p. 29 | LABORS IN MINNESOTA by F. W. MORSE.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 19, 1869

LABORS IN MINNESOTA.

By F. W. MORSE.

Under a deep conviction of duty, and in keeping with the advice of the Conference, I have made arrangements to employ myself to the extent of my feeble

abilities with laboring in the cause. In the opening providence of God, and with considerable effort and sacrifice on my part, I have made business arrangements and changes so as to free myself from cares and perplexities that have bound me down to the world, bringing many dark hours of self-reproach and sadness, and hedging up the way against laboring in the cause.

The business of selling out, marketing crops, and change of location, prevented me from attending the fall series of Quarterly Meetings with Bro. Pierce, a course of instruction and preparation I would most gladly have enjoyed. Home affairs were so arranged as to give me opportunity to attend the meeting with the little frontier band at Jo Daviess, Blue Earth Co. Here we were glad to meet Bro. Pierce and Grant. We found a protracted meeting in progress under the management of four ministers, and as our brethren were young in the cause, it had been given out with a degree of assurance that they would be jostled from the track, and turned over to the F. W. Baptists.

The ministers, however, kindly gave way for us to occupy the school-house on Sabbath and first-day forenoon, but were in attendance to take notes, ask questions, &c.

As the subject of the law of God and the Sabbath question was presented, these professed teachers of the word of God manifested a spirit of contention, contradicting Bro. Pierce in such a manner as to expose the unreasonable position of the opposer to all the listeners. One, in a hasty manner, threw out an offer to discuss with us; but when we called him up to the point, and stated that whilst we were opposed to going about for the express purpose of waging battle, in contention and debate, we should never retreat from the field when challenged, he drew back and did not wish to be understood as desiring to discuss with us at all.

After the meeting on first-day, Bro. Pierce and Grant started on their return homeward, and I remained to hold some further meetings with the brethren, visit some in adjoining places, and afterward go on to Tarhassen, Martin Co., to hold a series of meetings. In carrying out this plan, five meetings were held at Jo Daviess. At the last the ordinances were celebrated, and four united with the church. All stand firmer than before. This last meeting was a time long to be remembered. I have visited and tried to encourage scattered brethren, and am now at Tarhassen. Have given four discourses with good interest. If Bro. Ingraham returns to this State soon, can he not come up this way? F. W. MORSE.