NEW ENGLAND by Stephen Nelson Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 15, 1877

NEW ENGLAND.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

We met with the church at South Lancaster, March 3 and 4. It was the first Sabbath on which we have been at home since the quarterly meeting held last November. There were some tokens of God’s blessing during our meetings. Very little effort had been made in reference to systematic benevolence, save the efforts of the treasurer, since the first years of our organization by Elder Loughborough in 1864. It has been reorganized but a few times during this period. At that time our membership numbered only ten, five brethren and their wives, and the S. B. amounted to fifty-four dollars.

At this time, the sisters here commenced their Wednesday afternoon prayer meeting, which continued until June, 1869. Then the Vigilant Missionary Society was organized, and they commenced sending out periodicals, tracts, and pamphlets, and writing to different parts of the country. This correspondence finally extended, by means of agents, to all parts of the world; until there are scores of scattered individuals and some companies who are rejoicing in the truth as the result of this labor.

There has also been a gradual increase of our church membership in this place until we find at the present time an enrollment of seventy-five names upon the church book. Sixty-eight of these are upon the S. B. book, and nearly every member has paid up to 1877. The amount for 1876 was $429.52. The S. B. was reorganized at this meeting; and although there were but thirty of the sixty-eight present, who were paying S. B., the figures were raised $210.52, making the amount for 1877 $640.04. A sum equal to one-third their S. B., for the Tract Society, was pledged by a unanimous vote.

Sr. Lizzie Ball, one of the youths who were baptized at the camp-meeting last year, a teacher of the S. Lancaster Grammar School, quietly, yet energetically, passed round with a paper during the intermission, to see how many would like to contribute something in addition to their other pledges, for the SIGNS, to be used in obtaining interested readers for 1877. She soon returned with a subscription of $125, to be paid in monthly installments during the year. This would pay for over eighty copies of the SIGNS. This church is largely scattered, and the number that reside in Lancaster, and that take the responsibility of sending out the SIGNS, is less than twelve.

Already has this church by canvassing secured over one hundred paying subscribers for the REFORMER, and never was their courage as good to take hold of the missionary work as now. When I saw the interest manifested upon all these points, and the facts came vividly before my mind, that a very large proportion of the children of our brethren were worthy members of the church, and that nearly all the children of ten or more years bear their testimony in the social meetings with tender hearts, our feelings nearly overcame us, and we could only say, “See what the Lord hath wrought.”

There have been restless spirits in our midst, which ever kept the church in a ferment; but many of these have left the truth, and gone among spirits of their kind, and quickly have the ranks been filled with those far more worthy. Some of the young men and women who were baptized at the last camp-meeting are taking advance steps in the truth, bearing responsibilities.

Other churches in this Conference are waking up on the subject of the SIGNS as they never have in the past; and God is already drawing near, strengthening the feeble and encouraging the desponding to take hold of his work. Especially is this the case in N. H. and Mass. It is evident that God is preparing the way for the great final ingathering of souls in present truth. The brethren and sisters felt greatly encouraged. S. N. HASKELL.