AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND.
By William C. White
THUS far in 1894 the workers in Australasia have had much to encourage and prompt them to activity. Two tent companies have been at work in the suburbs of Melbourne, one at Williamstown, and one in Brighton and Auburn. A company of Sabbath keepers, which will in time be organized into a church, has been brought out at each of these places. At the same time there have been additions to the Prahran and North Fitzroy churches, so that, altogether, there are seventy-five new Sabbath keepers in Victoria since the camp meeting. In New South Wales tent meetings have been held in Seven Hills, a fruit-growing district, about eighteen miles from Sydney, by Elder Arthur S. Hickox, assisted occasionally by Elders McCullagh and Starr. Here eighteen or twenty have accepted the message, and there is some talk of building a meetinghouse. Our brethren in this vicinity are aroused to new activity by the recent summonsing and fining of two of our brethren of the Kelleyville church, for Sunday labor. The action was taken under an old obsolete act of Charles II., which not only forbids labor but enjoins attendance at worship. Many condemn the action, and some uphold it. The agitation will bring the Sabbath question to the front. For a year we have been planning to send laborers to Queensland, and now we hope that the time is near at hand when that colony will receive the warning message. Already there are small companies keeping the Sabbath, who plead for help. In one place there are said to be thirty Sabbath keepers, and they wait for instruction. The Bible school has been cut down somewhat, owing to the continued financial depression. Several of the canvassers who under ordinary circumstances could have earned enough in vacation to help them through the winter school, have found that, as times are so changed, this short vacation does not prepare them to enter this winter. The permanent location of the school has received much study, and we hope that the matter will soon be settled. During the last two weeks two offers have been received, that are very encouraging, and we trust that one of these may be accepted. Elder G. T. Wilson, the president of the New Zealand Conference, has been visiting Kaeo, Auckland, Helensville, and other places in the North, and reports an excellent interest where he has been. Eight were baptized in Kaeo, and five in Helensville. Brother Wm. Crothers, the colonial canvassing agent, who took a company of canvassers from Australia, at the close of the Melbourne meeting, reports that most of the canvassers are doing well, and he regards New Zealand as a good field. Elder Steed, who was assigned to New Zealand by the Union Conference, but who was detained so long in Melbourne, on account of his health, has now reached his new field of labor. It is expected that he will settle in Palmerston North, which is the center of an important district, where there are many already interested in the truths of the message.