Volume 4 spans an era of great Seventh-day Adventist camp meetings. With the first of such gatherings held in 1868, the plan had been followed with increasing enthusiasm. Within a decade there was scarcely a state conference that did not have its annual summer meeting. Sites were well selected, and good publicity was given. It was in connection with these large camp meetings that a concerted effort at reporting the work of Seventh-day Adventists in the newspapers was begun. Great pains were taken to make the camp representative, to provide good food, and to present a telling message. The meetings of five, six, or seven days’ duration, which on week days were attended by a few hundred Adventists, would over week ends attract several thousand interested non- Adventist listeners. The peak of such interest was in 1876, when, in Groveland, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, twenty thousand people crowded onto the camp ground on Sunday, August 27. Mrs. White addressed fifteen thousand attent…
"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place."
The EGW passage describes large camp meetings with thousands of attendees, including non-Adventists. This thematically parallels Acts 2:1, which describes the day of Pentecost when the disciples were gathered together and the Holy Spirit was poured out, drawing a large crowd. Both passages describe large gatherings with a spiritual focus.
"Temperance work also came prominently to the front in the times of volume 4. Seventh-day Adventists, with Mrs. White as one of their leading speakers, were prominently in the front, often in association with established temperance organizations. The practical way in which they labored to stem the tide of intemperance is told by Mrs. White in her chapter, “Experience and Labors,” Found in the heart of this book. 4T 6.2"
"Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again."
The EGW passage mentions temperance work and Seventh-day Adventists' involvement in it. This thematically parallels Proverbs 23:29-35, which warns against the dangers of alcohol and its effects. Both passages address the issue of intemperance and its negative consequences.