Meetings in Ohio by G. W. Holt

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 25, 1858

Meetings in Ohio.

By G. W. Holt

Dear Bro. Smith: I have returned home to my family after an absence of five weeks, in which time I have visited brethren in Townsend, Green Spring, Jackson, and Portageville. In all the above places the brethren are holding fast the truth and making some progress in the way to the kingdom of God. In this we rejoice; but we are satisfied that the testimony of the True and Faithful Witness is realized and heeded by only a few in the State of Ohio. O Lord, wake up thy people and deliver them from a lukewarm state, and spare them from sharing the fate of Esau, is my daily cry.

In Portageville the Lord is doing a good work in the hearts of a few. In this place we had several interesting meetings and baptized five, who I believe felt the importance of being dead before they were buried.

From here we went to Lovett's Grove, about eight miles from Perrysburg which was an entirely new field. We called at a school-house in the place and gave notice for a meeting in the evening at the same house, after getting the consent of the teacher. A few came out to hear the stranger, and listened with some interest. After the close of my discourse I had an invitation to go to another house the next evening about one half mile from this, as the one we now occupied was to be used for another purpose. I accepted the invitation and continued meetings in that house until it was not sufficient to hold the people that came out to hear.

I then received an invitation to return to the other house on account of its being much larger, with the promise of the house as long as I wished it for that purpose. Other preachers who had appointments at the house gave way and let me have the floor. The people in this place had been imposed on by pretended preachers of the gospel, until they had become perfectly disgusted, and turned away to receive no more, unless they came from heaven, as some expressed it. For this cause I was watched with a jealous eye. Notwithstanding this the interest increased until it became intense. The breathless silence in the congregation at every pause told the interest of the hearers, though the house was very much crowded. We continued in this place laboring night and day for more than two weeks. After I had given twenty discourses in public, and as many more from house to house, I gave way for the people to speak and free their minds.

This was a heavenly time indeed while one after another gave testimony to the truth they had heard, with choked utterance and streaming eyes. Shouts of praise from full hearts burst forth when one learned that his neighbor, or brother, or son, or daughter, was resolved to unite in keeping all the Commandments of God and Faith of Jesus. About thirty heads of families have decided to obey and worship the true and living God that made heaven and earth, instead of the Beast that has thought to change times and laws.

Their day of worship is changed from the first day of the week to the seventh, the true Sabbath, when we expect the Lord to meet with them to bless and refresh, by the outpouring of his Spirit, and by adding more to their number.

G. W. Holt.

Bloomingsville, Ohio, Feb., 11th, 1858.