The Missionary by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 1, 1881

The Missionary.

By John Norton Loughborough

DARLASTON AND MANCHESTER, ENGLAND.

My last was written at Darlaston. I had appointments each evening from October 9 to 16, but on account of business, other meetings, and one market night in which the citizens obtain most of their supplies for the week, few attended our meetings. On the 13th and 14th there was a very terrific gale, making it unsafe for people to leave their houses, as slate and tiles from the roofs, and bricks from chimneys, were hurled fiercely by the wind. The gale did a great amount of damage both by land and sea. In the mining and manufacturing district, smoke stacks and tall brick chimneys were thrown down killing a number of men. The Register of British shipwrecks records the loss of ninety vessels (valued with their cargoes at $35,000,000), during the gale. Of these vessels eight were steamers. The reporter of the Register says that during the year ending October 14, 1,454 vessels have been wrecked, being 417 more than during the same period of the previous year. He also says that for the twenty-six years that the Register has been kept, 51,841 wrecks have occurred in the waters surrounding these islands, and 18,550 lives lost thereby.

On the second Sunday of my stay at Darlaston, in the forenoon, I attended service with the Primitive Methodists, and at 2.30 P. M., by invitation I addressed their Sunday-school of over 600 scholars and teachers, giving them a description of Chinese idol worship, as I witnessed it in their temples in San Francisco, California, seeking to impress their minds with gratitude which should fill our hearts in that we have a knowledge of the true God, his worship, and the way of salvation.

In the evening I gave another discourse in the hall. As revival services were soon to be commenced by the Primitives, and as I had other engagements, I closed the meetings for the present, having formed acquaintance with many whom we hope to meet again at some future day.

On Monday, Oct. 17, I went to Manchester. In the evening I attended the anniversary meeting of the “British Anti-Tobacco and Anti-Narcotic League,” of which I am a member. The meeting was well attended. With others I had an opportunity of speaking of the evils of tobacco-using. The increased interest in the meeting and the reports, indicate progress in the work.

On the 17th I attended the anniversary meetings of the “United Kingdom Temperance Alliance,” of which I am also a member. This organization (not a secret society) having as its object the securing of laws for the suppression of the liquor traffic, has been in existence since June 1, 1853. Of its encouragement at the present time, the executive, in their report read before the general council, Oct. 18, say, “At the close of their year of office, a year of more than usual anxiety, your committee can very gladly recognize and gratefully record indubitable and pleasing signs of the advancing power and the broadening sweep of the great temperance reformation in this the jubilee epoch of its history in the United Kingdom.”

The greatest source of joy to this vast gathering of five or six thousand, addressed by eight members of Parliament and others, was this: Whereas in 1875 there was a majority of 285 in the House of Commons against the suppressing of the liquor traffic by law, in the last session of Parliament there was a majority of forty-two in favor of such action being taken, and in addition to this our worthy Premier, Hon. W. E. Gladstone, has given plain intimation that in the next session a bill shall be introduced before the House of Commons for Local Option legislation. In the midst of the meeting a letter was read from Hon. Herbert Gladstone, junior member of Parliament. Speaking of other matters to come before Parliament, he closed his letter by urging the “Alliance” to make their voice “heard above all the rest.” It seems quite certain now that the Local Option law will be passed, then will come the agitation among the people when every man who occupies a house in Britain can speak, by his vote, and say whether he wants liquor sold in his town or not.

October 19, I attended the annual meeting of the English Vegetarian Society, of which I have the honor to be a member. By the previous request of the executive I gave an address setting forth the Health and Temperance movement in the United States, and as representative of that body, extended its fraternal greeting to the Vegetarian Society. The substance of this address I send to the Review, and a more full report of the meeting will appear in the Good Health Journal.

During my stay in Manchester I formed many acquaintances with those who are zealously working for reform in habits of eating and drinking. I was most kindly entertained at the home of Frank Spence, Esq., Hon. Sec. of the Anti-Narcotic League. As he had spent four years in California, and was immersed in San Francisco bay, it made our interview doubly interesting.

Oct. 31, 1881. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.