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OUR WORK AND WORKERS

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 3, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 35.

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OUR WORK AND WORKERS.

On the 8th ult. five persons were baptized in San Francisco by Elder E. E. Andross.
Elder N. W. Allee reports the recent addition of five members to the church at St. Cloud, Mich., and two at Lake Eunice.
Three adults have recently accepted the Bible Sabbath in the vicinity of North Wheeler, Mich., where Brother Albert Weeks has been holding meetings in a schoolhouse.
The tent work in Baltimore has been removed to the northern part of the city, entering what is practically a new field. Elder S. B. Horton has joined Elder Hottel in this work.
Elder V. H. Lucas, whose recent field of labor has been in the west, has joined Elder O. O. Farnsworth in tent labor at 137th Street and Lenox Avenue, New York City. They report encouraging success.
The Gleaner, published by the Australian Tract Society, notes the fact that a Wesleyan minister and a local preacher of the Primitive Methodist Church have accepted the doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventists, and were both baptized in Melbourne, July 28.
Book sales by canvassers in Australia during the month of June amounted to $5,730. The canvasser has penetrated as far as the famous Coolgardie mines, in West Australia, a region deemed almost inaccessible to civilization until the discovery of some rich gold mines.
From the Bible Echo of July 27, we learn of the death of Brother J. H. Stockton, who was the first in Australia to embrace the views held by Seventh-day Adventists in Australia. The same paper tells us that a new brick church was then nearing completion in North Fitzroy, a suburb of Melbourne.
Of the Scandinavian tent work at 28th Street, 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y., Brother S. F. Svensson says the congregations are composed of Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, and Finns. They pay good attention, and quite a number are interested in the truths presented, some having already decided to accept it.
Selling our papers is increasing in importance as a means of disseminating the Gospel message. A young lady engaged in selling the Bible Echo reports 112 regular customers, besides a number of others who buy occasionally. She also reports five persons who have begun keeping the Sabbath of the Lord from reading the Echo.
September 19 has been set apart as a day of fasting and prayer throughout the California conference. The fast-whitening fields are constant reminders of the great need of laborers to gather the harvest, and means to sustain the work. “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.”
We have known professed ministers of the Gospel to do some pretty small things by way of opposition to those who teach men to observe the commandments of God, but it has been reserved for some at Bushy Run, Pendleton County, W. Va., to throw eggs at such teachers, and hire men to take the burrs off their wagon wheels. It requires no conjurer to tell what spirit inspires that kind of argument, but it is not the Spirit of Christ, or of the Gospel. It is needless to say that a deep interest in the cause of truth called forth such a measure of wrath on the part of the enemy.
In urging the brethren and sisters of West Virginia Conference to attend the camp-meeting at Point Pleasant, September 17-28, President D. C. Babcock gives this good counsel: “Count the actual cost of attending the meeting, ask the Lord to help you to go, and you will go. But do not ask him to help you to get fine clothes so you can go. Three days the children of Israel had in which to wash their clothes (not to make new and fine ones), and prepare for one of the grandest meetings ever held. That was at Sinai’s mount. Clean garments, a sanctified people, and a sanctified mount, was what God called for then. Every Seventh-day Adventist in West Virginia can have this preparation, let him be ever so poor. If you look at the question from this standpoint, you can ask God to help you to attend this meeting, and know that he hears you.” This is good counsel with reference to our general convocations in all parts of the great field.
Brother S. Thurston writes concerning the church at Santa Barbara: “This church, although small, manifests a desire to work which is commendable. Within the past few months they have lifted all old debts off the church, and raised their club of Signs from ten to one hundred.” This is a good report, and if all the churches would give some attention to selling the Signs, they could easily raise enough means to greatly enlarge their clubs, and make the papers more than pay their way.
M. Kakichi Ohara, of Otsu, Omi, Japan, writes to the manager of the Echo Publishing Co., Melbourne, Australia, in the following encouraging strain: “I am proud to say that I am the first Seventh-day Adventist in Japan, and am doing all I can for the propagation of the knowledge of the true God. As I am intending to form a library here, some books in your catalog would be very, very acceptable. I should like to get your Young People’s Library, series one and two, but as they are too expensive for me to buy, they must remain unordered. Through the good use of such books I can do much for the spread of the word of God.”