THE FIRST DECADE OF THE CAUSE IN CALIFORNIA.
From an article by Bro. Loughborough in the Signs of Aug. 8, we give the following relative to his ten years' labor in California, and the growth of the cause there during that time: I began this article to speak of ten years,—ten years of my own experience. Those ten years which close this 18th day of July, 1878, I look back upon as the most interesting of any of the twoscore and seven years of my life. Ten years ago to-day, accompanied by Elder Bourdeau, I landed in San Francisco with our sixty-foot tent to commence the work upon this coast. We were strangers. Our doctrines were new to the people, and our people unknown here on the Pacific slope. With God's blessing the work is fairly under way. We have a strong Conference in California with nearly thirty churches, and the North Pacific Conference, which is gaining strength and is destined to be a power in all that Northern region. To-day, the tenth anniversary of my arrival on the Pacific slope, we are erecting our new Nevada tent in Reno city, a railroad center in the very heart of the real financial strength of the State of Nevada. The people treat us most cordially, and express the deepest anxiety to hear. Our prayer is, God bless the Nevada mission. What we see on this coast is only a sample of what I behold in this cause all over the world. Here ten years ago we had no facilities for printing the truth; now we have a well-equipped and thoroughly established publishing house, as large as was demanded for the whole Seventh-day Adventist cause in the world ten years ago. And of our central publishing house in Battle Creek, Michigan, I think I do not over-estimate when I state that the work there has increased tenfold in ten years, and besides these, a publishing house is in full operation in Central Europe. I look at the rank and file of our ministry; ten years ago probably there were not one-tenth as many in the ministry as there are to-day. Of course there has been a corresponding increase of our membership during that same time. But with all this increase in points mentioned, it is truly cheering to look at that feature of our work, the missionary society, which has had its rise among us during the last part of the last ten years, and to see the lay members of our people actively engaging in spreading the truth through the world. The spirit of consecration to the work must increase; it is none too much to hope and believe that it will increase as our people arouse to the demands of the times. Like men in war times, when it was apparent that the nation's cause demanded men, and a call was made for 300,000 more, they did not sit down dejected and sad, and say, Let some one else do the work; but with cheerful action and with zest, they responded in songs that fairly rent the air. They sang, “We are coming, father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.” As we pause a moment on this our individual anniversary day, looking at the past and scanning the future, we feel as though the God of Heaven had made a call to each of us to take hold as never before in this work. Shall we sing and act, “We're coming,” or shall we bury the Lord's talents intrusted to us, and be classed among the slothful servants? If there is that consecration to the work that the truth, the times, and the call of God demand, I do not see why we may not expect to see more done in extending the truth, and in bringing souls to the truth, for the next two years than we have seen accomplished during the whole of the last ten years. The Lord grant it. Reno, Nevada, July 18, 1878.