THE CAUSE IN ENGLAND by John Norton Loughborough

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 11, 1880

THE CAUSE IN ENGLAND.

By John Norton Loughborough

STILL our work progresses here in England, and at Southampton in particular. I hope none will think because we have made our home at this place that our work has all been confined to a handful here. By circulating tracts and papers, and corresponding, we are seeking to awaken an interest all over the kingdom. Nearly every day we get encouraging responses, and evidence that the truth is working its way to hearts. The past season has been such an unfavorable one (so many storms) that it has been a slow process to get the interest here matured.

As before reported, our T. and M. Society is organized. Since our last report we have had three occasions of baptizing. Thirteen have been baptized already, and several others have applied for baptism. Where should the baptism be attended? is a question which has given us no little perplexity. The few Baptists here attend baptism in their fonts, in their chapels. We could not get even the loan of their robes, it was therefore no use to ask for the loan of a font. An attempt was made by others, not long since, to baptize in a stream a few miles from Ravenswood. A vast mob assembled, threw brick-bats, stones, and dirt to break up the baptism. It did not seem proper for us to try such an experiment just at this time. At last we decided to prepare a font in one of the lower rooms of Ravenswood. We have done so, and our baptisms have been quiet, blessed occasions.

The first baptism by Seventh-day Adventists in England was on Sunday morning, Feb. 8. On that occasion six were baptized. At the close of our Wednesday evening service, Feb. 11, two more were baptized. One of these was the steward mentioned in a former report. Sabbath, the 14th, five more were baptized, and we are to have another baptism next Sabbath.

Next week I go to Taunton, Somerset, the place of Bro. Veysey’s residence, to commence a series of public lectures there. To-day we have brought home from the printing office of "Foster and Roud" an edition of 2,000 each of seven tracts, 14,000 in all. This is the first of our effort here in printing. As we gather around this pile of printed sheets, we unite our prayers to God that his signal blessing may rest upon and follow these tracts, and that the time may soon come when thousands may be reading truth printed in England for the English readers.

As the result of placing a notice of this Ravenswood depository in the SIGNS a few times, we have already had several applications for papers and tracts. Of these applicants, at least one is now keeping the Sabbath. This morning we received the following: "Dear Sir—I have met with a torn sheet of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, printed in California. I see your name on it as having some of the tracts issued by the same person. Will you kindly send me a list of what you have, and the price? If you will send me one shilling’s worth of back numbers of the SIGNS, you will oblige. Yours," etc. His letter contained twenty-four cents in stamps. We sent him nine numbers of the SIGNS, and one copy of, "Is the End Near?" with catalogue of English prices on the back. This man has the first copy of our tracts printed in Great Britain. We shall see what we shall see as the result. Now it seems to me if we could have a standing notice of this depository in the SIGNS, if it is not more than two lines of very fine type, it would be an excellent affair, as so many hundreds of copies are being scattered from America, and by us, here. As one prominent temperance man told us the other day, "Your papers are getting scattered all around; I have met them in many places where I go, and they are read with increasing interest."

May the Lord give us wisdom in all branches of our labor here, and may there be a harvest of souls, even from Great Britain.

Feb. 18, 1880. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.