Gilroy and San Jose by John Norton Loughborough

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 1, 1876

Gilroy and San Jose.

By John Norton Loughborough

SABBATH and First-day, May 27 and 28, I held five meetings with the company of Sabbath-keepers in Gilroy. I was glad to find a few still holding on steadfast in the truth. Only a few of those who professed the truth as the result of the tent-meeting in Gilroy last summer have given it up, but as many more have since embraced the faith.

Several have moved away from the place, one, their leader, has gone to the south-west part of Texas. May the Lord make him a means of doing good in that new field.

The notice of these meetings was so short that some who reside several miles out in the country were not there. I trust the meetings were a source of encouragement to those who did assemble. A number of outside hearers attended the evening meetings, and listened with interest.

If the few who remain in Gilroy would see the cause prosper they must not only be punctual in attending meeting, but each should act a part in bearing his testimony, and thus add interest to the meetings, and gain strength themselves.

While in Gilroy, on First-day morning, a friend invited me to go with him to a hotel where the landlord had been shot the night before. I learned that he was a man given to excessive drinking of liquor. He was taken with the delirium tremens, arose in the night and smashed up things in the lower part of the house, and started for the chamber, threatening to kill his own children. A man at the head of the stairs, who with his wife and several children were boarding in the house, seeing this fiend in human form rushing toward the helpless women and children, shot him dead on the spot. As I viewed this man, who thus suddenly came to his end, two thoughts came with force to my mind, one the words of David, “Died Abner as the fool dieth.” The other, the words of Mr. Gough, the great temperance lecturer, when he saw a man dead drunk in a gutter, “There is temperance lecture enough for one day.”

Monday evening, May 29, passing through San Jose, I spoke to a few at their hall, on the importance of the work in this time. Trust the meeting may result in some good.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.