his power to set before our state legislators the true principles of religious liberty. Ine writer is to leave for the state of Sonora, Mexico, on Christmas Day, for the purpose of selecting a site for a mission station. A stop-over of one night will be made at Loma Linda for the purpose of holding a council meeting with the workers there. Elders Whitehead and Hare are to select a new location wherein the truth has never been presented, and hold a series of meetings during the winter months. Sister Celia Green and Elder E. H. Adams will remain at Pomona, and also do some work at Ontario during the next few weeks. we have an urgent caii for workers to go to Africa and join Brother W. H. Anderson in the work for the native people in northwest Rhodesia. At present we scarcely know whom to select from our conference to answer this call. Perhaps the Lord will impress some one to volunteer. All arrangements have been made for the discussion of the Sabbath question at Riverside to begin on the 14th of January, and to continue for at least six nights. Elder E. J. Hibbard will stand for the truth in this discussion, and Mr. White of Dallas, Tex., will undertake to defend the first-day institution. Brother C. F. Marvin is to be spared from the Glendale Sanitarium for the purpose of soliciting funds in Los Angeles that a new church lot may be secured for the erection of a large tabernacle in the metropolis of our conference, as the present building is not large enough to accommodate our people. Elder Whitehead visited Corona, San Pasqual, and Escondido during the week of prayer. All of our workers report excellent meetings held during this season. The most encouraging results of the week of prayer came to us in reports from Fernando Academy, where nearly all of the students seemed to make a. full surrender to the Lord; also from Glendale and Loma Linda Sanitariums. G. w. Reaser. December 24. CALIFORNIA Sanitarium Siftings Miss Irene Adams has gone to her home in Aberdeen, Wash., on a visit. Miss Janet Huber is again nursing here, after having spent some time in Honolulu. The Sabbath-school convention lately held here was well attended. Quite a few visitors were present. The new workers are showing a deep interest in their duties, and God is blessing this work on the hillside. Although the weather has been a little cool and foggy, the patronage at the sanitarium continues better than usual for this time of the year. The surgical war4 has been remodeled and is now much more light and airy; the hall having been widened is a great improvement. Miss Paulus from the Chicago Branch Sanitarium, who has been with us for some time past, is missed much by all, both patients and nurses. The week of prayer was truly a blessed lull in the busy hum of sanitarium life. The readings were read in worship by the nurses. The readings seemed to draw us all nearer together in Christian fellowship and good-will. Having plenty of help at the sanitarium now, a good many of the workers are planning on taking their vacations soon, to rest up for next summer’s heavy run. This year has been the best in the history of the sanitarium, and we hope next year will be better. Mildred Metcalf. December 25. Waited A young woman between twenty and thirty years of age, of good Christian character, to take the nurses’ course. Exceptional opportunity for the right person. For information address, Santa Barbara Sanitarium, 118 W. Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, Cal. Nurses, Attention Wanted.—One lady nurse, graduate in hydrotherapy. Give experience, place of graduation, age, etc. Reply with stamp to Dr. M. E. Eastman, 118 W. Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, Cal.