July 16, 1919

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DISPOSITION OF THE MANUSCRIPT

ELDER DANIELLS: It is time to adjourn. The committee to decide what shall be done with the manuscript which these stenographers have been producing has asked that it shall have the afternoon for its work. This is a very important matter. Many have come to me and asked if they could get these manuscripts, and some have expressed a willingness to pay for the reproduction. We have appointed a committee to bring us some counsel. You are the conference, what do you say? Do you realize the labor and the expense that will be involved in reproducing this matter? Brother Knox is chairman of the committee, and in speaking about it we thought it would be well to just ask the conference to consider it. It seems as though we might get some suggestions from this body, so we could see what meets the general mind.

ELDER F.W.WILCOX: I have a suggestion. It seems to me that it would be practically impossible to reproduce all the papers and all the discussions, but it seems to me that if each one who has given a paper could present an outline of his study, and let that outline be duplicated and furnished to the members of the conference, that would be the best that can be done.

ELDER DANIELLS: Do you mean, have Brother Prescott take his studies and reproduce them as he wants to have them appear, and M.C. Wilcox the same, and Brother Lacey, and all the studies given?

ELDER WILCOX: That would eliminate all discussion.

ELDER UNDERWOOD: I do not think there is very much

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question in regard to the presentation of some of these topics, but you take the Eastern Question, that is a vital question. You say it is going to cost something to reproduce this matter. It has cost us something to come here—some of us, large delegations have come from one end of this country—clear over from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and form the South and the North, and we are spending our valuable time, which represents not simply thousands of dollars, but a good many thousands of dollars in expense; and it seems to me that we should have this. The cause cannot afford, and these men cannot afford to have these historical facts that have been presented in these papers for our study lost sight of. The matter furnished has been a help on both sides.

ELDER WILCOX: I think Brother Prescott’s studies will appear in the Review.

E.R.PALMER: How would this do: For those who have presented their studies to reduce them as much as they can, possibly, and preserve the clear lines of thought, and then to put it on the linotype and pull simply galley proofs sufficient for a certain number of the committee, and not carry it any further from that point. I suppose you do not want it circulated as a book or pamphlet, because it does not agree with anything or anybody.

ELDER WAKEHAM: It seems to me this is one of the reasons why we ought to have it in [a] form so we can study both sides intelligently and be able to compare notes. I know it would be a heavy cost, and yet I believe we would pay quite a large sum of money to get just what we have been having here.

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ELD. DANIELLS: Your suggestion applies to the whole of the manuscript?

ELD. WAKEHAM: No, I do not think that. I think we ought to have it quite complete.

ELD. DANIELLS: Of course we could reduce it very much by rigid editing, so we could get all the facts stated and cut out a lot of unnecessary verbiage.

E.R.PALMER: Permit me to say further that it seems to me this is a matter that we cannot afford to save money on. I think this is a matter along the same line as the making the “Source Book.” We spent $5000 in just preparing the manuscript for that book. It is worth more than money. And there are some of these things that I think we ought to have before us for study. It could be reduced half the material in hand, and make it a great blessing by doing so.

ELDER KNOX: Brother Palmer’s suggestion was to pull a few proof sheets. Are we clear as to how the matter of circulation is to be handled. If it is only to be furnished to a few, how are we to decide who should have it and who should not. I have no doubt that before we leave this room there would be many requests for a copy, and many more requests would come from people outside of this room.

ELDER WILCOX: I would raise the question, if the report is to be published in that way, if it would be advisable to issue it to any but ordained ministers in this conference.

ELDER WILKINSON: There is considerable agitation going on in the field, and when we go out to camp-meetings

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our ministers everywhere are clamoring for a report of these things, and it does seem to me that we should have something to answer them.

ELDER BRANSON: That is the way I feel about it, because every minister is going to require of us at least a synopsis of what was discussed here. It seems to me that if they could have the matter firsthand, in printed form, it would be infinitely better than for every person who has been here to either try to tell it or give it in his own words, because he will not give a clear vision of either side of the question in that way. It seems to me the only way to help the brethren who are not here is to give them a clear statement of this whole situation in some printed form.

ELDER PRESCOTT: That would practically mean publishing it in book form. And if you publish it in book form, why did you object to anybody and everybody coming here? You were very insistent about that.

ELDER DANIELLS: I do not think it was to keep the people from knowing what we said that we advised that, but in order that it would be manageable, and so that we could freely follow our studies without interruption, it was through best to confine the number to a few.

ELDER PRESCOTT: There is no objection to publishing everything that has been said here, as far as I am concerned, but it is a question of what it would mean. I would express the hope that if we do publish it we would not publish simply the things about which we do not agree, and so carry the idea that this conference was simply a discussion of disputed points,

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or arguments over points of difference, and that the absolutely fundamental things were overshadowed by other things; but that it was not merely a conference to show our differences, but really to show our unity on fundamental things, and that there exists a spirit of unity and charity even about things on which we do not agree. I think we should be careful about how we handle the matter in any publication.

ELDER UNDERWOOD: I think if we publish this in pamphlet form it will be used against us, even though an explanation may be made.

ELDER TAIT: It seems to me that we have not reached the place yet in the study of these questions where we ought to be willing to throw them out all through the field for general discussion. This is what it would amount to if we were to publish it and scatter this publication widely, as has been suggested by some of the brethren. Personally I believe very strongly in the instruction that has been given to us through the Spirit of prophecy over questions of this kind; that where there are questions among the brethren that groups should get together, something as we have done here, and should study over these questions, and pray over them, until they are united, and then present a united report. I fear the very thing that Professor Prescott suggested, and was feeling some of these sentiments very strongly. I think it would be very proper for us to go to considerable expense, as Brother Palmer has suggested, to make this matter available to us, for still further study of these questions among men who have been here, and if they are not here, that can be taken into this study. But it would be an easy matter

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for us to print something which would give an impression which positively is not true. I believe there is no man here this morning but that has more faith now in this old message than he has ever had in all its existence. The thing stands on a permanent foundation. We have been discussing the things the brethren present, the strongest things in the matter of the king of the North, but I can see nothing that convinces me of the error of the position we have taken all along the way. There are things I would like to have cleared up. There are many questions I would like to ask. The matter is not all clear to me at all, but it is not vital and fundamental. There are questions in connection with that old theory (I do not speak of it disrespectfully), but the idea that we have held to, which are puzzling me, and I do not see the why of it, and I would like to have the matter for further study; but I do not think it advisable to put it out in a general way, where in one place they will take one view of the matter, and in another place take other views.

PROF.WIRTH: I feel as Brother Tait and others have expressed, that it is a rather hazardous thing to throw this out all over. Students came to me before I came away and wanted me to promise to tell them all about this conference, and I have received letters from them saying they want me to tell them all about it when I get back. We are going to be besieged with such requests. I am not going to tell them everything about it. I am going to ask the Lord to give me wisdom. Because I do not think they are ready.

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I shall feel very badly if they get hold of this thing. One would take one side and one another. While I would like to have this for myself, yet candidly I doubt the wisdom of letting immature minds get hold of this. I would like to guide these students, and use wisdom in handling the matter, and I do not think it would be well for them to get hold of these things in the free way they have been discussed here.

PROF. WALDORF: I only want to suggest that a limited number of copies be published and sent to each school, where the teacher can have them and refer to them. I think that would be a good way.

At this point it was moved by Elder Underwood, and Seconded by Elder Tait, that the subject of “The Spirit of Prophecy” be considered this evening, as it was understood some will not be here tomorrow night.

ELDER G.B.THOMPSON: I think that the publishing of this matter would sow sees of division and discord, and as far as I am concerned, I am not in favor of sending out anything.

ELDER DANIELLS: It is all right to throw things out in the field, and then to try to smuggle them is another thing. I think that our brethren who have exercised so much freedom, and have cut away from their mooring places, ought to consider the trouble that it is going to make, and follow the counsel that is given. I believe when we get through with it all we shall find the counsel of the Spirit of God good wise counsel, that there is common sense in it,

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and that we will do well to adhere to it. But I confess it is going to take more wisdom than we have to pilot our way through without damage to the work. As has been stated, these are not the fundamental things. We can all get through to heaven if we never understand all these questions. All of us have had good Christian experiences and have led thousands of people into this truth. But now the result of such freedom which has been taken has brought us into a perplexing situation, and now we must have wisdom to go through. I sometimes think it would be just as well to lock this manuscript up in a vault, and have any one who wishes to do so come there for personal study and research.

VOICE: That is my impression.

ELDER PALMER: Recalls his suggestion to furnish galley proofs, in view of the situation involved.

ELDER KNOX: The committee will take into consideration the discussion which has been brought out, but I would like to express my feelings now: The reasons stated why this institute should be a strictly limited one, based on the instruction we have from the Spirit of God, considering that we were going to take up the study of questions that we were not agreed upon, then I hold that the same reasons would cause us to refrain from scattering the report of the conference. Now there will be enough feeling upon the part of our brethren who are no here, who feel that they have been excluded from this study, so we need not take any step in the future to intensify this feeling by withholding from them what they know will be put in some

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kind of a permanent form. I believe it would be better not to print it at all, or else we ought to be willing to face criticism and send it out to them. The latter, I am sure you will all agree with me, would be a wrong step to take.

ELDER F.M. WILCOX: I would like to make this further suggestion that there be gotten out a brochure containing the historical extracts alone, that have been read in this convention, and furnish this to any one who wishes it, but that all the discussion and the papers be not printed.


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…
LACEY: If you will read concerning the Jewish belief on the state of the dead in the days of Christ, it was exactly the popular belief today, that when you died your spirit was taken where it belonged. If you had been good, it went to heaven, to a place in Abraham’s bosom, and if you had been bad, it went to a place in hell. Christ was for three and one-half years among those Jews, and I have looked in vain through the gospels for a suggestion that Jesus taught contrary to that accepted view. Not only did Jesus silently acquiesce in the view of the time, but he actually endorsed it, for he gave the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

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In his teaching of the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus on the State of the Dead, Christ endorsed a popular misbelieve of his day. Why? the people were not ready to receive the truth. If he could do that, I think I can. I do not say that Jesus taught the error, but he did not correct it. There is no text where Christ said, “Your belief in the state of the dead is wrong. Now what we teach about the state of the dead, is correct.” It is in the Bible.

I remember what Brother Daniells said to me that “it is as important to have shepherds of the heart, than teachers of the head.” We want to live the truth and teach the truth, but, as it was in Christ’s day so it is now, the teaching of truth may hurt more than if you allow an error to exist. I think even though this Conference can not decide just who the king of the north is, I will hold to the old view anyhow, following the plan of Jesus in teaching the people of his day.

UNDERWOOD: Do you really think Christ endorsed error?

LACEY: I do not mean he endorsed the correctness of the popular view on the state of the dead, but he used the system that was in vogue.


UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY

National Reform Association & Ecumenical Movement page 939

The Spirit of Prophecy by A.G.Daniells page 942