p. 62 | Meetings in Michigan by Joseph Bates

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 9, 1870

Meetings in Michigan.

By Joseph Bates

My last report was from Holly, where I spent five days visiting the church members. I held eight meetings, celebrated the ordinances, and baptized two. Three were added to the church. July 11 and 12, I held three meetings in Owosso. Here I found some of the tried friends of the cause struggling to overcome, while some of their brethren who gladly received and embraced the precious saving truth in the third angel's message were, through discouragements and snares of the enemy, turning back again to the world.

The Lord arouse them to see the wretched state they are approaching, that they may without delay flee to the strong-hold, with the patient waiting “saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”

July 13, Bro. R. Griggs brought me some twenty miles to Locke, where I stayed two days and held three interesting meetings, sustained by some persevering brethren who have been holding on in the message of the third angel some eighteen or twenty years.

Bro. T. T. Stowe brought me back to Owosso. At Muir Station, Bro. T. Howe was waiting, and conveyed me to his home in Orange. Here I held meetings on Sabbath and first-day July 16, 17. Sabbath morning I was much interested with their orderly and well-managed Sabbath-school and Bible-class. Three were baptized and received into the church. The celebration of the ordinances, and the baptizing in the living shady stream near Bro. Howe's, were seasons to be remembered with thanksgiving and praise to the Father and the Son who delight to encourage, bless, and strengthen, the patient, waiting saints. JOSEPH BATES.

Monterey, Mich., July 25, 1870.