p. 246 | REPORT FROM CALIFORNIA by John Norton Loughborough

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 17, 1868

REPORT FROM CALIFORNIA.

By John Norton Loughborough

SINCE our last report, we have closed our meetings in the tent. Have taken it down, and hung it up for winter. The season here is uncommonly cool and foggy for this country. The nights were so cool that it was uncomfortable in the tent. Meetings will still be continued in a hall. We held seventy-two meetings in the tent, disposed of one hundred and sixty-seven dollars' worth of books, and obtained twenty-five subscribers for the REVIEW, sixteen for the Instructor, and three for the Health Reformer. Over fifteen have taken a decided stand on the Sabbath. There are others who will commence soon.

Bro. Bourdeau speaks at Petaluma next Sabbath and first-day. I expect to join him again next week, and spend another Sabbath and first-day there, and then go to Windsor, 30 miles northwest, to commence a series of meetings in a free meeting-house, while Bro. B. still remains in Petaluma for a time, to follow up the work by visiting and occasional meetings.

Being afflicted with boils on my neck, and having to come to San Francisco, to get our two boxes of books which are due here, I came down, and expect to hold meeting next Sabbath, and evening after Sabbath to commence to organize the first Systematic Benevolence Society in California.

As our brethren will probably have read before this reaches them, we have had the most terrible earthquake known in California since it was settled by Americans. The heaviest shock was at 8 o'clock Wednesday morning, Oct. 21. It damaged buildings in San Francisco to such an extent that it will require over $300,000 to repair them. The papers report but four killed in San Francisco; but a physician in Oakland told Bro. Kellogg that he saw twenty-three himself in one dead-house. Another man says he counted sixty-three in a dead-house. It is believed by many that not less than one hundred persons were killed. Great fear was manifested by many. May it lead them to give their hearts fully to God. But, alas! with many these things soon pass off, and they rush into pleasure again.

One-fourth of the chimneys in Oakland were thrown down by the shock, and others greatly damaged. At Petaluma, the first shock was quite severe, throwing down the front of a stone house near us, and injuring many brick structures. No lives were lost. There have been slight shocks, many of them since the first, some thirty or more in all. There were three last night that made Bro. Kellogg's house creak, and awakened us from our slumbers. There have been two slight shakes since I commenced this writing. Whether the worst is over, we do not know.

These things solemnly impress our minds, and we pray that they may so affect the people that they will hear with earnestness of the shaking of earth and heaven, soon to come, and prepare to meet God.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.

Brooklyn, Cal., Oct. 23, 1868.