The Missionary by John Norton Loughborough

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jul 15, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 27.

The Missionary.

By John Norton Loughborough

Petaluma, California.

ON Sabbath, July 3, I was with the church in Petaluma, where I gave one discourse, and we celebrated the ordinances of the Lord's house. It is eight and one-half years since I last met with this church. Many changes have taken place during that time. Some who were then with us have been removed by the hand of death; among these are our beloved Brother Chapman, and Sister Colby. Some of the church have moved to other places, while others have moved in, or embraced the truth, so that their number remains about the same.

Meeting with this church called to mind some remembrances of the past, which may be of interest to the readers of the Signs.

It will be eighteen years the 13th of August, since Elder D. T. Bourdeau and myself commenced meetings in Petaluma, in a sixty-foot tent. This was the first of the preaching of present truth upon this coast. There were not, at that time, between British Columbia and Mexico, a dozen persons who were in full sympathy with the views held by Seventh-day Adventists.

We first arrived in San Francisco July 19, 1868, having sailed there from New York, via Panama. We were strangers, and very soon found that the high prices charged for everything, including the exorbitant rent wanted even for a place to erect our tent, would not permit us to commence operations in that city. While engaged in getting together the necessary tent material, such as rigging, poles, lamps, and tools, we were earnestly praying to the Lord to guide our minds to the right place for the opening of the mission. While praying, our minds were led to go North, but we waited for some providence to indicate just the place.

One day a man called at the house where we tarried, inquiring if there were two ministers there who had come from the East with a tent. He said that he belonged to a society in Petaluma, calling themselves Independents, and that he was instructed by that society to find us and request us to erect our tent first in Petaluma. He said small-pox had stopped all meetings there for a month, and that now, all danger being passed, it would be just the time to begin. We went to Petaluma, and this Mr. H. assisted in getting lumber and material for the tent, giving us the free use of a spot on which to erect the same.

There was another man in their church, who, after learning that two ministers were coming to this coast with a tent, had a dream in which he saw two men engaged in kindling fires to light up the darkness of the country. As our fire was kindled he saw many of the ministers of his acquaintance throwing grass, turf, and dirt on the fire to put it out, but all their efforts to quench the flames only made it burn the brighter. This work continued until five fires had thus been kindled and fought by the ministers. Then the ministers held a council and said, "Its no use to fight these men, for the more we fight the brighter their fires burn; we will let them alone." He also dreamed that the two men who were coming with the tent were the ones kindling the fires, that they had great light for the people of California. When this Mr. W. saw us he knew us before he was told who we were.

Mr. W. and others of the Independents helped us in every way they could until we preached the Sabbath; but then, with three or four exceptions, all joined in the opposition—throwing turf and dirt. A striking co-incident with the man's dream was that we established the truth at Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Windsor, Healdsburg and Green Valley, just five points, when a Methodist camp-meeting was held near Calistoga, in which the ministers had a council and decided to "no more publicly oppose Seventh-day Adventists, and this would soon cause the work to die out." The work, however, has gone on until it has spread all up and down this coast, and there are now probably very near three thousand of our people, on this side of the Rocky Mountains.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.