p. 166 | SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND by John Norton Loughborough

The Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 20, 1879

SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND.

By John Norton Loughborough

We see a little advancement in our work here at Southampton since our last report, and also in other places as the result of missionary correspondence. Our meetings in Ravenswood are fairly attended; but as cold weather comes on, some in feeble health are kept away. Two more signed the covenant during the past week. The people here move much more slowly than in America. A friend who has been reading and is deeply interested in our work writes as follows:—

“With reference to the papers you have sent into this neighborhood, I may inform you that in some circles they have created a profound sensation. I know of two families, at least, who have become fully convinced of the truth of your views in regard to the future state from reading them; and I believe they are ‘almost persuaded’ that your representations concerning the Sabbath are correct. I know, too, of one man who has given up the use of pork from reading the articles upon it which have appeared in the Signs, and I believe the same man is also truly convinced that immersion is the only true method of baptism. I know that these papers have caused the majority of those who have received them to search the Scriptures more diligently, and that is something not to be despised. I am of opinion that you will find the English people, as a rule, harder to convince than the Americans. They are of a less excitable temperament, and are not so readily induced to surrender their preconceived opinions; nor are they so enthusiastic as their transatlantic brethren.”

This man has spent about four years in America, and states the case about as we find it. Still later he writes:—

“I do not know how your members in America adhere to their covenant; but I think you will find Englishmen very consistent with regard to it, that is, of course, after they have accepted it. They may be slow to accept new dogmas; but once convinced of the truth of them, nothing will cause them to relinquish their faith. This will, in some cases, be against you, as many belonging to other denominations, who might be disposed to listen to you, will be prevented from so doing by their determined loyalty to some other church.”

Another friend to whom for three months we had been sending the Signs, together with some other reading matter, wrote me last week: “You are doing a noble work, and eternity will unfold the worth of labor done cheerfully for God. Let our grand object be the salvation of perishing sinners for whom Christ died. Never mind if the world hate you, and say you are a man of only one idea, only let it be a good one and God will honor it. Do your duty and leave the world to talk.”

We have also received a letter from Scotland, in which the writer says: “I have received some numbers of the present volume of The Signs of the Times, and I am so much interested that I should like to get the whole volume.” For these he wishes to pay. I do not find his name on our list of the 1,500 names we have used here, and hence conclude the few numbers of the paper he has received were sent him by some friend in America.

Two other persons who had read for a time expressed their deep interest, and became paying subscribers; and a gentleman to whom I sent a single number of Good Health has become a paying subscriber. So gradually people are becoming acquainted with us and our views.

Since my last report there has been another rise here in the price of bread and bread-stuffs, which makes still greater distress for the very poor. I give below a few words from the report of a speech recently delivered in Southampton by Mr. C. P. Butt, of the Queen’s Court, the liberal candidate for the next House of Commons:—

“Would that it were in his power to congratulate them on any improvement in the aspect of affairs, any ray of light to relieve the dark, gloomy prospect of the coming winter, any symptom of a lucid interval in the infatuation of Her Majesty’s Ministers, whose acts, one after another, had only tended to increase the depression under which every class of the community was laboring. Never within his recollection were the forebodings of coming distress and suffering, among the poorer classes especially, so unmistakable. Year after year had the commercial and agricultural depression steadily increased ; year after year had we been slowly but surely approaching a commercial crisis in home affairs which no thoughtful man could contemplate without feelings of anxiety and solicitude; year after year had ministers sat and looked on in hopeless and helpless impotency; not one effort had they made to stem the adverse current. Never was there greater need for anxious watchfulness on the part of our rulers, yet never in the history of this country had magnificent opportunities been so miserably wasted. Although for six whole years ministers had had a large majority in both houses of Parliament, not one enactment of primary importance had been passed.”

May the Lord grant that while distress and trouble are in this part of the earth, the people may learn righteousness. May he give us wisdom so to labor that we may lead some souls to him. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.