NEAR WATSON, MO by George I. Butler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 1, 1877

NEAR WATSON, MO.

By George I. Butler

After camp-meeting, I went to Watson, to see Bro. Eyerly, the Baptist minister of whom Bro. Battin wrote recently in the REVIEW, who had come out to keep the Sabbath from reading the Bible. I was there over a week, taking Bro. Battin’s place lecturing. Several have commenced to keep the Sabbath as the result of Bro. Battin’s lectures.

Bro. Eyerly has taken a very firm stand on the Sabbath question, and is investigating all the points of truth held by our people, with deep interest. We formed a very pleasant acquaintance, and I firmly believe he will be very useful in the Lord’s vineyard. He was educated in the Methodist University at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, for a Methodist minister; but he became perplexed over the Greek word baptizo, and after much study became a Baptist. He taught school considerably, was elected county superintendent of common schools in North-western Missouri, lectured on education all through that section, and was secretary of the Baptist Association, but he has recently given his full time to the ministry.

When he became convinced, after much study of the Sabbath question, of his duty to keep the Sabbath, he stated his convictions to his church, and was turned out with no chance to make a defense. His case has made a great stir in the denomination, and many are the regrets that he has “thrown himself away.” He has been astonished to see the hatred which some bear against that honorable institution, the Lord’s Sabbath. He was hardly prepared to see the hatred with which near friends seem to regard it. But none of these things move him. “I shall keep the holy Sabbath,” he says, “if it takes friends or life itself.” I expect to see Bro. Eyerly an ardent worker in the great cause of Sabbath reform. He is diligently preparing himself, by study, to throw himself into the work with all his heart. He is only thirty-three years of age, and not so deep in the modes and ruts of popular theology but that he can readily adapt himself to the work.

Bro. Eyerly is a man who loves God, a man of prayer and devotion. We expect to hear good news from him. He earnestly desires the prayers of our people in his behalf, as he has been passing through the deep waters of trial. How wonderfully the Lord is working here and there upon the hearts of the honest. May the good work go on till every jewel is gathered. I shall be at home a few weeks, preparing for winter, and shall then return to Missouri for the season.

GEO. I. BUTLER.

Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, Oct. 24.