p. 12 | OUR WORK AND WORKERS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 11, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 23.

OUR WORK AND WORKERS.

The local camp-meeting to be held at Santa Rosa, Cal., will begin on the 18th inst.

At Scott’s Bay, Nova Scotia, Elder H. J. Farman reports the addition of four new members.

ELDER J. W. COLLIE and company have removed their Louisville (Ky.) tent to Parkland, a suburb of the city.

ELDER W. W. STEWARD reports fourteen converts at Winona, Wash. Also the baptism of five at Myers Falls.

At Jersey City, on the evening of May 27, three persons were baptized and added to the church, Elder O. O. Farnsworth officiating.

ELDER W. M. HEALEY, who has been reelected president of North Pacific Conference, attended the California state camp-meeting in Alameda.

THE Knoxville, Tenn., Sentinel of recent date contains a lengthy report of the first of a series of discourses in that place by Elder Grant Adkins.

ELDER S. S. SHROCK reports the organization of a small church at Sherwood, Ohio. Also the addition of nine members to the church at Lagrange.

THE officers of the California Tract Society for the ensuing year are as follows: President, A. J. Breed; vice president, R. S. Owen; secretary, G. W. Rine; treasurer, J. J. Ireland.

LAST week Elder O. A. Olsen, president of the General Conference, Elder G. A. Irwin, superintendent of General Conference District No. 2, and Prof. W. T. Bland made a visit to Graysville, Tenn. Professor Bland will take charge of the academy at that place when the next term opens.

THAT must be a happy tent company where a father being in charge, has for assistants his son and daughter and the son’s wife. They do colporter and canvassing work and lead the singing in the tent. Such is the situation of Elder R. M. Kilgore and family at Rockwood, Tenn.

THE Review of June 2 says: “Additions are being continually made in membership to the Battle Creek church, which is now approaching the seventeen-hundred figure. Last Sabbath eleven were baptized. We do not note all the baptisms which take place. They occur usually every two or three weeks.”

At the recent annual meeting of the California Sabbath School Association, the following officers were elected: President, George W. Reaser; vice president, Baxter Howe; secretary and treasurer, Mrs. M. T. Poston (reelected); Executive Committee, in addition to these three officers, A. J. Osborne and M. H. Brown.

THERE comes to us the sad intelligence that Elder A. E. Place, president of New York conference, and his wife, were recently stricken with pneumonia, both on the same night. At last report they were still in a critical condition, but prayers and hopes were for their recovery, and in these we heartily join. Elder P. Z. Kinne has charge of the conference work during Elder Place’s illness. His address is 317 W. Bloomfield Street, Rome, N. Y.

ELDER URIAH SMITH, senior editor of the Review and Herald, after a vacation of several months, during which time he was engaged in special literary work, has again assumed the responsibilities of the editorial chair. Elder Tenney, his associate, will now take a nominal “rest,” and attend the Wisconsin camp-meeting, and do some other “visiting” labor in the northwest. These camp-meeting “rests” are often more wearing than ordinary work, and it is encouraging to see the editorial brethren physically able to do such “resting.”

THE California state camp-meeting, held in Alameda, closed on the night of the 7th inst., with the ordination to the Gospel ministry of the following brethren: George W. Rine, Baxter Howe, G. W. Reaser, and L. P. Jacobson. This service had been preceded by a discourse by Elder Alonzo T. Jones. The last day of the meeting was a busy one; in addition to sessions of the conference, tract society, and sabbath school association, there were three discourses, all of which were attended by large numbers of people from the vicinity of the camp.

HUMAN nature and human quibbling seem to be the same in Great Britain that they are in the United States. A laborer in Plymouth, England, gives some specimen interrogations about our work, and the truth we proclaim, which sound quite familiar here, and no doubt they are everywhere familiar to our workers. He gives this specimen of oft-recurring colloquy: “Who is running this business?” “The Lord.” “Yes, but who engineers it in this world?” “The Lord.” “O, I see! Well, are you strong?” “O, yes, we are very strong—‘strengthened with all might,’ you know! Our number is small, but there are no stronger people in the world.” “How old is your faith?” “Well, it goes back to creation—the oldest faith there is.” “So you keep the Jewish Sabbath, do you?” “No, we keep the Lord’s Sabbath.” “You mean you keep Saturday for Sunday?” “No, we keep neither Saturday nor Sunday; we keep the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day of the week, ‘according to the Scriptures.’” In explanation of the last remark, it should be remembered that in the Scriptures the days are reckoned from sunset to sunset; so the seventh-day Sabbath is not Saturday, but is from sunset on Friday evening to sunset on Saturday evening. Saturday is from midnight to midnight.

HERE is missionary work: A Davenport, Iowa, sister reports that since last November she has assisted a lady in her washing early Monday morning, and from that and the sale of papers each week has more than paid for her club of twenty-nine SIGNS, with the postage on those sent away. To this she adds, “I have enjoyed the work, and have enjoyed some rich experiences.”

AS IN other mission fields, so in Matabeleland, Africa, all is not smooth sailing. A scourge of locusts, an epidemic disease among cattle, and a hostile uprising of the natives, all coming at once, are, from the standpoint of temporal prospects, somewhat discouraging. But God’s care is over the work in Matabeleland, as elsewhere, and our handful of missionaries, at the latest account, were hopeful, altho uncertain as to what would happen next.

A CANVASSER in Ireland reports as follows: “Baileboro, where I commenced work, is a town of about three thousand population, located in a thickly settled farming district, and is about six miles from a railway station. The masses of the people are Catholics, scarcely one-fourth Protestant. The Lord blessed in taking orders for ‘Prophetic Lights’ and selling ‘Glorious Appearing’ in both town and country. This aroused the enemy on both sides. One minister openly preached against my work, but this only helped to advertise the truth, and I never had a better delivery.”

ELDER C. L. BOYD, of Tennessee, says, “A commendable zeal is manifest among some of our young people to fit themselves for places of usefulness.” Let this statement be specially noted by the young people everywhere. Says the apostle John, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” This is the privilege of every young person, and is a qualification for great usefulness in the work of the Lord. That they may continue in such condition the apostle adds: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

THE great Presbyterian body has officially taken its stand in favor of the persecution of our people and other seventh-day observers. In the General Assembly at Saratoga, N. Y., May 22, Elder L. P. Main, of Kearney, Neb., introduced a resolution expressing “lack of sympathy with the criminal prosecution of those persons who honestly and conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week instead of the first.” But the motion was promptly tabled. We might add, however, that such resolution would amount to nothing unless the Assembly would proclaim against the entire principle of Sunday laws. Whoever favors Sunday laws at all virtually indorses persecution, for all enforcement of Sunday laws is persecution pure and simple.