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Testimonies for the Church Volume 6
training of workers in different lines. All these different interests are
important, but when they have been attended to at a camp meeting,
but little opportunity remains for dealing with the practical relation of
truth to the soul. Ministers are diverted from their work of building
up the children of God in the most holy faith, and the camp meeting
does not meet the end for which it was appointed. Many meetings are
conducted in which the larger number of the people have no interest,
and if they could attend them all they would go away wearied instead
of being refreshed and benefited. Many are disappointed at the failure
of their expectation to receive help from the camp meeting. Those who
came for enlightenment and strength return to their homes little better
fitted to work in their families and churches than before attending the
meeting.
Business matters should be attended to by those especially ap-
pointed for this work. And as far as possible they should be brought
before the people at some other time than the camp meeting. In-
struction in canvassing, in Sabbath school work, and in the details of
tract and missionary work should be given in the home churches or in
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meetings specially appointed. The same principle applies to cooking
schools. While these are all right in their place, they should not occupy
the time of our camp meetings.
The presidents of conferences and the ministers should give them-
selves to the spiritual interests of the people and should therefore be
excused from the mechanical labor attendant upon the meeting. The
ministers should be ready to act as teachers and leaders in the work of
the camp when occasion requires, but they should not be wearied out.
They should feel refreshed and be in a cheerful frame of mind, for this
is essential for the best good of the meeting. They should be able to
speak words of cheer and courage, and to drop seeds of spiritual truth
into the soil of honest hearts, to spring up and bear precious fruit.
The ministers should teach the people how to come to the Lord
and how to lead others to Him. Methods must be adopted, plans must
be carried out, whereby the standard shall be uplifted, and the people
shall be taught how they may be purified from iniquity and elevated
by adherence to pure and holy principles.
There must be time for heart searching, for soul culture. When the
mind is occupied with matters of business, there must necessarily be a