p. 85 | The Cause in Norridgewock, Me

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Aug 14, 1866

The Cause in Norridgewock, Me.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

I HAVE been in Norridgewock four weeks, spending most of the time in visiting from house to house. Sabbath morning we have a Bible-Class and Sabbath-School, with an average attendance of about forty children and twenty grown persons. We open by prayer, and then all join in repeating the Ten Commandments, and close the school with the Lord's prayer. All seem to take a lively interest in these things, and evidently much good is being done. In the afternoon we have preaching and a social meeting, with an attendance of from seventy to one hundred. We have also had meetings every Sunday, with a congregation of from one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred and fifty. I think that the interest and the congregation has steadily increased every week since we have been here. There are about eighty Sabbath-keepers in this vicinity who embraced the truth here. It found the most of them non-professors, and some very wicked. Nearly all of these have now become thoroughly converted to Christ, and are growing in the Christian graces. Though that filthy, ungodly weed, tobacco, was freely used among them before,

yet now, it is nearly exterminated, and we confidently hope that it will soon entirely disappear.

A large part of the people in this vicinity are favorable to the truth, and heartily welcome us at their homes. They acknowledge that this is the truth, and say that they hope to obey it sometime. There are several families who are "almost persuaded" to keep the Sabbath now. I think that they must ultimately yield to the power of the truth. The people here are very slow to move, and very cautious how they move. Although they can see no flaw in what they have heard, yet they fear that there may be some drawback to it. So if our brethren live out what they have been taught, we confidently expect to see a great work done here yet. They have a neat, plain, substantial meeting-house, which is doing good service to the cause of truth.

From my short experience, as a preacher, in present truth, I have been forcibly impressed with the necessity of holding on, when we once begin in a new place. Now from what I have seen in this place, I am doubly impressed with its great utility. It may have seemed to others that unnecessary time and labor have been spent here; but it is not so. A faithful minister could work to good advantage here for six months to come. How often has it been the case that our ministers have gone into a new place, created a great excitement, got the mass of the people out to hear, most of them pretty thoroughly convinced of the truth, and a few decided to keep the Sabbath; and then have broken square off, and left! In such cases we generally hear that fifteen or twenty, more or less, have embraced the truth, and that "many others are interested, who, it is hoped, will see it their duty to keep the Sabbath." Visit that place again after six months or a year, and you will find a few sickly Sabbath-keepers still holding on, and prejudice, in the minds of unbelievers, so strong against the truth, that you cannot get a single person out to hear again. The minister consoles himself by saying that he has done his duty, that the people have heard the truth, and it now rests with them. If this be true, he has worse than thrown away his labor, because the people are further from the truth than they were when he went there. A minister labors to save the people, not to condemn them.

I am of the opinion, that the one who goes into a new place and gives from ten to thirty lectures, and then leaves, whatever the result may seemingly be, has done more hurt than good to the cause of God. A few may be saved as the fruit of his labors, but he has forever shut up the way for any further work in that place. When a man has planted his field to corn, is his duty to that field then done? How much corn will he get, if he does not till it! What would we think of the man who should go into the woods, dig up the ground, plant a hill of corn, and then leave it, with the expectation of finding a good yield of corn there in the fall? But is it not more foolish to plant the truth among its bitterest enemies, and then leave it to live or die as best it may? It seems to me so, and sad experience shows it to be true.

In the future we shall spend most of our time visiting the different churches through N. E., but shall have a regular appointment at Norridgewock, for one of us, every few weeks. These remarks are endorsed by Bro. Andrews.

D. M. CANRIGHT.