Oakland, Cal by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 7, 1874

Oakland, Cal.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

We have now been in this city about seven weeks. Our meetings were discontinued two weeks on account of the great excitement attending the Temperance movement in this city. Our tent was used for the temperance meetings, which gained for us the good will of the best and leading citizens of the place, and brought us prominently before the public.

From the beginning, we have had a fair, though not a large, attendance. It has run from seventy-five to four hundred, about one hundred being quite regular hearers. Probably not less than one thousand persons have heard us more or less. This is right on the great thoroughfare of travel. Hundreds are constantly coming and going. Many who have attended some of our lectures have gone to different parts of our own country, and some to other countries. These have taken more or less of our books with them. We already hear of some of these who are keeping the Sabbath. Thus the knowledge of the truth is being spread abroad.

We have sold over $100 worth of books, and have obtained a number of subscribers for the Signs. Though we have asked for nothing, and have taken up but one collection, yet friends have donated nearly two hundred dollars for our expenses.

About thirty-five new converts have embraced the Sabbath; making a company of nearly fifty now in Oakland. There is still a good interest, and many for whom we hope. It is one of those places where the interest does not cease with the close of the lectures. Hence much may be hoped here for the future.

Sunday, June 14, I enjoyed as pleasant a baptismal scene as I ever attended. The day was delightful and the location was all that could be desired, being on the grassy bank of a beautiful lake. At the water's edge was a level, grassy place, just large enough for the candidates and their friends. From this, the bluff rose about thirty feet high, upon which was gathered from fifteen hundred to two thousand persons, while many little boats were quietly riding upon the water.

Before baptism, Bro. White gave the crowd a short, earnest, and convincing address upon the law and baptism. All listened with the greatest respect and manifest interest. Not the least disturbance occurred from beginning to end. Twenty-three were buried in baptism. These occasions are green spots in our path to which we look back with pleasure.

Bro. White has been with us all the time and has aided us with his counsel, with his publishing, and with some preaching. He and Bro. Loughborough will follow up the work here, while Bro. Cornell and I go to San Jose. We remember all our old and dear friends in the East, and are greatly cheered and encouraged by the good reports from there. Surely, the work is moving rapidly on. Remember us in your prayers. D. M. CANRIGHT. June 22, 1874.