Earlier text: Forgiven Long AgoThe Seventh-day Baptists.
Last week we gave out of the London Christian Shield, from the pen of Eld. Jones, a brief statement concerning the Seventh-day Adventists. In this number of the REVIEW, we give his record of early Seventh-day Baptists, which we copy from the London Baptist of March 13, 1874. Enveloped as early Baptist history is by circumstances of poverty and persecution, Baptists of the present day are thankful to be able to trace the practice of their principles through the ages down to apostolic times. That small part of the Baptist family who observe the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath are also able to follow their distinctive practice back through the centuries to the primitive church. In the Eastern Churches, the Armenian, the Nestorian, and Abyssinian, many, from the earliest times to the present, have observed the seventh day. In the Western Church, also, there have been included adherents of the unchanged Sabbath. According to Erasmus, there were Sabbatarians in Bohemia, who kept the seventh day. From references by old authors, one is led to believe that in the beginning of the sixteenth century, in Germany, Holland, and England, as well as in Bohemia, there were Anabaptists who observed the original Sabbath. In 1585, John Stockwood wrote of the “manifold disputations among the learned, and a diversity of opinion among the vulgar people and simple sort, concerning the Sabbath day and right use of the same, some maintaining the changed, and some the unchangeable, obligations of the seventh-day Sabbath.” In Chambers’ Cyclopedia, Art. “Sabbath,” Vol. 8, 1866, the Bohemian Sabbath observers and others are thus referred to:— “Accordingly, in the reign of Elizabeth, it occurred to many conscientious and independent thinkers (as it had previously done to some Protestants in Bohemia) that the fourth commandment required of them the observance, not of the first, but of the specified seventh day of the week, and a strict bodily rest as a service then due to God. They became numerous enough to make a considerable figure for more than a century in England, under the title of ‘Sabbatarians,’ a word now exchanged for the less ambiguous appellation of ‘Seventh-day Baptists.’” Among the first advocates of the seventh-day Sabbath in England, about A. D. 1610–20, appears one Lackson, or Jackson, who taught that the day named in the law should be observed. The converts to this view were John Trask and wife, William Hillyard, Christopher Sands, Mrs. Mary Chester, Mr. Hebden, and the Rev. Mr. Wright. Mrs. Chester and Mr. Hebden were imprisoned for advocating the Saturday Sabbath. Mrs. Chester, upon being converted to the Church, was released from prison; but twelve months after she was set at liberty, she relapsed into her former errors! Trask was tried in 1618, when Bishop Andrews argued against him at length, one of the charges being that “Christians were bound to observe the Jewish Sabbath.” The sentence executed upon Trask was to be “set upon the pillory in Westminster, and from thence to be whipped to the Fleet, there to remain prisoner.” Upon his renouncing the Sabbath, he was released from prison, and wrote “A Treatise (1620) of Liberty from Judaism, or an Acknowledgment of True Christian Liberty.” Mrs. Trask kept a private school, and had, as assistant, a Sabbath-keeper. She refused to teach on the Sabbath, and, being thus brought into notice, was arrested and imprisoned. Pagitt (p. 209) says:— “His wife, Mistress Trask, lay for fifteen or sixteen years a prisoner for her opinions about the Saturday Sabbath, in all which time she would receive no relief from anybody, notwithstanding she wanted much, alleging that it is written, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Neither would she borrow. She deemed it a dishonor to her head, Christ, either to beg or to borrow. Her diet for the most part of her imprisonment—that is, till a little before her death—was bread and water and roots and herbs—no flesh, nor wine, nor brewed drink. . . . She charged the keeper of the prison not to bury her in church or churchyard, but in the fields only, which was accordingly so done. So there was an end to her sect in less than half a generation. ’Tis true, it begins of late (1661) to be revived again, but yet faintly. The progress it makes is not observed to be much; so that all gangrenes of spirit with which the times are troubled, as yet it spreads little, and therefore it is hoped a short caveat, such as this, may suffice against it.” Thus about 1620, Sabbath observers seem to have been terrified into quiet seclusion, only to gather strength soon to become more settled in their confidence, and especially so as they became more numerous. Theophilus Brabourne appears as a writer in behalf of the Sabbath in 1628, 1630, and 1632. Cox says: “Brabourne is a much abler writer than Trask, and may be regarded as the founder in England of the sect first known as Sabbatarians, but now calling themselves Seventh-day Baptists.” James Ockford, a follower of Brabourne, issued a work in 1642, entitled “The Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment” (Sabbath and Sunday, page 184). Cawdrey and Palmer, in 1652, wrote of him and his work as follows:— “But before we conclude this chapter, we shall take a brief survey of what a later Sabbatarian hath written, being it seems unsatisfied, as well he might, with all that hath been said by the bishop (White’s answer to Brabourne) and others in his way, in answer to the Sabbatarian arguments. One James Ockford, as we hinted above, hath revived the quarrel, and makes use of his adversaries’ weapons to beat themselves withal. There hath been sharp confutation of his book by fire, it being commanded so to be burnt, as perhaps it well deserved.” The organization of Seventh-day Baptist churches may not date earlier than 1620. The records, letters, and brochures, of those times of infuriated destruction and torment, are mostly lost. The absence of notice of meetings is perhaps to be accounted for in the necessity for private worship; for those early reformers were not theorizers merely; had they been, the martyr-stake and scaffold would not have passed into history. Each took the Bible to himself, and each sought to practice his belief of it, and that practice was sure to merit the too common distinction of those times. There was a grip in the dash of the enemy which told in the obliteration of everything that would transmit to posterity a fragment of the hated sect. The ordinary accident of fire happened to many a scrap of writing that would be invaluable now in fixing the date of the organization of a single church. The first book of the Mill-yard church shared the fate of the meeting-house in 1790. The late minister, W. H. Black, F. S. A., who was ever on the keen scent for old things, thought it probable that this church was organized about 1623. The Sabbath publications of that period excited attention all the more because of the increasing number of adherents, and the boldness of some who, for their faithfulness against what they considered popish error, suffered fines, imprisonment, and death. It was one of the hardest things to kill. Men die, but principles live. The conscience may be fettered, but the word of God is not bound. The thing was looked upon as infectious, and the infected as turbulent and dangerous, hence the writers make note of it as the “old quarrel,” and the “revival of it,” etc., from 1585 to 1661. We may be sure that the persecuted and lonely met, two and three and more, to worship God, and to claim the presence of the Son of God, and that pure worship, simple and spiritual, became the act of the organization of many a small company meeting in secret for fear of the secular-religious power. Names, places, and precise dates, are unknown, but the inheritors of the faith (few now in Britain) are found increasing in numbers in the wide domain of prairie, hill, and mountain, of the free land whose shores are laved by the Atlantic and Pacific. How False Doctrines Are Perpetuated.
By Dudley Marvin Canright
THAT the doctrines of the seventh-day Sabbath, the sleep of the dead, the destruction of the wicked, &c., are plainly taught in the Bible, the majority of our hearers readily admit; but the great wonder with them is, If these things are so, why have not learned ministers and commentators found them out before now? Over this stumbling-stone, thousands have fallen. Instead of going to the Bible for themselves, they go to what others have taught about it. And herein lies the root of the evil. For those very men on whose previous investigations they now rely, have simply copied from others before them, and they in turn from their predecessors, each presuming that the one before him has thoroughly investigated the subject, while the fact is that none of them have. Rev. Lyman Abbott, in the Christian Union, makes some forcible remarks on this subject which are worthy of consideration, especially by those who are laying aside the word of God for the traditions of men. “There are many instances in which the Biblical commentators appear to have derived their ideas respecting Scripture teaching from previous scholars in the same field; the same thought is often traceable from generation to generation, from ancient father to English divine, and thence to our latest Sunday-school commentary. And sometimes, just as counterfeit bills pass unquestioned because they are well worn, erroneous interpretations pass current in the Christian church, without ever being subjected to a careful scrutiny; because each new student takes it for granted that the student who has preceded him, and from whom he receives the interpretation, has done this work of investigation, and he only needs to report the results.” I have seldom seen more truth stated in so few words. This ought to open the eyes of those who are hanging their faith on what some one else has said. Look for yourself, and walk in the light which God has given you. Woodland, Cal., April 5, 1874. The Hoosac Tunnel and the Second Advent.
By Dudley Marvin Canright
WHAT has the Hoosac Tunnel to do with the second advent? Surely, says one, you are not so fanatical as to claim that it is one of the signs of the end of the world? No, not directly, but thereby hangs a tale. This Tunnel was begun in 1852, twenty-two years ago. Its length was almost five miles, directly through the mountain at a depth of about 1000 feet from the top. It was to be 18 feet high and 20 feet wide. Of course, the digging of such a tunnel was a vast undertaking which at that day seemed almost impossible to accomplish. But it has been finished, the last blast taking place Nov. 27, 1873. It is amusing and instructive now to look back and see the objections which would-be wise ones raised to this work before it was accomplished. A writer in the Phrenological Journal says:— “The beginning of great achievements may be small and broken. They may excite ridicule and laughter—many predicting they will amount to nothing; and each failure or awkward move leads to new outcries of derision. In the case of the tunnel, the finding of unknown obstacles, like the demoralized rock at the west end, or the rush of water into the central shaft, accidents and casualties increased and emboldened the cry of ‘fanatical,’ ‘absurd.’ Even the poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, derisively sang:— “‘When the first locomotive’s wheel
Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel’s bore—
Till then, let Cumming blaze away,
And Miller’s saints blow up the globe;
But when you see that blessed day,
Then order your ascension robe!’” “My dear friend, ‘that blessed day’ has arrived. Have you ordered ‘your ascension robe?’” Yes, this noble work has been accomplished, and now Mr. Holmes’ wit turns only against himself. According to his own argument, he ought now to order his ascension robe. As he has lived to see the folly of his wit in this instance, so the coming of the Lord which has likewise been so much ridiculed will show the folly of such jesting. D. M. CANRIGHT. Report of Labors.
By S. N. Haskell
SABBATH and first-day, March 14 and 15, I was with the church at Kirkville, N. Y.; the two following Sabbaths and first-days in Ohio; April 4 and 5, at Hillsdale, Mich. I also attended the Michigan State quarterly meeting at Potterville. There is evidently an increasing interest in the missionary work in each of these States. Scores of individuals are now rejoicing in the truth as the direct result of missionary labor, who a few months ago knew nothing of its blessedness. Openings for the living preacher are multiplying in almost every direction. And in many cases these calls come from those where two or three have already embraced the Sabbath from reading, and others are interested. Yet there is a failure on the part of many to realize the importance and magnitude of this work. Hundreds of families have been visited with tracts and prayed with, and many have become interested to read upon present truth. One brother, who knew of about four hundred families which had been visited in his district, said that it was safe to calculate that three hundred out of the four hundred had become interested to read on present truth. This is truly wonderful—three hundred out of four hundred families in one district become interested, while some of our brethren and sisters can find nothing to do in the missionary work! Reports from the trial volume of REVIEW are encouraging. Quite a goodly number already have said, “Put me down as a permanent subscriber as long as the paper is as ably conducted as it is at the present.” Some have already embraced the Sabbath. One man remarked that, although he did not indorse all the doctrines it advocated, yet he admired the paper, and he wanted it in his family for its moral influence upon his children. The meeting in Potterville, Mich., was one of deep interest. It was well attended by the directors and others from different parts of the State. The brethren were interested to move forward in the work. It was voted at this meeting to put five of our best books, containing a printed notice of the Tract Society, into all of the public libraries and reading rooms in the State where they would receive them. Ohio took a similar step. But one thing that made this meeting interesting was the good report of missionary labor in the vicinity of Potterville. Over forty now meet on the Sabbath where none met a few months since. Twenty-two are conscientiously observing the Sabbath. On Monday, April 15, I had the pleasure of baptizing nine, a father and mother and four children of one family. There are others that will be baptized soon, and the work is still spreading and the interest deepening. This work commenced by a Sabbath-school being organized in the neighborhood, and by visiting and praying with the families, by Bro. and sister Sawyer. They would relate the simple story of the cross, and children and parents finally learned to love the divine Redeemer, and gave their hearts to him. Children who at first would learn but one or two verses in their Testaments in a week, would, in a few months, voluntarily learn over fifty. Hundreds of just such missionaries are wanted to canvass the back neighborhoods, where dwell the poor of the earth, but humble in heart. The financial interest of the cause in New York, Ohio, and Michigan was considered, both for the Swedes and the Tract Society. In these three States there were raised, including what was pledged, nearly $4000. April 18 and 19, met with the friends in Mackford, Wis. Here, as in other Conferences, the number of names called for on the trial volume had been sent in to the Office by the effort of the Tract Society. The report showed an increasing interest in the missionary work. There were some local matters that seemed necessary to attend to on first-day, which occupied some time, so there was not that accomplished which we had hoped to see. We hope, however, that some steps were taken which will result in good to the tract and missionary work in that State. Reports that are coming in from every direction convince us more and more that more enlarged views must be taken of the work of God. The field is the world, and men and women are called for who are willing to devote their lives to the work of saving souls. Upon the right hand and upon the left, souls are perishing and are calling for help. That means of help God has placed within our reach, and bidden us go work in his vineyard. The most solemn part of our life will be the decision we make in reference to these providential calls. Lake City, Minn.
By Charles Lee
Our brethren in Lake City have now become firmly settled in the present truth. Their hearts seem full of the Advent faith, and their lives are gradually conforming to its practical duties. The power of God has stirred the hearts of the Swedes in Lake City and vicinity. The churches have had a great shaking. The enemy has not looked upon this with indifference. All the means that could be made use of, connected with the strongest efforts to break down and clear out of the way the Heaven-established principles and rules of right, have been undertaken. Although many of the people stand very low, respecting religion, on account of their early training, so that they would cry out, “Crucify!” at the first signal of the priest, there are still some with human hearts and thinking minds among them. The discussion mentioned in my last report was one that I was forced into. My opponent gave out the discussion before I knew anything about it, and declared that if I did not meet him, I was a coward and an impostor. The discussion was continued three evenings. It has caused many minds to investigate the word of God that cared but little about it before. Was it not for the opposing priests and their periodicals that come into the settlement like a flood of water, many souls would be brought to the knowledge of the truth. I think after a while, when the commotion is quieted down, that fruit will appear more abundantly in Lake City than heretofore. May God help the honest-hearted to be led out from the ways of wickedness. The friends I left in Wisconsin when I went to Lake City have not only grown stronger in the Advent faith, but increased in number. I have spent another week with them. They, with the friends in Lake City, will number between twenty-five and thirty. When we organize the church, they will all unite in one. The elder of the Swedish Baptist church of this city, now a firm believer in the Advent faith, has lately visited his old friends in St. Paul. Before he became a believer in the soon coming of the Son of God they seemed to think very much of him; but learning that he wanted to enlighten them from the word of God, they gave orders that he should not be allowed to speak a word. And, said he, “Men and women that formerly were looked upon with suspicion in regard to their Christian faith and character, are now the leading and principal authority within the church.” It seemed pretty hard for our brother to be choked down as a criminal among Christian friends and brethren, in a church where he shortly before labored with evidences of love and gratitude from the people; but, said he, “I felt that Jesus was greater than St. Paul.” I am often struck with astonishment as I watch the movements of ministers and people at the presentation of the Advent doctrine. If the testimony of the word of God was not so plain that the same spirit was manifested in the days of our Lord Jesus and the apostles I should hardly know what to make of it. But praise be to God, Christ’s words are as true to-day as ever: “Remember the words that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” This and similar heavenly testimonies, with the experience I have gained in this great and noble work, is enough to sustain me under all circumstances; and, although my constitution is nearly broken down from hardships in the past, I will continue, as long as I am able, to cry out to all, Awake! awake! that the gates of Heaven may not be closed against you. Need of Laborers.
By D. Downer
WE are crippled for want of laborers. I have received in the last month seventeen calls for labor, one of them from Virginia, offering to pay all expenses if I would come and labor a little while in that State. There is talent in our ranks lying idle, persons who I believe could work more effectually than some that are now successfully preaching this message. I read with tears Bro. Decker’s letters and others who have lately taken the field to labor for God. Some are delaying—intending to go out by-and-by to labor. Let me ask, Will it not be too late then? Every one having a knowledge of the truth can do something in warning. We can say that Christ is coming. We can say in tears, Come to him, and live. May God bless our school, and may we soon be able to send out strong, humble young men by scores to light up this dark world with truth. I am stirred to the very soul while writing. These lines often have been hid by my tears. Will you heed? Will you come up to the high calling? I am glad that our State of Wisconsin is doing more, much more, this year than ever before in this work. Some have grown gray in bringing up this work to its present standing. For those who are weary, there is resting by-and-by. Their toil has brought to us books and tracts by thousands. Shall we distribute them with our means? If we do not, we can no longer claim our place in the ranks. No man can be a true believer of our faith and not be a worker. New fields are opening faster than we can supply them. There are whole States where our faith has never been preached. There is talent to labor, and means to support the work in new fields. Who will go forth weeping and come bearing precious sheaves to God? The colored people are becoming educated with a rapidity that is beyond all our former hopes. Is it not the work of God, preparing their minds for this last message? Should they be lost? Are they not to be noticed in this great work? The price of their liberty has been paid with blood; shall not the blood of Christ liberate them from sin? Who will do it? I believe God will soon add another burden to us in pointing us to southern fields. Who comprehends the mighty work before us? Not those who murmur. Not those who give sparingly to the cause. God must have a people to stand in the last day. The loud cry must soon be given. Are we ready for these mighty events so soon to break upon us? We often talk of them. We are able to meet the arguments of those who oppose the truth. But this is not enough. Are we sanctified through the truth? Or are we calmly viewing the soon-coming end without an effort to prepare for the terrible storm? D. DOWNER. J. H. WAGGONER
By Joseph Harvey Waggoner
As an excuse for rejecting the law of God, it is often said that we cannot be justified by the law. That is at least as much as an insinuation that they who keep the law seek to be justified by it. But this is a great mistake. They who know enough of the principles of this law to love it well know that it is too holy, just, and good, to justify a sinner. And because all have sinned against it, all are condemned by it, and none can be justified by it. See Rom. 3:19, 20. It is not the fault of the law that man is not justified by it; had he obeyed it, as was his duty to do, he would have been justified by it, for the apostle says, “The doers of the law shall be justified.” Rom. 2:13. Charity leads us to presume that they who offer this objection do not realize that the Scriptures make a distinction between justification and salvation. If we only had regard to original justice, there could be no difference; i. e., if a man had never sinned he would have been justified, and of course saved, by his obedience. But this original or personal justice no one now possesses. Hence, while the principles cannot change, and the rule of justification is ever the same, the means are entirely different from what they would be if man had never sinned. Here is where many err. They suppose, or seem to suppose, that if the law ceases to be the means of justification, it ceases also to be the rule. They do not judge of the law by its nature or original object, but from a partial view of the position of its transgressor. The law as a rule of right, will form a perfect character, but cannot reform an imperfect one. The rule of the mechanic will determine or point out a right angle on the end of a board he is framing; and if the board is square—if the angle is right, it is justified or proved right by the rule. But if the angle is not right, the rule will point out the inaccuracy, but will not make it right. That must be effected by another tool. But if the saw is the means of making the proper angle on the board, does the saw therefore become the rule of determining angles or measurements? By no means. And there is precisely this difference between the law and the gospel. “By the law is the knowledge of sin;” but the gospel is the remedy. The law points out the errors of character, the gospel reforms them. The law being the only rule of right, “the doers of the law shall be justified.” Rom. 2:13. This is but plain justice; for no one can suppose that the man who did the law—who obeyed God in all his life—would be condemned. But Paul also says that there are no doers of the law—that all have sinned; and from this he draws the very evident conclusion, “Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.” Rom. 3:21. So we are justified now “freely by his159grace,” entirely by faith; works do not enter into our justification. And why not? Because, as the apostle shows, this justification by faith has respect to “the remission of sins that are past.” Rom. 3:25. Over these our future acts of obedience can have no influence or control. It seems as if every one ought to see how absurd it is to infer that the sinner justified by grace or pardon is under no further obligation to keep that law by which, as a sinner, he cannot be justified. They who thus teach cannot realize how destructive is that view of every principle of right and justice: how it dishonors the gospel of Christ; how it tends to pervert a holy gospel of love to a mere system of license. Of all the abuse the gospel has ever received at the hands of its professed friends, this is the deepest. It is contrary to Scripture, and to all just reasoning. Ask the advocate of that theory if the law of his State will justify the thief in stealing, or the murderer in killing. He will answer, No; the law condemns such actions. Ask him how the criminal can escape the true desert of his crimes, and he will reply, Only by the governor’s pardon. Ask again, If the law condemns the transgressor, and he can be justified only by pardon, does that pardon release him from obedience to the law, so that he may thereafter disregard its claims? Will he affirm this? Will he tell you that that pardon thereafter becomes the rule of life to such a man? And if the pardoned one should again be committed for crime, will the jury try him, and the judge condemn him by the governor’s pardon, or by the statute of the State? Could we get any to take the same unreasonable position in regard to the law of the State that many take in regard to the law of God? Not one. If angels ever weep at the blind folly of mortals, it seems that such teachings furnish an occasion. To see men of talent, of learning, of apparent piety, strip the plan of salvation of every principle of justice, pervert it to a system of license, draw conclusions directly contrary to reason and common sense, and argue on the divine government as they would be ashamed to argue in respect to the government of the State; surely, this is enough to fill the Heavens with astonishment. Let it be distinctly noted that a moral duty, whether it be called law or gospel, cannot justify a sinner. That law which points out sin, which is therefore the rule of right, will not justify. This is the teaching of Rom. 3:20, 21. It is singular indeed that they who teach the abrogation of the original law, and its insufficiency to justify, and who hold that all that is binding in the law is incorporated in the gospel, really teach justification by law—by the same system that points out sin, which Paul calls “the law.” This is contrary to reason, and to the apostle’s words in Rom. 3:20. The truth is evidently this: The gospel upholds the law, and enforces it upon the conscience, and incorporates it into the life of the believer. But it does not abrogate law, nor release the believer from obedience to it; nor does it incorporate law into itself so as to have a blending of the two in one. The difference between the law and the gospel is as distinct now as it was in the days when the gospel was preached to the sinners in the wilderness. Heb. 4:1. The law is moral; sin is immorality; the gospel is the remedy. Medicine may restore health, but health is not medicine. This matter may be tested by the following plain statement: The blood of Christ, the blood of the covenant, is that whereby we have remission of sin. See Heb. 9:22; Rom. 3:25. And this is freely and exclusively by faith or grace. Hence, baptism may be a gospel condition of justification, because it is not any part of the original obligation or moral duty. If it were moral duty it could not be performed for remission of sin, simply because as such it would be required on its own account. So the commandment, which says, “Thou shalt not steal,” cannot be incorporated into the same system and take part in the work of remission, being itself a moral duty. How reasonable is the conditional plan which says, “Repent, and be baptized for the remission of sin.” And how absurd it would be to read, Thou shalt not kill for the remission of sin; or, Honor thy father and mother for the remission of sin. It appears absurd, as I have stated, whether these be called law or gospel, to claim justification or remission through them. But they who teach the abrogation of the law, and the incorporation of these commandments into the gospel, are responsible for this absurdity. It belongs to their system. THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE.
By Rebekah Smith
Who can the strength of habit know,
That has not felt its power?
Oh! shun that treacherous path to woe,
Ere the deciding hour. That unkind word, that bitter strife,
What shades of gloom they cast;
How many e’en would part with life,
Could they recall the past. One leak, ’tis said, the largest ship,
At last will surely sink,
One cherished sin in life or lip,
Will lead o’er ruin’s brink. How innocent soe’er may seem
The darling sin we love,
’Tis in our eye the fatal beam,
Eclipsing joys above. How shall we e’er the victory gain,
O’er sin’s too welcome power?
How from the snare our feet restrain,
Spread for us every hour? In Christ. We can through him at length,
Put all our foes to flight,
If him we make our staff and strength
He will our battles fight. With God it matters not to help
With many or with few.
Had we a thousand foes to face,
His arm would all subdue. Who would not have a friend like this
On life’s tempestuous sea,
’Till we shall reach our home of bliss
From sin and sorrow free? West Wilton, N. H., March, 1874. Port Alleghany, Pa.
By R. F. Cottrell
Since March 19, have been laboring in a new place on Comes Creek, four miles south of Port Alleghany, Mc Kean Co. The meetings have been small, but with the few the interest has been good. Some three or more resolved to keep the Lord’s Sabbath, till they should find satisfactory evidence that it is not their duty. Of course they will never find that evidence. They are determined to obey God, and follow in the light of his word wherever it shall lead them. There are several others that will unite with them soon if they are faithful. CHAS. L. BOYD
By Chas. L. Boyd
Have closed my labors in Saunders Co. for the present. Found a few keeping the Sabbath when I came here. A good interest was manifested to hear present truth to the close of the meetings, notwithstanding the roads were bad much of the time, and seeding crowded upon the farmers before the close. Nineteen signed the covenant. Think there are others keeping the Sabbath, and several more undecided. Organized a Sabbath-school consisting of a goodly number. Systematic Benevolence was subscribed, amounting to nearly one hundred dollars. I here saw evidence that the Sabbath and advent doctrine are inseparable. A family here who had several years ago received some light on the Sabbath, but were in darkness on the signs of the times, kept the Sabbath for a time which was finally given up. They are now rejoicing in the truth of the third angel’s message. Labor Among Danish Families in Iowa
By John F. Hanson
February 12, left home for a new field of labor. Came to Council Bluffs, where I was very kindly received by a Danish family whom I had providentially visited when I first came to this State. The man and his wife were both spiritualists at that time. We talked much about the Bible and religion. These friends tell me now that they were half convinced at that time that their religion was not genuine. I left this dear family with prayer to God for their salvation. It was about three months from the time this happened till I met these friends again. I remembered the words of the prophet at this time, “Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters.” So I introduced the Tidsende, which the man readily subscribed for as soon as he knew that there was such a paper. I happened at that time to have one old copy of “Liv og Död” with me which I lent this family until I should meet them again. After they had read our publications, and heard a course of lectures, they, with others, fully decided that we have the Bible for our guide. I have labored here and at Crescent City and vicinity for about eight weeks. The Lord has blessed my labor, for which I feel very thankful. I am encouraged to labor on in this good cause. Twenty-five have been led to believe the present truth and are now keeping the Lord’s holy Sabbath. These friends have come out from five different denominations and are all Danish except one Swedish family. I have baptized six. Sold about $20 worth of our publications. Have obtained subscribers for the Tidsende, Svensk Harold, the REVIEW, and Reformer. The door seems to be open anywhere for the third angel’s message to go with a loud voice to the different nations. I have just received a letter from an old friend in Denmark. The writer says, “My wife and I have now commenced to keep Saturday for the Sabbath, and how glad we would be if some one could come here and bring this truth before the people.” May God speed on his glorious truth. JOHN F. HANSON. Elkhorn, Shelby Co., Iowa, April 13, 1874.