SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 27, 1879

SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND.

By John Norton Loughborough

We held fifteen meetings in the village hall at Shirley, and have since held meetings in our house, where we have four meetings a week. In the hall we had no privilege of Sunday meetings. As we had only two or three evening meetings a week, and those evenings were sometimes bitter cold or very stormy, our congregations were not large. Our expense was 4s. ($1.00) per night, whether our congregations were great or small. About one-third enough to meet the expense was placed in the contribution-box. We had about the same interested hearers in our meeting every time.

We decided to move the meetings to the three lower rooms of our house. Here, with a fire in each room, we can make the people more comfortable than in the hall. We now have Sunday meetings. We get the interested ones to attend here, and new ones are also attending and becoming interested. Last Sunday at three P. M. we opened a Bible-class. Several attended. Our first subject was the Sabbath and first-day in the New Testament. The lesson for next Sunday is the Biblical and secular history of the Sabbath. In our last two Sabbath meetings two more have met with us, and others are almost persuaded to unite with us in keeping the Lord’s Sabbath.

Bro. Ings meets with some encouragement in his missionary work from house to house. He has obtained twenty-five subscribers to our periodicals since Jan. 5. We have sold out of this depository, through mail orders and otherwise, books to the amount of £5 ($25). Hundreds are reading our tracts and papers. We receive some encouraging letters from our missionary correspondents. We are in hopes to have a sixty-foot tent in readiness for meetings by the first of May. We can get a tent here for about the same price that we paid in California. The cotton duck costs more than there, but ropes, iron work, and the labor are cheaper. It will be quite expensive seating the tent, as boards are very high. The lumber used here comes from Canada. It is called “deal wood,” and is a species of soft pine. With our tent and by thorough advertising, we hope to get the attention of the public.

We have many things to encourage us,—tokens that the Lord is moving upon hearts. One man, not an Adventist, on learning that we were preparing to purchase a tent, sent us an order for £3 ($15.00) to help in the enterprise. To day we received a letter through the post, promising still further aid in this direction. The tent-maker, a man of considerable means, on learning the nature of our work, at once dropped £15 ($75), on his price for the tent, and besides this offered us a nice British flag, fifteen feet in length, to put on our tent.

March 3. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.