New Jersey by Carl B. Haynes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 23, 1908

New Jersey

By Carl B. Haynes

BRIDGETON.—Great interest has been aroused in this place since the tent effort held there this past summer, by an article which appeared in the Bridgeton Evening News, from the pen of the pastor of the First Baptist church, about the time of the Atlantic Union Conference in Philadelphia. It contained the usual arguments concerning the abolition of the law. Evidently the plan was to present this article to the people while those who had publicly represented the truth here were out of the way. My attention was called to the article, and I immediately replied to it, and out of this beginning has grown a newspaper discussion, stretching over a period of several weeks, and even now it shows no signs of closing.

No sooner had my reply appeared, than a great number of articles came to the editor upon the Sabbath question, and the remarkable part of it is that the majority have been in favor of the seventh-day Sabbath, though who the writers are no one seems to know.

One or two of these articles appeared daily in the News up to the time of the holidays, when suddenly they ceased, without apparent cause. The reason was forthcoming a day or two later, however, when the following editorial appeared:—

“Our correspondents and others will appreciate our position when we say that we have now on hand no less than fourteen letters pertaining to the Sabbath question, and this notwithstanding that we have published many on the subject. The abundance of letters received and the diversity of points from which they come is an evidence of the deep and wide-spread interest in this question. During the holiday season we have been hindered to some extent in publishing them. We will do the best we can. No one can do more.”

There is indeed a “wide-spread interest in this question.” The News has quite an extensive circulation not only in Bridgeton, but also in Millville, and a large number of smaller towns and villages in Cumberland County, and we hear continually that many of the inhabitants of these places are inquiring about the Sabbath.

During the past year we have baptized twenty-nine persons here, and there are a number more to follow in the rite. And still others are taking hold of the truth right along. Only last week a woman came to me, saying she was keeping the Sabbath and was paying tithe, and wished to unite with the church. On inquiry I found that she was a member of the First Baptist Church, the pastor of which had started the above newspaper discussion by writing

against the Sabbath. She had been led to accept the truth by reading her own pastor’s opposition to it. May there be many others like her.

And so we see many evidences that God is working mightily for his truth here. As the time approaches for us to separate from the work here and go to another field of labor (Baltimore), our earnest prayers ascend to God that he may continue to prosper his work in this place, and that many more precious souls may be born into the kingdom.

CARL B. HAYNES.