ROME, N. Y by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 24, 1876

ROME, N. Y.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

We have had some encouragement during the last week. Though the weather has been so extremely hot that it has affected our meetings considerably, still there is a fair interest. We have at no time had less than one hundred and fifty or two hundred hearers, generally about three or four hundred. We had a large crowd Tuesday night, when we reviewed the Methodist minister on the Sabbath question. This helped the cause much. We also had a good audience Sunday night to listen to a discourse on the mark of the beast.

Another minister preached a fiery sermon Sunday morning upon the state of the dead. We review him to-morrow night. Thus far, we have obtained thirty-one subscribers for the REVIEW, and eleven for the INSTRUCTOR. Books still go off well. We have scores of warm friends in every part of the city. Everybody says that this city never was so stirred on Bible questions as to-day. We find, however, one serious obstacle here, viz., that most of the laboring men work in the iron mills, so that it is impossible for them to keep the Sabbath and retain their places. As they have been raised to this business from childhood, it is a great struggle for them to break away, and many of course will never do it.

Last Sabbath we organized a Bible-class and Sabbath-school, with a good attendance. In the afternoon we enjoyed the best meeting we have had. After preaching, thirty-five testimonies were readily borne in favor of the truth. It did our souls good to hear these dear friends confess their faith in, and love for, the present truth. There are about thirty-five who have become thoroughly settled upon the truth. These are keeping the Sabbath, and many more are almost decided. Almost every day we find some one who has taken a stand upon the truth, so we labor on with good courage. We all have excellent health and good spirits.

Everybody is looking forward to our camp-meeting with great interest. We are very anxious that there should be a large turnout of our people at this meeting. If we can have a successful camp-meeting, it will settle things here greatly. We found one excellent family keeping the Sabbath who have kept it ever since last camp-meeting as the result of attending that meeting. We were thinking some of changing the location of the camp-meeting, but the people in that neighborhood earnestly requested us not to do it, offering to pay the expense of the camp-ground rather than to have it moved. This shows the good effect of our camp-meeting.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Rome, N. Y., Aug. 14, 1876.