North Pacific Mission by I. D. Van Horn

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 5, 1875

North Pacific Mission.

By I. D. Van Horn

Our quarterly meeting is in the past. It was a success. The good cause here has been strengthened, and brethren and sisters have been much encouraged. On the Sabbath our new meeting-house was well filled with Sabbath-keepers and their children. At the close of the discourse, we called for those wishing baptism to rise up, when five responded, and were voted into the church. Then the call was made for others who had been baptized, and wished to join the church to rise up, and five responded to this call also, and were voted into the church. One aged sister who could not be with us sent a letter asking the privilege of being received into the church, which request was granted. We then went to the water, and there, on that beautiful Sabbath day, five were baptized, and the place was made solemn by the presence of the Spirit of the Lord. Thus eleven were added to the church, making our present number seventy-five. There are others, good, substantial persons, keeping the Sabbath who will sooner or later join us. Those keeping the Sabbath in this valley, counting the members of the church with their children, number about two hundred.

At our business meeting on Sunday morning, union and brotherly love were manifested throughout. At this meeting the church accepted the meeting-house from the hand of the Building Committee, and assumed the debt of eleven hundred dollars, by giving obligations without mortgaging the property. We rarely find such union of feeling as was manifested here, under like circumstances. A plan was adopted similar to our Systematic Benevolence, by which the debt and all interest can be paid within two years.

When everything was thus arranged, we proceeded to dedicate the house, which was well filled with attentive hearers. The discourse upon the “True Worship of God” (text, John 4: 53, 24) was such as to lead the mind to adore the great Creator in spirit, and respect and honor his truth. As we gave the house to the Lord at the close of the service, we had evidence that he accepted it at our hands. The house is a building 32x46 feet and 18 feet between the floor and the ceiling, with a tower in front 9x9, projecting half its size outside, and a recess in the back end for the pulpit. This recess has two small windows which can be so adjusted as to give plenty of air to the speaker. The cost of the house is $3000; and the Walla Walla Statesman says, “It is the best house of worship in Oregon or Washington Ter., except one, east of the Cascade Mountains.”

The organization of a tract society was deferred for the present. All here would rejoice could Bro. and sister White make us a visit after the California Camp-meeting, and assist in organizing a T. & M. Society.

On returning here to Dayton, I find the interest even greater than when I left a week ago. Shall hope to establish a company of believers in the truth here. Pray for us.—I. D. Van Horn, in Signs of the Times.

Dayton, W. T., July 7, 1875.