At this session, the delegates partook together of the Lord’s Supper - both to open the business proceedings and to close them. Why is this wise when assembling to work together on weighty matters of sacred importance?

The ordinance of feet-washing has been especially enjoined by Christ, and on these occasions the Holy Spirit is present to witness and put a seal to His ordinance. He is there to convict and soften the heart. He draws the believers together, and makes them one in heart. They are made to feel that Christ indeed is present to clear away the rubbish that has accumulated to separate the hearts of the children of God from Him.

“These ordinances are regarded too much as a form, and not as a sacred thing to call to mind the Lord Jesus. Christ ordained them, and delegated His power to His ministers, who have the treasure in earthen vessels. They are to superintend these special appointments of the One who established them to continue to the close of time. It is in these, His own appointments, that he meets with and energizes His people by His personal presence. . . .

“How the heart of Christ is pierced by the forgetfulness, the unwillingness and neglect, to do the things that God has enjoined upon us! The heart needs to be broken, that selfishness may be cut away from the soul and put away from the practice. If we have learned the lessons that Christ desires to teach us in this preparatory service, the witness will respond to the feelings implanted in the heart for a higher spiritual life. . . .

“We do not come to the ordinances of the Lord’s house merely as a form. We do not make it our business, as we gather around the table of our Lord, to ponder about and mourn over our shortcomings. The ordinance of feet-washing embraced all this. ‘But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you’ (John 14:26). We do not come with our minds diverted to our past experience in the religious life, whether that experience is elevating or depressing. We do not come to revive in our minds the ill-treatment we have received at the hands of our brethren. The ordinance of humility is to clear our moral horizon of the rubbish that has been permitted to accumulate. We have assembled now to meet with Jesus Christ, to commune with him. Every heart is to be open to the bright beams of the Son of Righteousness. Our minds and hearts are to be fixed on Christ as the great center on whom our hopes of eternal life depend. We are not to stand in the shadow, but in the saving light of the cross.” - The Review and Herald, June 22, 1897.