MASSACHUSETTS by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 25, 1877

MASSACHUSETTS

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Danvers, Oct. 16.

The Lord is still prospering the work here beyond our expectations. We now count between eighty and ninety adult Sabbath-keepers who are fully settled in the truth. It does our souls good to see them growing stronger and firmer every week. We have begun to have prayer-meetings every evening around at the houses. These are very precious seasons. Each evening some one takes hold who had not done so before, and many have begun to pray who never prayed in the past. We have had two baptisms. Last Sunday there were about fifteen hundred present. Thirteen have been baptized.

Last Sabbath there were ninety-six in our Sabbath-school, and new ones are coming every Sabbath. We have raised about $50 in money for books and papers to make our Sabbath-school interesting. In the afternoon there were over one hundred present at the social meeting.

We have a pleasant hall, well located; and Sunday afternoons and evenings it is crowded, though it is a good large one. Indeed, I can see no dropping off of the interest. We find families every day who are interested, of whom we had not known before. Our meeting-house is shingled, and the work is going along well.

Opposition sermons are preached about every Sunday by some one, but none of our friends pay attention to them any more. They hardly occasion a remark. All the papers have something to say, more or less, every week. They publish whatever we write. The burden of our labor now will be to get these Sabbath-keepers converted, and instructed in all parts of the message. This will of course require patience and hard work. Already they are leaving off their tobacco, tea, jewelry, &c. Shall give a course of lectures on health in a few days?

Brn. Israel and Mead, and sister Lamson, have now left us. We have never had so pleasant a tent company as this season. We shall always remember them with pleasure. Sister Lamson, in particular, has been of great service in the work. She has filled a place which no man, however able, could fill. I think there ought to be more such laborers in the work. But it needs persons of energy and devotion,—sisters who are not afraid of the hardest work of every kind. It is no easy place to fill, as some may think. Bro. and sister Stone and Bro. Robinson are with us now.

My wife's health has been very poor this fall. We fear the climate is bad for both of us; but we shall not give it up yet.

D. M. CANRIGHT.