p. 17 | Maritime Conference

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 10, 1903

Maritime Conference

By M. S. Babcock; Mrs. M. S. Babcock

Since May last we have labored in the Canadian Maritime Conference, in response to a call at the session of the Lake Union Conference held in Chicago in March preceding. Though most of the time has been spent in the province of Nova Scotia, we have traveled sufficiently to note quite fully the conditions, physical and spiritual, throughout the eastern section of the Canadian Union Conference.

In one sense the field is not new. The first angel’s message was heard here with a loud cry. The prejudice of former days has worn away in large measure, and the hour has come to enter with the last call of mercy. The climate and country and people are not well understood perhaps, nor is there a foundation for a right understanding of either to be had in any printed matter extant, if we may judge from what a careful and quite extended search furnished us. Of course customs differ somewhat, and the bent of the mind and trend of thought are distinctive in some respects from what may be noted in the United States, or even in the mother country.

The ways of trade and the manner and scale of the industrial pursuits seem strange and circumscribed to those accustomed to life in the Western States. But the people are prosperous generally. We have not seen a “tramp” since coming to the provinces, and there are really no people suffering for the necessaries of life, except possibly in the overcrowded large cities. The climate, as a whole, in this eastern section is very agreeable, not severe, though the summer season is short. One will actually suffer more in the chilling cold of the “salubrious” valleys of central and southern California at a much higher temperature than in this land, and will not experience the tonic effect of the cool, bracing atmosphere that is realized here.

The people are warm-hearted and open-handed. To a large degree they are religious, and not a few seem desirous to be Christians indeed, through a study of the Word and a true fellowship in the living, abiding presence of Christ. Still they are conservative, and are taught zealously to shun “new doctrines” and latter-day “heresies,” under which heads plainest and oldest Bible truths often are classed, because, not having been studied, they seem new and strange. This, however, is a difficulty not confined to these parts.

Young, active, truly converted messengers, full of the Spirit, ready to devote all their powers to faithful service for the Master in an old country just opening up to the new life and pulse of modern methods and movement, are needed. This is a work at our very doors. For the most part no new language need be learned.

Now is the time to sow seed for the Master in Canada, and may the General Conference wisely plan to secure the best help available for this needy field.

We spent the week of prayer with the

little company at Tiverton, Nova Scotia, on Long Island, Digby County. They had not been visited by one of our ministers for more than six years. What a comfort it was to see their joy and to rejoice with them and their friends in a few short days of public and private worship. We are thankful for a part in the closing call of the gospel.

M. S. BABCOCK, MRS. M. S. BABCOCK. Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.