The Effort in Hillsdale, Mich.
By W. H. Littlejohn
From Feb. 21 to March 5, I labored with the church in Hillsdale. It had never been my fortune to visit that place before, and I found that I had a personal acquaintance with but very few of our brethren who live there. This fact, however, served in nowise to decrease my interest in their welfare, and, from the very outset, I experienced an earnest desire to contribute to their spiritual good. I learned, upon inquiry, that they were brought into the truth a number of years since through the labors of Brn. Cornell and Waggoner, and that since that time they had enjoyed the benefit of but a small amount of ministerial help. Their history, like that of most churches brought out under these circumstances and left to their own resources, has been filled up with trials and perplexities. The sifting process, which is always experienced by churches brought into the truth under the pressure of a series of meetings devoted, necessarily, in a very great degree to theoretic matters, has, as is usually the case, reduced their numbers somewhat. Nevertheless, they are sufficiently strong at present to act a very important part in the community in which they live, had they learned wisdom by the experiences of the past, and were they fully united in the bonds of brotherly love. While with them, I labored to the point of arousing them to the importance of genuine repentance and conversion in view of their previous failures. Nor was I altogether disappointed in my hopes. From the very outset, there was a disposition manifested on the part of all to be in attendance at all the meetings, some coming each evening a distance of from three to five miles. As the meetings progressed, while speaking to them largely upon practical subjects, the Spirit of the Lord attended the word, and gradually the hearts of the people were melted into contrition, which found expression, in many cases, in hearty confessions of wrong. When we left them, it had become manifest that a good work had been wrought, and many remarked, as the best evidence of this fact which could possibly be given, that the same affection which originally existed in their hearts for one another, was beginning to revive. Though the effort made was devoted almost exclusively to the interest of all those already members of the church, all were rejoiced to find that the Holy Spirit had been working upon the minds of those not hitherto having made a profession of religion, and that four young persons of mature years had resolved to enter fully into the service of God. During my stay in this place, I was unexpectedly called to Ransom Center to preach the funeral discourse of sister Phebe A. Wolcott. On Tuesday, the 5th of March, I returned to Allegan with the view of obtaining a few days of rest—the need of which I had begun to feel—expecting to go out into the field once more as soon as duty should seem to require it.