FIELD NOTES by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 30, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 38.

FIELD NOTES.

By Editor

ELDER N. W. ALLEE has been reëlected president of the Minnesota Conference and Tract Society.

ELDER J. R. PALMER has been elected president of Montana Mission Field, and also of the tract society.

ELDER D. T. BOURDEAU has been assigned to the duty of carrying the message to the French population of Wisconsin.

ELDER A. A. JOHN reports an addition of five to the church at Tyner, Iowa, where the brethren have recently erected a new house of worship.

AT Nineveh, Va., three persons were baptized by Elder G. B. Tripp, June 24. At Arlington, in that State, where Brother W. E. White has been laboring, they have a new house of worship ready for dedication. Brother T. H. Painter is opening a new field in Highland County.

A GENERAL meeting is to be held at Asheville, N. C., August 1-7. Elders R. M. Kilgore, Geo. I. Butler, and D. T. Shireman will be present.

AT San Jose, Cal., seven persons were baptized on the 14th inst., making eleven during the course of meetings being held by Elder D. C. Hunter.

THAT popular and valuable little book "Steps to Christ" has been issued in the Welsh language by our London publishing house, 59 Paternoster Row.

ELDER H. F. COURTER reports the baptism of four converts at Hanford and one at Lemmore, Cal. He also reports a good attendance at the tent meetings at Hanford.

TENT meetings are being conducted for the benefit of the Scandinavian people in Perth Amboy, N. J. Elder J. F. Hansen has charge of the work, and reports a good and increasing interest.

ELDER J. P. HENDERSON reports the baptism of four at Ames, Iowa, where it is designed to organize a church in the near future. He also reports the addition of three to the church at Marshalltown.

THE latest news we have from the Utah field is that Elders C. M. Gardner and J. M. Willoughby were there, and that Elder J. H. Morrison, of the General Conference Committee, was also there in consultation with them in regard to the work.

THE brethren in charge of the tent work at Milford, Iowa, recently gave the Methodist minister the use of their tent on two occasions to preach against views on the law and on the Sabbath. Nevertheless, their meetings continued without decrease of interest.

MISS SADIE MEANS, the young telegraph operator of Columbia, S. C., whose Sunday labor caused her to come under the disciplinary hand of the Presbyterian Church, has become interested in our work, and, it is said, is to visit Battle Creek, Mich., this summer.

AT the recent session of the Wisconsin Conference the following officers were chosen: President, O. A. Johnson; Secretary, G. M. Brown; Treasurer, H. O. Thomas; Executive Committee—O. A. Johnson, J. W. Westphal, P. H. Cady, W. S. Shreve, and W. P. Jordan.

THE Southampton, Eng., Observer of June 16 gives an extended report of a discourse by Elder Francis Hope on the subject, "Tormented Forever and Ever." It is also stated that "the services conducted by Messrs. J. S. Washburn and Francis Hope at the Philharmonic Hall are attended week by week by increasingly large congregations." These meetings, we understand, are held on Sundays.

THE authorities of a certain city in Georgia seem to be ashamed of their State Sunday law, or at least of its application to the case of Elder W. A. McCutcheon and Prof. E. C. Keck, who were prosecuted for doing some Sunday work in a schoolhouse preparatory to opening school. On Brother McCutcheon’s sending an appointment for a meeting, the city council, mayor, postmaster, and other prominent men arranged to meet him at the depot and give him a welcome. But by his coming by other conveyance, the plan failed. However, they called a mass meeting in his honor, when he gave them a stirring address on temperance. He was enthusiastically received, and urged to promise a course of lectures in the near future. While such expressions of good will are always comforting for the time, especially in the midst of much opposition, it is not safe to lay too much stress upon them. They may turn in a short time. Such was the experience of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch in Pisidia and at Lystra; also of Christ on the occasion of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The friendship of the world is often dangerous.

At Gainesville, Ga., already somewhat noted for its Sunday-law persecutions of persons who observe the seventh-day Sabbath, six converts were baptized and united with the church on the 16th ult. Several families from the Northwestern States are emigrating to that locality, in order to encourage the work and at the same time have the benefit of the school. A camp meeting is to be held there in August.

ELDER S. McCULLAGH writes to the Bible Echo that "all the Sydney leading dailies are unanimous in a vigorous outburst of indignation at the disgraceful persecution of the Adventists" at Kellyville. He quotes this expression from the News: "It is a pity that the Parramatta police and magistrate cannot find something better to do than furbishing up the old Commonwealth Act (subsequently adopted and neglected by Charles II's Government and Parliament) for the worrying of Seventh-day Adventists."

AT Debby, West Va., there is a church building (a kind of union building, we understand), at which one of our brethren was a trustee. We learn from the Monitor that he was recently superseded in office by another man in order to shut our people off from using the house. On the door was placed the following notice: "July 5, 1894. Notice is hereby given to all persons teaching the Advent doctrine to not open these doors or teach that doctrine in this church any more. By order of the trustees of Lord Church." It is stated that of the trustees' signatures attached to the notice, not one was correctly spelled.

A PRIVATE letter from Elder A. J. Read, missionary at Papeete, Tahiti, dated June 10, states that Brother Deane, a native and formerly pastor of a native church which accepted the S. D. A. faith in a body, has gone to Raiatea to assist Elder Cady in his school work. This leaves the full charge of the native church at Papeete on Brother Read's hands. That we may have an idea of what this means, he gives the following:—

In the morning at 7:30 there is a district preaching service for the natives, of which I must take charge in the district where we live. At 10:30 A.M. I must preach again to the whole congregation at the church. At the close of the preaching service a little Bible reading for the benefit of our English-speaking brethren, and after that a deacons' meeting, which takes up the time until 2:30 P.M., when Sabbath school opens. Owing to a scarcity of teachers, I must teach a class, after which I review the school. An evening service at 4 o'clock is conducted by one of the deacons. At 7:30 in the evening, after the Sabbath, all the natives of my district meet to review the sermons of the day, and I have to be present and conduct that meeting, as well as to explain any points which may not be clear to them. Before the close of the meeting a call comes to visit a sick person, and at 11 o'clock at night we find ourselves just ready to lay our weary head upon the most welcome pillow. This is the program of last Sabbath, and is quite similar to the regular Sabbath program, except that we are not always kept up so late at night. So you see that the work of running a native church is considerable, because one has to be a sort of parent, as well as a doctor, teacher, and pastor for the native flock. We are, however, enjoying a wonderful degree of health, and find in many ways much pleasure in the work which the Lord has given us.