ENGLAND by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 27, 1879

ENGLAND

By John Norton Loughborough

Two weeks have passed since my last report. I have now given seven discourses in Shirley Hall. We have also held three Sabbath meetings at our own home, which have strengthened the Sabbath-keepers here. The numbers and interest have steadily increased at the hall. The people have placed in our contribution box about one-third enough to pay the expense of the meetings. We are getting acquainted with interested parties as far as possible, and hope for some fruit of our labor.

Bro. Ings has a government license to sell our publications anywhere in Hampshire for one year. The license cost five shillings ($1.25). To use it in Southampton borough will require an indorsement from the borough police, which we can get for a sixpence (12 cts.). He will have to pay a like sum to use the license in any other shire (county). He has succeeded in making some sales already, but money is scarce among those to whom he has had access.

While laboring here, we are by correspondence gaining access to people elsewhere. We have already been solicited to place the Signs in one reading room at a seaport in Lincolnshire, and to furnish publications for distribution. We have to-day placed publications on a ship sailing to the West Indies.

The Lord has raised us up a friend, a near neighbor, a man in authority at the docks. Although not a Sabbath-keeper, he has volunteered to place our publications in the hands of responsible parties on ships sailing to the East and West Indies, intervening ports, and all parts of the world.

The principles of health reform are gaining ground in Great Britain. The secular papers of Southampton have of late admitted into their columns several articles on this topic from the editor of the Dietetic Reformer, and other parties. We have already opened correspondence with advocates of these principles, calling their attention to Good Health and our health publications.

Simultaneously with our arrival, the Southampton papers commenced to agitate the Sabbath question, on this wise: The teetotalers had opened cocoa rooms, where the laboring classes could get lunch without being tempted to liquor-drinking, as they would be in public houses. As the publicans were allowed by law to keep open their places certain hours on Sunday, a proposition came before the corporation owning and managing the five cocoa rooms to have them opened the same hours. This project was defeated by a vote of the stockholders, and this opened the Sabbath controversy. Some of these utterances of Southampton papers I give in another article.

We watch all these providences, and pray for God's Spirit to guide us aright. Above everything else we must have divine aid. We want to feel a love for souls. We want our hearts continually imbued with the spirit of Jesus. God does draw near and bless as we speak to the people. Pray that the Lord may help us.

Dec. 31. J. N. Loughborough. Stanley Cottage, Fremantle, Southampton, Eng.