REPORT FROM NEW ENGLAND.
By S. N. Haskell
Since my return from California, owing to impaired health, I have been able to write but very little, notwithstanding I attended the Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota camp-meetings, reports of which have appeared in the SIGNS, and every other week have held meetings on the Sabbath among our brethren. The cause in New England is not prospering as we could wish, and yet there are those in all parts of this Conference who are becoming interested and embracing the truth. At different places where we have spent the Sabbath, we have witnessed a degree of the out-pouring of God's spirit, and seen quite a number take their stand with the people of God. Sabbath, Aug. 6, we were at Washington N. H. This church has been passing through some trials of late, but the Lord came specially near to us on the Sabbath. At the close of the five o'clock meeting, four brothers, sons of Bro. Wm. Farnsworth, who was among the first to embrace the Sabbath at this place in 1844, were baptized. We had designed to leave Sunday morning, but it was thought advisable to hold meetings that day, and thus carry forward the good work already commenced. This meeting was by far one of the most effecting meetings we ever attended. The spirit of God seemed to soften all hearts. Before the close of the opening prayer, hearts began to yield to its influence, and during the three hours, which the meeting continued, there was scarcely an exceptional dry eye in the assembly. One sister, for the first time, took her stand to unite with the people of God to keep his commandments. When she arose, and said, "I will confess my Lord and follow in the path of duty for Christ's sake," the spirit of God touched every heart. At the close of the meeting she and another sister were also baptized. It was at this place that the Sabbath was first introduced among Adventists. This was thirty-seven years ago this present season; and it was in the same body of water that, at that time, a few of the older members of the church, now living here, were baptized. Since then some have moved away, a few have renounced the faith, while still more have died, and yet they have had accessions so that a larger number now belong to the church than at first embraced the Sabbath. From these hills, among which the light first broke out, this truth has spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the British possessions on the north to the gulf of Mexico on the south; also in the islands of the sea; and in nearly every civilized nation in the world there are witnesses to the Sabbath reform connected with the doctrine of the second advent. Those who first took their stand on God's commandments, looking for Christ to come in the clouds of heaven, had not the most distant idea of ever seeing what is seen to-day in this respect. Truly, this work is of God.