REPORT FROM BRO. INGRAHAM.
By Wm. S. Ingraham
As I find myself hedged in on every hand by high water, and as my report of labor at Brush Creek failed to reach the Office, I send another. I tarried in that place about three weeks. Fifteen in all embraced the Sabbath, but some are not very firm in all the truth. Two Seventh-day Baptist preachers, not having energy enough to enter new fields and plow their way through and convert people to the commandments of God, thought it would be a fine thing in our absence to warp the minds of the people, and prejudice them against us, by crying “prophet” and “annihilation,” in order to get those that had embraced the Sabbath and had not time as yet to investigate the whole truth, so as to anchor down firmly upon it, to join their church. The course they pursued was to visit among the people and turn them aside. But all they accomplished was to weaken the weak, and cause them to halt somewhat, and doubt the propriety of walking so straight, and being quite so strict, as our people require. None of them joined the Seventh-day Baptists. I have just made them another visit, and find that they have their Sabbath, prayer and social meetings. I firmly believe if it had not been for the influence of the blind preachers that more than thirty would have embraced the truth. As soon as they began to fight and oppose, it discouraged some that were interested. As far as my experience goes, the Seventh-day Baptists are among our bitterest enemies, and have been for years. In common their faith is the same as other denominations. Many believe in a temporal millennium, the mortality of the soul, and eternal misery; and they hold to the old trinity notions. Still when they speak of the commandments of God, they boast of carrying the old flag so long. As well might a McClellan boast of standing at the head of a noble army, unfurling to the breeze the star-spangled banner with the bright eagle crying freedom to all; yet through his tardy movements the flag trailed in the dust, and he was superseded by another. I expect to visit Brush Creek again before long. May the Lord help those who have started on the truth, to quit themselves like men and be strong.