Experiences of a Pioneer
By Emma L. Lawrence
THINKING the readers of the REVIEW would be interested in the early experience of my father, H. W. Lawrence, who was one of our pioneer workers, I send the following items, written at his dictation about a year before his death, which occurred last January:— “In the winter of 1843 there was a revival in West Bangor, N. Y., and I was one of the first converts. Up to this time I had never had a real interest in religious things. I was fifteen years of age. One night at prayer-meeting I felt myself one of the greatest of sinners, and cried for mercy, remaining on my knees for hours. The meeting was protracted on my account until a late hour, and then I became fully conscious that I had received the new birth. I had no way of expressing the fulness of joy, and rejoiced for weeks over the experience. In February I was baptized through the ice. “The next year advent meetings were held in different towns in the country, some of which I attended. The time was preached, many persons were converted, and I, witnessing the power of the Lord manifested, became satisfied that the movement came from the Lord. “My ambition to be popular and highly esteemed left me in the belief of the Lord’s soon coming. My father, not being a professor of religion, was displeased with my experience, as I was his only son. I was sent to the academy in another town to divert me from my new faith. I finally had to buy my time so as to have the opportunity to attend meetings. “The fall of 1844, in the midnight cry movement, I associated with people who expected to be translated on the tenth day of the seventh month. I never before saw such solemn, consecrated people who were ready and happy in their expectancy. ‘Behold, the Bridegroom cometh,’ reached me only a few days before the time passed. I then had no use for this world. “When the opposition became severe against those who held to their faith after the time passed, I felt called upon to dissolve my connection with the church of my choice, the Christian, and associate with those who loved Christ’s one appearing. About this time I was encouraged to do some public work as an exhorter, and spent some time in self-supporting work. At one time I worked six months in public meetings and house-to-house work, receiving fifty cents in donations and earning one dollar, often working in the field for those who boarded me. “Before I was twenty-one I visited two camp-meetings and heard William Miller preach. He was very much opposed to noisy demonstrations, and pleaded with the believers not to attach so much importance to their enthusiasm. He preached with power. Up to this time I had a chance to hear such men as J. V. Himes, Josiah Litch, Shipman, and R. V. Lyon, and other prominent workers in the first message. “Soon after I was twenty-one I was married to a consecrated Adventist sister. She traveled with me more or less, singing and exhorting publicly. Our attention was called to the Sabbath about four years after our marriage. Having been brought up antinomians, we were more than a year prayerfully investigating the third message before we embraced it. Soon after this I was rebaptized by Joseph Bates. At the request of church friends, to whom we had brought the truth, I was ordained to the gospel ministry by Elders James White, J. N. Andrews, John Byington, and H. G. Birck. More was then expected of me than formerly, and I became embarrassed and had less freedom than before. I laid this before the leaders and was advised to do the best I could for the cause, regardless of my preferences. Soon personal testimony from Sister White was received, saying that my gift was local, that I should administer ordinances and should receive pay according to my work. “I spent more time winters than summers, supporting my family mostly by manual labor, yet some donations were received. “My agency in scattering publications from house to house seemed to benefit more or less Elders John Byington, S. B. Whitney, B. L. Whitney, Wilbur Whitney, and Will D. Curtis. Elder W. B. White was in the cradle when I carried the truth to his father and mother. Through my labors also in house-to-house work a church of forty members was raised up at Bucksbridge, N. Y., where the first Seventh-day Adventist chapel was built. “I once feared human organization, but was glad later on, to guard against the confusion which existed, to encourage the first organization of a Seventh-day Adventist church (as far as I have known), which was organized at West Bangor by Elders D. T. Bourdeau and S. B. Whitney. Shortly afterward organizations were made at Bucksbridge and Battle Creek. “I used to be puzzled why there were not more results when I had satisfactory evidence that the Lord was helping me to interest the people. In some of those cases, a year afterward, young persons came to me and said they dated their conversion to the time of those meetings. I have sometimes had evidence in secret prayer that special results would develop in public meetings already appointed, and the same came true. My experience and observation have convinced me that426travail of soul, such as it used to be, is again a miracle far exceeding ordinary sympathetic anxiety.”