The Guiding Hand by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 12, 1882

The Guiding Hand.

By John Norton Loughborough

MANY of the readers of the Signs will remember that when we went to England, having bought our tickets to sail by the steamer Minnesota we were shifted to the ship Homer, of the Warren Line, sailing from Boston to Liverpool; that as we were about to board the latter steamer, the Captain, strangely enough, refused to carry any passengers, and we were transferred to the steamer Nevada of the Guion Line, at an expense of $52 to the Warren Company; and that while the Nevada made a safe trip to England, the Homer was never heard from after leaving Boston.

Now we have another providence to record. When I decided to come to the General Conference, I negotiated for a ticket by the steamer Bristol, of the Great Western line. There was a delay in its arrival at Bristol, and the steamer Somerset was substituted for it. I went to their office, designing to buy my ticket, but seemed forbidden to do so. We prayed over it for another day, and our minds were all turned to the steamer Rhein, of the North German Lloyd Line, on which I embarked, Nov. 16. Although we made our passage during the terrible gales and ocean hurricane of the last of November, encountering head winds and storms all the way, and were sixteen days in making the voyage usually made in eleven days, we had no damage to our steamer, and I arrived in Battle Creek on the morning of the third day of the Conference; while the Somerset was reported, 24 days after leaving Bristol, as having used up all her coal in mid-ocean, and as having drifted under sail to St. Johns, Newfoundland, more than a thousand miles from New York. Had I taken that boat, I would not have arrived in Battle Creek until the Conference was over.

I am truly thankful that I have had the privilege of attending this solemn and profitable Conference, which has been so fully reported by others. I now expect to return to England by the steamer Rhein, appointed to sail from New York Jan. 14, 1882. As we think of God's providence toward his people, and his mercies to us in particular, we are constrained to say in the words of another,—

"The Lord is good, and all things show it. I thought so once, but now I know it."

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

Battle Creek, Jan. 1, 1882.