The Work in Australia by C. H. Parker

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 10, 1910

The Work in Australia

By C. H. Parker

Australia

NORTH FITZROY, VICTORIA. — The work still moves forward here, yet we are not satisfied with what is being accomplished. We realize that there is a greater fulness of divine power that God desires to pour out upon his workers. This is the first church ever raised up in this colony. For years no help has been given to it. At our last camp-meeting, an urgent request was made that we should send a laborer to conduct a series of Sunday-night meetings. This we have done, and all the members are lifting nobly. A good interest is manifested.

At Coburg, where our camp-meeting was held, there is also a good interest. A lady who attended the first tent-meeting held in Australia, years ago, by Elders S. N. Haskell, J. O. Corliss, and M. C. Israel, has accepted the Sabbath. At that time she was living at Brighton, a suburb of this city. She attended a few meetings with her mother; but when the opposition of the ministers of other denominations began, they stopped going. They read all that the ministers wrote against us in the papers. Two copies of the Signs of the Times, printed at Oakland, Cal., Sept. 17, 1885, were handed to her by one of our workers. These she kept, with the writings of the other ministers. Many times she and her mother would say, “These people may be right, after all.” When we were pitching our camp at Coburg, last February, she was living there. One morning, the woman who did her washing called her attention to the tents. She asked what they were. When she was informed that a Seventh-day Adventist camp-meeting was to be held, she said, “I must attend.” This she did, with the result that she has now fully identified herself with us. Her daughter, who was a mere babe in her arms in 1885, is now a woman, married, with children of her own. She also is interested, and our workers are holding readings with her. One of the two copies of the Signs, preserved all these years, is in my possession. As I look upon it, these words come to me: “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” This incident should encourage every one of us to be more persistent in giving out our tracts and papers, though we do not see immediate results. The promise is sure, “For in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

I am sure that this incident will be of great encouragement to Elders Haskell, Corliss, and Israel, also the other workers connected with them in that first effort for this field. Their sowing is still bearing fruit.

Land has now been purchased for a church at Coburg, and building will begin right away. We trust that in a short time this church will be finished. We shall dedicate it by holding another series of meetings for the people of that place. C. H. PARKER.