This article appeared in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, January 28, 1932. Punctuation, capitalization, and other aspects of literary style have been left unchanged.--Editors.

NE MORNING IN MAY, 1863, the deaconesses of the Battle Creek church were called by Elder James White to take a look at a worn and torn old tent, and to decide if they could mend its numerous rips and tears, so that it could be used in a general meeting soon to convene.

The writer of this sketch, then a boy of nine, had accompanied his father, and was somewhat surprised at the hopeful way that Mrs. Martha Amadon and her associate deaconesses looked at the rips in the tent curtain and the holes in the top, and then said they would get big needles and strong thread, and do their best to mend the tent.

On the following Friday, May 22, the tent was pitched on the north side of a vacant lot close to the Review office, on the very spot now occupied by the Battle Creek Tabernacle.

The tent was fitted up in the usual fashion of those days, with board seats without backs, and a platform for the speakers. This platform was about twelve feet wide and eight feet deep, and twelve inches above the ground. It had a board seat with a back, extending across the rear of the platform. In front was a modest desk, and between it and the board seat were three or four chairs.

Thus the "Michigan tent" was ready to accommodate the second annual meeting of the Michigan Conference, also the members of the Battle Creek church, and numerous brethren from neighboring churches, as well as the delegates who had come from New York, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, for the purpose of organizing a general conference of Seventh-day Adventists. This general meeting was a great event in the history of the Battle Creek church, the Michigan Conference, and of Seventh-day Adventists everywhere.

��� Everybody knew that this was to be the largest assembly of Seventh-day Adventists ever assembled up to that time. Ministers were arriving day by day, and busy preparations were being made for the entertainment of delegates from abroad for nearly a week, and for the delegates and visiting brethren of the Michigan Conference from Friday until Monday.

��� The brethren who had gathered to organize a General Conference met Wednesday and Thursday in the meeting house on Van Buren Street near Cass Street. This building, erected in 1857, was 28 x 42 feet in size, and would seat about 200 persons.

��� For the organization of the conference there were present duly appointed delegates from six States. Other brethren attending the meeting were free to take part in the discussions and deliberations.

A sense of solemn responsibility rested upon the assembly. Great joy was felt by the leading brethren that the time had come for organization. Several of the delegates had taken an active part in the five-year controversy over the question of the rightness or wrongness of organization. Some of them had at first been opposed to organization, believing it to be a dangerous thing, but later saw its value, and were ready to unite with the other brethren in this advance move.

And here the question arises, Why should anyone fail to see the value and the necessity of organization?

The following from George Storrs, written in 1844, will show what was taught concerning organization to those who had separated themselves from the churches under the advent proclamation:

"Take care that you do not seek to organize another church. No church can be organized by man's invention but what it becomes Babylon the moment it is organized. The Lord organized His own church by the strong bonds of love. Stronger than that cannot be made; and when such bonds will not hold together the professed followers of Christ, they cease to be His followers, and drop off from the body as a matter of course."

James White, in 1853, writing of the opposition to organization, said:

"After the time passed, there was great confusion, and the majority were opposed to any organization, holding that it was inconsistent with the perfect liberty of the gospel! Mrs. White was always opposed to every form of fanaticism, and early announced that some form of organization was necessary to prevent and correct confusion. Few at the present time can appreciate the firmness which was then required to maintain her position against the prevailing anarchy." "The union which has existed among Seventh-day Adventists has been greatly fostered and maintained by her timely warnings and instructions."

Seventeen years later, James White, looking back over the years of healthy growth of the work, wrote as follows:

"Organization was designed to secure unity of action, and as a protection from imposture. It was never intended as a scourge to compel obedience, but rather for the protection of the people of God. Christ does not drive His people; He calls them. . . .

"Christ never designed that human minds should be molded for heaven by the influence merely of other human minds. `The head of every man is Christ.' His part is to lead, and to mold, and to stamp His own image upon the heirs of eternal glory. However important organization may be for the protection of the church, and to secure harmony of action, it must not come in to take the disciple from the hands of the Master. . . .

"Those who drafted the form of organization adopted by Seventh-day Adventists, labored to incorporate into it, as far as possible, the simplicity of expression and form found in the New Testament. The more of the spirit of the gospel manifested, and the more simple, the more efficient the system.

"The General Conference takes the general supervision of the work in all its branches, including the State conferences. The State conference takes the supervision of all branches of the work in the State, including the churches in that State. And the church is a body of Christians associated together with the simple covenant to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

"The officers of a local church are servants of that church, and not lords, to rule over it with church force. `He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.' Matt. 23:11. These officers should set examples of patience, watchfulness, prayer, kindness, and liberality, to the members of the church, and should manifest a good degree of that love to those they serve, exhibited in the life and teachings of our Lord."

In the meeting held Sabbath and Sunday the congregation was large and the tent was filled. Sunday was a very warm day, and my brother Edson and I made ourselves useful by supplying the congregation with cool fresh drinking water from neighbor Frey's well. With tin pails and tin cups we passed through the assembly, offering water to all, without disturbing the business proceedings.

Elder Smith's Report
In his brief report of this joint meeting of the Michigan and General Conference, Uriah Smith, in the Review and Herald of May 26, 1863, spoke as follows:

"Taking a general view of this meeting as a religious gathering, we hardly know what feature of the joyful occasion to notice first. We can say to the readers of the Review, Think of everything good that has been written of every previous meeting, and apply it to this. All this would be true, and more than this.

"Perhaps no previous meeting that we have ever enjoyed, was characterized by such unity of feeling and harmony of sentiment. In all the important steps taken at this conference, in the organization of a General Conference, and the further perfecting of State conferences, defining the authority of each and the important duties belonging to their various officers, there was not a dissenting voice, and we may reasonably doubt if there was even a dissenting thought. Such union, on such points, affords the strongest grounds of hope for the immediate advancement of the cause, and its future glorious prosperity and triumph. . . .

�� "On Friday the Michigan tent was erected on the green a few rods from the office, as it was evident that the numbers who would be present on Sabbath and first day could not even find standing room in our house of worship.

��� "Six discourses were delivered, and two social meetings were held in the tent. A tent nearly full of Sabbath keepers on the Sabbath, intently absorbed in listening to the proclamation of the great truths of our present position, was a cheering sight. Evenings, and on first day, a good attendance of friends from the immediate neighborhood furnished as large a congregation as could be comfortably entertained in the tent.

"There were in all eight stirring and instructive discourses delivered, one each by Brethren White, Sanborn, Snook, and Loughborough, and two each by Brethren Andrews and Hull. At the close of the forenoon discourse on first day, we had an interesting season of baptism, in which eight signified their faith in the burial and resurrection of their Lord.

"The influence of this meeting cannot fail to be good. We are certain that those who were present, as they look back upon the occasion, will not be able to discover an unpleasant feature. And as they separated to go to their homes, courage and good cheer seemed to be the unanimous feelings."
St. Helena, California