FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE.—After a four-days' sea ride we reached this place. However, our objective point was the islands, but as we broke our trip at this place, we have lost the opportunity now, and I am not sure that we shall be able to go on, but we hope to.
There is as much difference between this place and the Gold Coast as there is between night and day. Here about ninety-five per cent of the real natives have a fair education, against about forty per cent in the Gold Coast towns.
In Freetown and round about, the people have no native language: all speak the English. Above all things, the people are industrious. As a result, one can find good food on the markets, without sending back to America. The printed page would be a powerful factor here, as has been evidenced by the papers that I have distributed the few days I have been here. Several persons are interested. One man has spoken of giving up tobacco. He is much interested in the Sabbath. He owns and operates the largest job-printing plant here.
One native druggist, a well-educated man, called me into his shop, to ask patient questions. His home is shown in the illustration. He and his friend had in some way obtained a paper. Several others have shown much interest.
This place and Lagos are closely connected. The people travel back and forth. It is my personal conviction that these two places should have our attention at this time. We are not able to start a farm now, but why not raise up a company in one or both of these towns? I am sure that it can be done. People read here; and they are deep readers, too. Often in passing out papers, I see large libraries in the homes. The natives own the property, largely. Some seem to be very well off.
This place has the only water-works on the coast that I know of, also an ice factory. The sanitation is the best in West Africa, so far as I have been able to learn. Too, this is not far from the islands, to which there are special rates. Taking all things into consideration, I think that this would be a promising place in which to work.
A STREET IN FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
The railroad runs far into the interior in two directions. There are many nice towns to be reached. The people are very religious. Many West Indians and some Americans are to be found here. Liberia is one day distant by boat. An American doctor living there came here to see me recently. We are over one thousand miles from Cape Coast.
J. M. HYATT.
Texas
By W. A. McCUTCHEN
BURLESON.—Since my last report from this place we have had a continually growing interest, and the entire country around has been deeply stirred. Fifteen adults have taken their stand on the Sabbath and kindred truths, and I have strong hopes of a few others, and shall continue the effort to that end. We have had Sabbath-school and social meetings for three Sabbaths, and last Sabbath there were sixty-three in the Sabbath-school. Sunday night, thirty-four acknowledged publicly that they were convinced we have the truth. Donations amounting to $23.75 have been received without taking up a single collection. Part of this was made up by the citizens and merchants on the streets without my knowledge. The very best class of citizens, business men, farmers, etc., have been our constant hearers, and most of those who have taken their stand are good, substantial people, able to help the cause.
Our Sabbath meetings have been most spiritual, the broken spirit and flowing tear indicating the thoroughness of the work the Lord was doing for these precious souls as they surrendered themselves to him, and testified of their love to God and their thankfulness for the new-found truth. Brother E. S. Seat, as tent master, and his wife, who have assisted in the music and visiting, have been of much help to me, as well as Brethren Haggard, Graves, and Seat, living four miles distant, who attended with their families quite regularly. They will share in the reward for the results obtained here. Pray for the work at this place. W. A. McCUTCHEN.
Canada
By W. H. THURSTON
The work in the Canadian Union Conference is moving on steadily, and all are hopeful, and are working hard for the advancement of the truth. We have five tents in the field this season, and would have run two more had the ministerial help which we expected been secured following the General Conference. All the tent companies report some interest, and we are hoping for good results from these efforts.17
In some localities we have had a great deal of rain, and this has hindered the people from attending the meetings. We have not sufficient help to carry on our tent work properly, only one company having two ordained ministers, and one company has not even a tent master, but we are doing the best we can. We expect two ministers to join us this fall from Pennsylvania, and yet there is room.
One night last week during a hard storm the chain supporting the top of my tent gave way, letting it down upon the people in the midst of a temperance lecture; the meeting was abruptly dismissed. The people were somewhat frightened, but no one was hurt, and the tent was put up again in the morning, no damage having been done.
Aside from our tent work, regular gospel work is being carried on in some of our cities by other workers. Brother George Skinner is doing Bible work and holding meetings in Montreal, and the church there is taking steps to buy or build a place of worship. They are soliciting funds with the intention of raising the money before building, that no debt shall be incurred. Should some who read these lines be sufficiently interested in the work in that great city, the metropolis of Canada, to contribute to this fund, they may send the money to Geo. W. Skinner, 9 Evans St., Montreal, Canada. Elder Hanna is still laboring in the city of Halifax, with prospects of others joining the little flock.
The school work is receiving its share of attention, and preparations are being made for the coming school year. Elder Leland, principal of Lornedale Academy, is making a tour among the churches, accompanied by his wife, in the interest of the educational work, and with the view of helping the churches in general, in the Ontario Conference.
Elder Guthrie is giving considerable attention to the Farmington Academy,—with hammer, saw, and plane, as well as in other ways—endeavoring to get the new building ready for occupancy the first of October.
The crops on the school farms are looking very well this year, and the prospect for these schools the coming year is somewhat encouraging.
Some church-schools will be operated in the conference, but at this writing we are not able to say how many.
Our medical work is coming up gradually, and the patronage at the Knowlton Sanitarium has been good this summer. A few improvements are being made from time to time as the finances will permit, but greater improvements are demanded.
We are now laying plans to sell the new book, “Ministry of Healing” for the benefit of the medical work, thus endeavoring to help ourselves while others are helping us; and in this united co-operation on the part of all we hope to improve the conditions very much. We still hope that some of our well-to-do conferences in the States will, in their giving, remember the call for the Knowlton Sanitarium before winter comes on, that, with what we are able to do here, we may be able to make the necessary improvements.
The treatment rooms at Lindsay, Ontario, are gaining influence and patronage gradually, and the work is progressing.
The canvassing work is not reviving as rapidly as we had hoped, but some earnest, faithful work is being done in this department, and good results are sure to follow. We are planning to give more attention to this branch of work at our annual gatherings this year, and to encourage those who are in the field as well as others to enter.
We live in hopes that there are some earnest, successful workers, both ministers and canvassers, in our sister conferences who will get a burden for the work in Canada, and then arrange with their conferences to send them over, under approved arrangements, to labor in this needy field.
Encouraging reports are received from Elder Tracy, of St. John’s, Newfoundland, of the work there, and he is now planning to go to the northern part of the island, for the winter at least, and labor at Twillingate, where Elder Farman made a tent effort two years ago. There are prospects that another minister will go to Newfoundland to labor, and if so, he will locate at St. John’s and devote his time to city work.
We are of good courage, and are trying to press the battle to the front as vigorously as possible with our limited corps of workers.
W. H. THURSTON.
The Tent-Meetings in Nashville
By Geo. I. Butler
THESE meetings are still in progress, seven discourses being given each week. There has been no great, striking change in our attendance, but we can truly say that the interest has been increasing. There are quite a number of interested persons who are always present, and who seem to be very glad to be present. We could have wished for a far larger attendance, but we know not what more we could have done to bring this about. The truth is plainly preached, and some are finding light and instruction that is beneficial.
We could not at this stage of the meeting pretend to express even an opinion of what will be the results, only this, we know that the work is of God. We know that we have God's eternal truth for these last days, and that we have some opportunity of presenting it in this great city. We know that there are influences being brought to bear upon people to keep them from coming out. We still hope to see the interest increasing and enlarging as the meeting progresses.
The camp-meeting will begin in about two weeks. We shall advertise that largely, and hope this will increase the interest, and we expect to continue after the camp-meeting, if possible, until about the first of October.
We can not tell the intense interest we feel to see these meetings a success. We are praying most earnestly for God's help, and we want our brethren and sisters everywhere to pray most earnestly that God will give us the victory in this great city. It is very important that it should be done. This is the beginning of our efforts in the large cities of the South, but we hope not the end. —Geo. I. Butler, in The Watchman.
Western Pennsylvania
By W. F. Schwartz
SIX MILE RUN.—The gospel tent which was pitched here June 22, has had a large attendance, and is still doing good work. The prophecies were given in full before the Sabbath question was presented. For four weeks the minister of the Church of God advertised that he would speak on the Sabbath question, and in the meanwhile he scattered tracts and published articles against us and our books. Also the Methodist Episcopal Church held a ten-day reopening meeting, in which they advertised eight different ministers; but notwithstanding all this, the interest did not abate, but the tent was filled each night. Seven sermons were then given on the different phases of the Sabbath question, so as to let all know and see the truth as it is; and we are glad to report good progress, wonderful progress, in the Lord's work.
On Sunday, August 6, we had the privilege of seeing eleven precious souls buried with their Lord in baptism, only one of whom had previously been baptized. There are also between twenty and twenty-five others who have recently begun to keep the Sabbath, some of whom are satisfied with their baptism, while others desire to be baptized in the near future. There are two residing here who hold their membership in the Altoona church, and two who hold membership in the Huntingdon church, and five others; so the prospects are good for a church organization. Surely the hand of God has led in the pitching of the tent in this place, and the field has revealed that it is ripe for the harvest. An interest has also been awakened in the many surrounding villages, and they are now calling for a tent and workers.
This work has rested heavily upon Brother F. C. Myers and my wife and myself. Surely the harvest is great, but the laborers are few. We thank our brethren and sisters for their prayers, and hope they may rejoice with us in the souls that have been won.
W. F. SCHWARTZ.
The South Carolina Camp-Meeting
By W. S. Chapman
The first camp-meeting ever held in the South Carolina mission field opened July 27 and closed August 6. In many respects it proved to be a most remarkable meeting. The site was at Glendale, a suburb of Spartanburg, six miles from the city. The brethren first tried to find a lot in the village for a tent effort, but as this was a “corporation site” owned by the proprietors of the cotton mill there, they were refused a location because the meetings would keep the mill-hands up late, and they would not get to work on time mornings.
Across the river the Spartanburg Trolley-car Company has a dancing pavilion and pleasure-grounds. Permission was given to erect a forty-foot tent on the grounds near the station of the street-car line, and here meetings were begun. Finally the superintendent gave Elder Webster the free use of all the grounds, and the pavilion lighted with electricity, free of all charge for the ten days of the camp-meeting, withdrawing all other attractions, and, in addition, put in electric lights in the forty-foot tent. The laborers from abroad were unanimous in the opinion that it was the best and most convenient camp-ground they had ever seen in the South.
The total membership of the mission field does not exceed, possibly, seventy-six adults, yet there were forty-eight grown persons and twenty-eight children camped on the grounds. From the beginning, there was a steady growth in spirituality, and every meeting was marked by evidences of a deep and more intelligent consecration, and of the development of the missionary spirit and of the spirit of work, culminating in a praise meeting in which nearly all present made a vow to the Lord to step out on his promises, and to labor for souls faithfully in their appointed places.
Every meeting was well attended, and the people responded cheerfully as calls to service were made, and the various phases of the work were presented. The ministering brethren, Prof. J. E. Tenney, A. F. Harrison, and the writer, felt refreshed as they labored, and the first two freely expressed their opinion that the meeting was one of the best, if not the very best, that they had ever attended.
Delightful weather prevailed all through the meeting, and there was not a sick person on the grounds. With but three exceptions, all on the grounds gave unmistakable evidences of conversion. Wherever one might go, he could find persons thanking God for the privilege of being present, and the visiting spirit was scarcely noticeable.
Surely the Lord visited his people, and the effect of the influence of the Spirit of God was visible upon all. Visitors were impressed, and there were some remarkable conversions. Owing, however, to a feud between the mill people, the citizens of Spartanburg, and the car company, the outside attendance was not large, though satisfactory on Sundays.
The meeting was truly a season of refreshing18for all who attended, and it is hoped that it will mark the beginning of an era of prosperity for this neglected field. Elder E. W. Webster, the director, has looked forward for years to the time when South Carolina would be able to announce its first camp-meeting, and the gathering proved to be a season of inexpressible joy and comfort to him. He and his fellow laborers have deserved the success that has attended their faithful labors.
There was a deep earnestness, both among the workers and among the people, and a seeking of God in the groves, in the tents, and in the pavilion, which brought the Spirit of God into the camp in power. The early morning meetings were solemn convocations, and the days were filled with practical instructions, so that the people went to their homes with a more intelligent comprehension of what the Lord required of them than they ever before possessed, and with the determination, born of a new hope and a broader view of the work to be accomplished, to labor for souls earnestly and faithfully as opportunities presented. Holding on to the arm of the Lord was made a practical reality, and the service of God a profession to be learned, and all felt drawn out to work as they never had before.
Several asked that canvassers be invited to come to their homes, and also Bible workers from the North, to whom board was offered free of all charge. In some instances a horse was promised the workers for their use. All they ask is that the home conferences indorse these laborers as being reliable. To such, comfortable homes and generous treatment are assured.
No conference business occupied the time, and nothing occurred to mar the peace and prosperity of the meeting. In every way South Carolina’s effort proved to be not only a grand success, spiritually and financially, but a priceless blessing to all attending. W. S. CHAPMAN.
Field Notes
AT Spokane, Wash., six persons received baptism on a recent Sabbath, and eight were received into the church.
SEVEN persons received baptism at Senjen, Minn., on a recent Sabbath. The Sabbath-school at that place now has fifty-two members.
GOOD results are attending the efforts of Brother F. H. Henderson at Zanesville, Ohio, and it is thought a church may soon be organized there.
BROTHER SYDNEY SCOTT writes from Leavenworth, Kan., under date of August 4: “We began tent-meetings in the interests of the colored people in this place June 11, and the meetings have continued till the present. Four have taken a stand for the truth. The interest continues good.”
THE Pacific Union Recorder reports: “It is being planned to hold several educational institutes in the Upper Columbia Conference this season. These will be held at points where two or more churches can unite and have the benefit of the studies. The three departments of the educational work will be taken up—Sabbath-school, church-school, and young people’s work—at these conventions.”
A LETTER received recently from Brother J. M. Estes, of Nome, Alaska, gives quite an encouraging report of work being done among the Eskimos of that region. He states that several have begun the observance of the Sabbath, and others seem very anxious to hear the truth.—Pacific Union Recorder.
ELDER H. H. BURKHOLDER says in a report from Six Points, Ohio: “At the close of several weeks of earnest labor at this place by Brethren Francis M. Fairchild and Robert B. Thurber the meetings closed Sabbath, July 22. As a result of this effort we now have a church of nine members, with encouraging prospects of additions soon.”
LABORERS in the Minnesota Conference are at present located as follows: Brethren Mead and Babcock in Detroit City, in a tent-meeting; Sister Nichols will join them soon; Brethren Budd and Olsen, Senjen and Local, holding meetings in buildings; Brethren Johnson, Reppe, and Nerlund, holding a tent-meeting in Two Harbors; Brethren Ruble and Gilbert, near Herman, holding meetings in houses and doing house-to-house work; Brethren Stone and Steen, Northeast Minneapolis, tent-meeting; Brethren Catlin, Kuehl, and Rew, North Minneapolis, holding a tent-meeting; Brethren Detamore and Stebbins, Stillwater, tent-meeting. Brother Detamore will go to St. Paul in a few weeks to make that his field of labor. Brethren Anderson, Hanson, and Chapman will spend some time at the Maplewood Academy, erecting the dormitory. Brother Pogue is laboring among the churches in behalf of the school enterprise and soliciting funds for the erection of the dormitory. Brother Bernstein is laid up with hay-fever. Brother Christenson is laboring in the Manitoba field, and is supported by the Minnesota Conference. All the other laborers have their regular work to which they have been elected or appointed.
Religious Liberty Notes
By W. A. COLFORD
A GOVERNMENT bill has been introduced into the Belgium Chamber prohibiting Sunday labor. Belgium is a Roman Catholic country.
A recent decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania declares that selling tobacco on Sunday does not constitute a breach of the peace. Honest labor and the sale of the necessaries of life on Sunday the court would doubtless consider “breaches of the peace.”
The abuse of the franking privilege by the International Reform Bureau has been exposed by the New York Herald, New York Times, Pittsburg Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Record, Springfield (Mass.) Union, New Bedford Evening Standard, and other papers throughout the country.
Commenting on the imprisonment of one of our brethren for disregarding a Sunday ordinance, the Christian Advocate, of Greensboro, N. C., makes the following inquiry: “If it is so easy to strap up a Seventh-day Adventist and put the law to him for violating the sabbath, why can not our authorities put the same law to these gentile sons of Belial, who keep neither Saturday nor Sunday? Why?”
The offer of the mayor of Winston, N. C., to release from fine and imprisonment a Sabbath-keeper whom he had recently fined eighty dollars and sentenced to sixty days’ imprisonment for Sunday trading, upon condition of a promise not to further violate the Sunday ordinance, reminds us of the instruction which we have received that in the closing conflict the dignitaries of church and state would unite “to bribe, persuade, and compel all classes to honor the Sunday.” In this case, we are sorry to say, the offer was accepted.
In a single short paragraph of a published address on “The Constitutional Basis of the American Sabbath,” delivered July 9 by Rev. R. C. Wylie, before the International Christian Endeavor Convention, at Baltimore, occur the following statements: “The sabbath is a civil institution, and for this reason is entitled to protection. The term sabbath means ‘cessation.’ There must be this cessation to the end that there may be religious activity.” This shows how much “civility” there is in the “civil sabbath” plea. Laws “protecting” Sunday are demanded “to the end that there may be religious activity.”
Brother W. C. Presley, of Boston, Ga., writes as follows in regard to his prosecution recently for Sunday work: “I was arraigned before the court in Thorsville the fourteenth of June, for Sunday work, where I was tried and convicted. I had the blessed opportunity of presenting the truth to a class that probably would never have heard it in any other way. The court promised to relieve me of the fine if I would pay the cost of the court. I told the judge that I could not pay either. I could not pay the fine, neither could I pay the cost, which, in principle, amounted to the same. He said that I would have to go to jail for thirty days. I told him all right, I could not sacrifice a principle that was of eternal interest to me. But my friends would not listen to my going to jail; so, against my earnest and persistent protest, they made up the money and paid the cost, and so set me free.”
How much real religious liberty some people believe in who boast of possessing it in unlimited quantities, is well illustrated in the following from the Statesville (N. C.) Landmark of Aug. 2, 1905: “The Landmark stands for the widest freedom in religious beliefs; but we have no patience with people who come along and try to overturn existing conditions like sabbath observance, which has been recognized for centuries. The Jews hold that the seventh day is the Sabbath; but the Jews have too much sense to defy the laws providing for the observance of the first day of the week. If one is allowed to practise any thing which he may hold as sanctioned by the Bible, the Mormons should not be disturbed in the practise of polygamy; they have as much right to disregard the law against plural marriages as the Seventh-day Adventist has to disregard the law which provides for the observance of the first day of the week as the sabbath.”
W. A. COLFORD.
Our Publishing Work in Washington
By S. N. Curtiss
THE first copy of the REVIEW bearing the imprint of Washington, D. C., was dated Aug. 20, 1903, and the entire mechanical work on this and the five succeeding issues was done in an outside office. These six numbers contained only sixteen pages each, as it was impossible to purchase paper stock of the right size or to find a folding-machine large enough for a twenty-four-page paper, in Washington.
The office of the newly formed Review and Herald Publishing Association had been located in a large residence at 222 North Capitol Street. The General Conference also had its offices in the same building. Here, early in September, we installed our linotype, and the REVIEW of Sept. 17, 1903, was a twenty-four-page number upon which all the work, except the presswork, was done in our own office. Since that time we have done all the work, except the presswork, on all our periodicals. The number of employees necessary to do all this mechanical work rarely exceeds ten.
Our composing-room is in the dining-room of the residence, our folding and mailing room in the kitchen—the cook-stove being still left in position. Both of these rooms are in the basement, and are about fifteen by twenty feet. The editorial and proof rooms are on the fourth floor—four long flights of stairs from the mechanical department. This made necessary a great deal of going up and down stairs, till finally necessity, “the mother of invention,” demanded an easier means of communication between these departments, and so a string was hung out of a proof-room window, and this has since served the purpose of a pneumatic tube in carrying proof and copy back and forth.
It was impossible to find room for our Book Department in this same building, so we rented a store on Thirteenth Street, more than a mile from our Main Office on North Capitol Street.
THE NEW HOME OF THE REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
In this way, with crowded and inconvenient workrooms, and with the Book Department isolated from the other departments, we have carried on our work thus far.
We do not complain because of these conditions, nor speak of them to secure sympathy, but simply that our people may understand our situation, and may appreciate with what anticipation we have looked forward to more favorable conditions in the proposed new building.
The first two years in Washington have been eventful ones in many ways. Our periodicals show a most encouraging gain in circulation. Of the REVIEW of Aug. 20, 1903, we printed 13,500 copies, while of this week’s issue we are printing 18,700 copies, a gain of almost forty per cent.
The first printing order on the Youth’s Instructor, in Washington, was 11,600 copies, and the last printing order was 13,700 copies.
The publication of the Sabbath School Worker was begun January, 1904, and the August issue consists of 7,500 copies.
The Life and Health, the name given to the Pacific Health Journal when it was taken over by this association, has grown in favor from the first. Less than 2,000 copies were necessary to supply the actual subscriptions for the issue of July, 1904. The subscription list now stands at 6,964 copies, and the additional orders from agents were such that 12,500 copies of the August number were printed and sold, and 15,000 copies are now being printed for September.
The good hand of our God has been over us all the time, and to him be the praise for what has been accomplished.
We are much pleased to be able to print in this issue a reproduction of the architect’s water-color perspective drawing of the main building of the Review and Herald Publishing Association to be erected at Takoma Park.
The readers of this paper are more or less familiar with the developments which have made necessary the establishing of our publishing work in the city of Washington. They know that definite instruction through the spirit of prophecy was given for the removal of the publishing work to this place, and for the erection of a suitable building.
Several plans were drawn for such a building, but finally, after counseling with the representatives of other publishing houses in attendance at the last General Conference, the building shown herewith was decided upon. It is sixty feet wide by ninety feet long, with three stories and basement. It faces the northeast, and is located just inside the20District of Columbia, at Takoma Park, two blocks from the railway station, and about a mile and a quarter from the Washington Training College.
The first and second stories are to be of cement and iron construction, finished in such a way as to give the building a solid, substantial appearance. The third story is mansard with slate sides and tin roof. There is practically no ornamentation, the desire being to eliminate every unnecessary item of cost.
The first and second stories have iron pillars and girders, and the construction is such that the roof is upheld by the iron framework, and does not depend at all on the partitions.
The solidity and strength is not in appearance only, for the floors are constructed to carry a live and dead weight of two hundred and fifty pounds to the square foot.
The basement will have a cement floor, and will be used for storing paper.
On the first floor will be the business offices, the Circulation Department, book storage, and pressroom. The door shown at the right, in the picture, on the side of the building, opens into the Shipping Department.
The bindery and its storage rooms will occupy the second story.
The editorial, proof, and composing rooms, the chapel, and the foundry will be on the third floor.
There are to be toilet-rooms on every floor, and an elevator will run from the basement to the top floor.
The exterior of the building is termed fire-proof, and this effects a considerable saving in the cost of insurance.
A small power-house, and a fire-proof vault for the storage of electrotype plates, are to be erected in the rear of the main building.
Electricity will be used for power and for lighting.
It will be observed that this building is not so large as the old Review and Herald building, nor is it so large as our other denominational publishing houses in America, but we are now located in the country, and are not planning to solicit commercial printing. We hope to use the whole building to its full capacity, as soon as it is completed, for the printing and binding of our denominational publications, and shall move the printing outfit now in Battle Creek, to this place when it can be done advantageously.
If our work should increase so that more room is needed in the mechanical departments, this can be secured by building on an extension at the rear.
The cost of the building will be between twenty and twenty-five thousand dollars.
Thus far only the excavating for the basement is done, but the lumber and material are now coming to the grounds, and by the time this paper reaches its readers, actual construction will undoubtedly have been begun.
S. N. Curtiss.
Manager.
Under Conviction
By H. H. HALL
WE believe that the following letter, which has just been received, is an isolated expression of a general experience:—
"Pacific Press Pub. Co.,
"GENTLEMEN: I am a Bible student. It took only one reading of a few of your tracts on the Sabbath question to convince me that you have the truth. . . . God bless your work. I wish I could get courage to keep the Sabbath with you.
"There is not a better publication on the market than The Signs of the Times.
"Yours very truly."
Dear brethren and sisters, shall we not recognize this confession as another proof of the fact that the Lord of the harvest is watering the seed which has been and is being sown? Let us therefore sow the more widely and pray the more earnestly that some grains may fall on good ground.
