THE sixtieth annual session of the Seventh-day Baptist General Conference was held in De Ruyter, N. Y., commencing on fourth-day, Sept. 23, 1874. The report appears in the Sabbath Recorder of Oct. 15. We have looked it over with interest, but have room for only a few items at this time.
The statistics show the whole number of churches to be 83, with a total membership of 8,237. The total increase of membership during the past year is reported to be 572. Four hundred and fifteen of these were by baptism. The total decrease by death, dismissal, and excommunication, 274, leaving a net increase of 298.
The churches were reported as generally in good working condition and harmony prevailing among the brethren. The determination to sustain and extend the distinctive work of the denomination, it is believed, was never stronger than now.
The officers appointed were, Moderator, G. E. Tomlinson; Clerk, G. J. Crandall; Assistant Clerk, D. H. Davis.
Eld. L. C. Rogers, of Milton, Wis., the S. D. Baptist delegate to our General Conference of August last, in the course of the meeting submitted the following report, which was adopted:—
Your delegate to the Seventh-day Adventist General Conference submits the following:—
There were two sessions of this body during our last Conference year. The first occurred in November; the second, in August, and in connection with the Michigan State Conference, which continued from the sixth to the seventeenth of the month. Your delegate was present from the seventh to the twelfth, during which time the General Conference held two sessions. He did not learn of the fall Conference until it was past, it being unusual to call the Conference at this season of the year. The August General Conference having been called on short notice, there were but few delegates present except those who came to attend the State Conference. The attendance from the State, however, was large; this being the largest assemblage of Sabbath-keepers ever held in this country, or in modern times. It was a truly interesting and inspiring occasion. The numbers in attendance, of all classes, on first-day, was estimated at 10,000 people. The meetings were held in an encampment, in a beautiful grove, a short distance from the city of Battle Creek. A strong revival spirit was developed during these meetings, which resulted in a large number of hopeful conversions.
The sessions of General Conference were presided over by Eld. Geo. I. Butler, President. The business of deepest interest transacted was the organization of a General Tract and Missionary Society, with Eld. James White as President, and Eld. S. N. Haskell as Business Agent. The local Tract and Missionary Societies have hitherto been connected with the State Conferences. Reports from about half of these show a distribution and sale of 16,000,000 pages during the past year, which, with sales not included in this report, have added to the revenues of the Publishing Association over $32,000. The assets of this Association are now inventoried at $100,000, from an original capital of $40,000.
Another item of interest was the sending of Eld. J. N. Andrews as Missionary to Europe, to look after their Swiss Mission, and other points of interest on the Continent.
Another item of importance was the establishment of a branch office of publication at Oakland, California, with a weekly paper, the first numbers of which have already been issued, designed to promote the interests of their cause, now quite flourishing on the Pacific Coast. California adds another to the fourteen State Conferences previously reported. This General Conference also took measures toward establishing a paper upon the Atlantic Coast, the plan most favored being to stereotype the pages of the Review, published at Battle Creek, and send the plates to the point designated, thus publishing two editions.
Not the least among the items of business which interested your delegate, was the progress reported in efforts to establish a denominational school of a high and permanent character, at this denominational center. Such a school is now in progress, under the presidency of Mr. S. Brownsberger, A. M., a devoted and intelligent Adventist, and a graduate of the Michigan University. A massive brick building for the use of the school is about completed, on a lot of twelve acres, highly improved, and nearly opposite their Health Institute, and on a beautiful elevation within the limits of the city of Battle Creek. The massive brick buildings of the Publishing Association are also near by, and their extensive church edifice. Beautiful residences of Adventist families also adorn this part of the city. Your delegate was highly pleased with his visit to these institutions, which give evidence of being in a prosperous condition, and under the management of able and enterprising officers and agents. About forty churches have been added to the Seventh-day Adventist connection since the report of your former delegate with a proportionate increase of membership, which, however, is not yet equal to that included in our own General Conference. They have more than four times as many churches as we have, which are of necessity small, from the fact—that they are rapidly formed from the nucleus of an Advent preacher's tent, or an Advent family, or even a few Advent books. They have no settled preachers. Their cause is like a rolling stone that gathers no moss.
Your delegate was received by vote of Conference, and in an address of welcome by Eld. J. N. Andrews; and in the last session of Conference which your delegate attended, he was invited to use the time of the Conference, a portion of which he did, in setting forth the claims of God's law and Sabbath, and in showing some of the grounds upon which the good feeling and unity now existing between Seventh-day Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists could and should be continued, to the advantage of the cause of truth. Favoring responses were made by Elders Andrews and White; and by a unanimous vote of the brethren, a hearty God-speed was extended to your delegate, as he left the meeting to take the cars to return home.
The next session of the S. D. Baptist Conference is appointed to be held with the church at Alfred Center, on Fourth-day before the last Sabbath in September, 1875. Eld. N. V. Hull, editor of the Sabbath Recorder, was appointed delegate to the next General Conference of S. D. Adventists.
Home Happiness.
It is the fashion among certain of the more restless and ambitious of our women, says the Queen, to despise the home-life as too tame, too narrow, and too uneventful for them. They long for a wider arena, set well in view of the world, whereon to display their gifts or their acquirements; and they think this claustral house, this unexciting family of which they form a part, unworthy of their efforts. And yet in reality the
ART OF LIVING WELL
at home, and of making the family life a success, is just as great in its way, if not so important in its apparent—but only apparent—results, as the finest shades of diplomacy and the largest transactions of business. All sorts of talents, both moral and intellectual, are wanted for the task; and it seems slightly irrational to despise as futile qualities which so few of us are strong enough to possess, or to rate them as beneath the regard of high-minded people, when not one in a hundred has wit enough to employ them to a satisfactory issue.
The poetry of belief makes the English home the very ideal of sweetness, peace, love, security. Sisters are angelic friends each to each, and parents and children are inclosed in a golden web of affection which keeps in all the good spirits and shuts out all the bad. Husbands and wives live in a daily atmosphere of contented affection which is superior to the tumultuous fever of the love-making time, in so far as it is surer and more serene; and if the world does not penetrate within those four walls, life is assumed to be all the better for the absence of disturbing elements—by no means the poorer for the want of additional interest, or the less carefully conducted for the want of critical eyes to overlook. This is the ideal of an English home; but, good as it is to keep a high ideal, it is also necessary to accept things as they are, and to make no illusions on matters of facts. The matter of fact connected with the family is too often just the reverse of the ideal; and instead of love, and confidence, and serenity, and all the rest of it, we have ill-tempers and selfishness,
BACKBITINGS AND QUARRELING,
and any one abroad preferred to every one at home. It is true enough that sisters ought to be friends, but are they? Are they not as often rivals and even enemies, as true and loving comrades, each desiring the other's good, and each as willing as the other to give the best and take the worst for friendship's sake? We know some homes, but we are bound to say they are few, wherein the governing law is the law of true friendship and faithful love. For the most part there is far more of tyranny, jealousy, and rebellion, than of those sweet sentiments generally assumed.
When we think for a moment of all the evil qualities included in this one small term—family quarrels—we need scarcely ask for deeper misery or more damaging sins of action. And no one can insist too warmly on the necessity of keeping the peace at home, whereby the social life abroad may be made beautiful and the souls of men rendered blessed.
Fathers, and mothers, and brothers, all have their part in this; but truly, no one so much as the “girls.” When the sisters are harmonious together, everything seems to go well; when they quarrel, and are jealous, and selfish, and exacting, peace is not to be found, and nothing is as it should be, which is some way toward admitting that supreme influence of the sex so much insisted on at the present day. Unfortunately, it is a mode of exercising influence not much regarded by the majority, who care more for the shadow than the substance—less for home than for the world without. Perhaps there may be some who read our words to whom they will come with the power of fit application; and to them we can only insist again and again on the infinite importance of keeping the peace at home, and the need of cultivating the nobler qualities of mind and heart, if this is to be done well. A small sphere is not necessarily an unimportant one, and home and family are the seed places of all that is most stirring and most public in the world. Without, however, mutual concession, there is no peace; without peace, there is no happiness; and without happiness, of what good is life? It is better to give up this and that little personal domain for the insuring of peace, than to fight for supremacy and maintain the war. A lowly temper has its own grace, and if by it we can insure happiness at home, who would be foolish enough to cherish its opposite, and so secure misery?—Sel.
Satan as a Detective.
By Jos. Clarke
Good and bad men are often employed by the government as detectives; some permanently—some temporarily. Often it happens that innocent people have, by unfortunate circumstances, become the victims of unfounded suspicion; and it sometimes happens that such persons are proved by tests known to the detective department. If the suspected party is proof against these annoying tests, he is let alone, and supposed to be innocent of complicity with, or commission of, crime.
Satan is the accuser of God's people. He loves to be a self-constituted detective. He loves to place baits before the people of God, to entice them from the paths of purity, humility, and self-denial. Then when he succeeds, as he often does, he takes malicious pleasure in exposing the weakness of the victim of his fiendish arts.
Did you ever think of this, when you are enticed away from God, to seek happiness from forbidden sources, that Satan is desiring to show to God and his angels, that you are a hypocrite, after all your fine talk, and loud professions? Think of this, when appetite clamors, or carnality urges to sin against God, that the evil angels are playing detective against you; and in the end you will find it earnest work, and not child's play.
For the future safety of Christ's kingdom, no false ones will be permitted to enter there. God is willing that all should be thoroughly proved if they are true or not, to the cause of goodness, and purity, and truth. Satan lays the bait, and sets the trap; but it depends upon you individually, whether he springs it upon you.
We cannot sin lightly. God is not trifling with us. Let us not dare to trifle with him. The reforms of the day will be found to be no jest nor flourish of words.
As a detective, Satan excels, but he does it not for the right, or for the truth. A good detective, witnesses the fall of the victim, with pain; but Satan views it with fiendish pleasure. As an eagle pounces upon his prey, and eagerly takes possession, so does Satan.
A losing game the sinner plays with the sly and wily foe. The poor sinner eagerly seeks to find pleasure in satisfying appetite, and in the train of this sin come the carnal affections and passions. Then the enemy triumphs while the victim sleeps on in the stupor of spiritual decay and apostasy. Jos. CLARKE.
The Art of Living.
In American houses it needs a thorough revision. Extravagance is the rock on which society is going to pieces. Let us face the danger before it is too late to avert it. Single people shrink from marriage because they see married people are living in a perpetual whirl of bills and competition and social hypocrisy. An air of common deception hangs around all our houses. We are afraid to be poor. On one thousand a year, how shall we keep up the appearance of three thousand? That is the standing social problem. In such a case, luxury in the parlor necessitates meanness somewhere else. Our lace curtains tell dreadful lies. Let us have a reform, and come down to a specie basis. The well-to-do people ornament their houses with mortgages. The poor run bills. High pressure marks all life, from the cottage to the mansion, and in three directions it is ruinous.
It is financial ruin.
Any man who puts a dollar into appearances is on the way to sink a fortune in the same miry slough. Living costs about twice what it ought, fully twice in America what it does in Europe. There is no reason for it. This is a land of grain and fruits, and abundant work. The man who spends two thousand a year could live on one thousand, and be happier. Perhaps not indeed by himself. The social level needs to sink from extravagance to thrifty economy. If this is the way out of national trouble, it is doubly the way out of family worries. Be brave enough to decline appearances. Be honest straight through your domestic arrangements, though the two story must yield to the cottage, and the pudding to corn meal.
It is mental ruin.
The money that is spent on horses and dress and table unnecessaries would fill our homes with books. The expensive furniture would be well replaced by pictures, to be a constant refining and enlightening influence. The money it costs many a family of moderate means to keep up four weeks of appearances at the sea-shore, would fill their house with treasures of knowledge and art. Instead of that, the glorious month at Long Branch is followed by eleven months of scrimping in the kitchen, and general meanness all around.
It is moral ruin.
People cannot systematically deceive without moral penalty, even though the lies are velvet and silken. The penalty comes in the loss of self-respect. The man who mortgages his property to keep up the family style, thereby mortgages his name to the devil. Instead of studying moral philosophy to find the causes of general social disorder—loosening of home bonds and lowering of purity—let us come down to an honest way of living. Let us make our carpets, and our table, and our clothes tell the truth, and then perhaps our children will. A blight will surely fall on all our social life unless we recover ourselves from that great American vice—truckling—and live honestly before men. The seeds of hypocrisy are in the heart of every child that goes out from a household whose whole life is a sham. In vain we preach honesty and sincerity from the pulpit, so long as the life from the pulpit word to the home-management is all a pretense. Society, you must come down and dare to appear what you are.—Sel.
What to Do with Daughters.
By Sel.
GIVE them a good, substantial, common education. Teach them to cook a good meal of victuals. Teach them how to darn stockings and sew on buttons. Teach them how to make shirts. Teach them how to make bread. Teach them all the mysteries of the kitchen, the dining-room, and the parlor. Teach them that the more one lives within his income the more he will save. Teach them that the further one lives beyond his income the nearer he gets to the poor-house. Teach them to wear calico dresses—and to do it like queens. Teach them that a rosy romp is worth fifty delicate consumptives. Teach them to wear thick, warm shoes. Teach them to foot up store bills. Teach them that God made them in his own image, and that no amount of tight lacing will improve the model. Teach them, every day, hard, practical common sense. Teach them self-reliance. Teach them that a good, steady mechanic, without a cent, is worth a dozen oily-pated loafers in broadcloth. Teach them not to have anything to do with intemperate and dissolute young men. Teach them accomplishments—music, painting, drawing—if you have the time and money to do it with. Teach them not to paint and powder. Teach them to say no, and stick to it; yes, and stick to it. Teach them to regard the morals, not the money, of their beaux. Teach them to attend to the essential requisites of a useful life—truth, honesty, uprightness—then at a suitable time to marry. Rely upon it, that upon your teaching depends in great measure the weal or woe of their after-life.—Sel.
California Camp-Meeting.
By George I. Butler
Our meeting closed up gloriously. From the time of writing the last report, the interest greatly increased till the close. Through the middle of the week, we had many business matters to attend to, connected with the establishment of the Signs of the Times on the Pacific Coast, and getting the tract and missionary work into a more efficient shape.
From the first, the brethren seemed determined that the paper should not be removed to the East. I could but admire their spirit and interest in this matter. I do not think it all arose from pride of locality, but that they thought it important for the interests of the cause here, and because they desired its prosperity.
In the discussion of the proper course to take concerning its management here, there was considerable perplexity, and some difficulty in coming to a decision. But the vote of the Conference, and the whole body of brethren and sisters, for its stay here was overwhelming.
The friends of the cause wished to see the tract and missionary work in a more efficient condition. Thus far they have been working along as best they could. Now they have divided the State into districts, and there seems to be a decided determination to take hold of this work with vigor. I talked to the people at considerable length on this important work, and I think a good impression was made, and that the work in this important branch will go forward still more encouragingly than in the past.
Toward the last of the week, we tried to draw the attention of the people especially to practical truth, as well as to the theory concerning the sanctuary, messages, law, and Sabbath. Sabbath day, we had a large accession of brethren and sisters, so that there were nearly six hundred staying upon the ground. Sabbath afternoon, there was a good move among the people. Fifty or sixty sinners and backsliders came forward for prayers, and many of them spoke with much feeling. Broken-hearted confessions were made, and tears of contrition were shed. All felt that it had been a good day, and that the meeting was a decided success.
Sunday morning was the time chosen to raise means. The Conference had decided to assume the responsibility of the paper. Now it was to be shown what they meant and how much real interest they had. The wants of the cause were set before them about as usual at our camp-meetings, and though some were impatient for us to get through, they were so anxious to put down their pledges, we took about the usual time to give the facts concerning the progress of the work, and the responsibilities resting upon the people here.
We were all greatly and happily surprised to see the readiness of the people to pledge of their means for the establishment of the paper. Over nineteen thousand three hundred dollars were pledged to be paid by a year from next January for the paper, with the understanding that an Association should be formed as soon as the place could be fixed for it to be located, with shares similar to the one at Battle Creek. There were also pledged for a tent fund, and to pay for the tents purchased last season, over fifteen hundred dollars more, making not far from twenty-one thousand dollars pledged for the cause here in California at this meeting. This includes the one-hundred-dollar men in this State, who pledged for the cause the past summer, probably less than $1000 in all. We think this is the largest sum ever pledged at any S. D. Adventist meeting thus far in the progress of this cause, and it is certainly most liberal. There were two who pledged $1000 each, twelve who pledged $500 each, and fifty-one who signed $100 each, besides those who signed sums between these. Certainly we must believe our brethren in California mean business now.
On Sunday, we had a good congregation from the outside, who gave good attention. In the afternoon forty-one went forward in baptism. There were some of these in whom I felt the deepest interest. Our meeting closed early Monday morning, and all returned to their homes seemingly in good spirits. Many said it was the best meeting ever held here. We tried to give instruction that would help the people where they are.
The large tent or pavilion is now at this writing pitched in one of the most available places in San Francisco, and the first meeting is just through.
There were four or five hundred present, which, for the first night, is a large congregation. Good interest was manifested. We hope great good will be done. The paper will soon be issued weekly, we trust.
We see no reason why the cause will not move forward gloriously on this coast. We believe God will bless it as his people move forward. A good work has been done here, and God is giving us the field.
GEO. I. BUTLER.
San Francisco, Cal., Oct. 16, 1874.
Report from London.
By John Nevins Andrews
As we arrived in Liverpool near midnight of Saturday night, it was necessary for us to remain till Monday morning. On Sunday we went to hear Hugh Stowell Brown, one of the leading Baptist ministers of Liverpool. The interior of his church somewhat resembles that of Mr. Beecher’s at Brooklyn. It is capable of seating a large congregation, and it was quite well filled. Mr. Brown said that God sometimes answers our prayers by providential events which seem to be designed to thwart all that we have asked. The children of Israel prayed for deliverance from their cruel bondage. God answered their prayer by permitting wicked Pharaoh to tighten their bands till he broke them. And when God refuses to grant the petition of his faithful people, it is that he may give them something infinitely better than that for which they prayed. Mr. Brown believes in immortality through Christ to be given at the resurrection, and does not hold to the common doctrine of natural immortality. In America those who hold that immortality is given to men, not at the commencement of their existence, but when the Judgment has shown them to be worthy of it, and that no others are to have it, are in most of the popular churches counted as almost infidels. But it does not appear to be thus in Great Britain. The late archbishop Whately was an able defender of this doctrine.
Our journey from Liverpool to London was one of deep interest. We bought third-class tickets, the expense being only about half that of first-class. The cars are divided into apartments which are entered at the side. The same train has first, second, and third-class accommodations. We had our apartment wholly to ourselves. We were about six hours in coming to London, a distance of about 200 miles. The beauty of the country through which we came is very great. The fields are all clothed in living green, and fenced up into small tracts by hedges which are kept neatly trimmed. Everywhere the land indicates a high state of cultivation.
When we reached Euston station in London, we found Bro. and sister Jones, who had come four miles to meet us and to extend to us a cordial Christian greeting. It was an occasion for heartfelt gratitude to God that we should meet such kind friends in a land of strangers.
Bro. Wm. M. Jones of London was formerly a missionary of the first-day Baptists to the island of Hayti. He embraced the Sabbath while on a visit to the United States. He was nevertheless sent back by that people, though he frankly told them that he was keeping the seventh day. They had confidence in his moral worth, and they probably thought that he would soon relinquish the observance of the seventh day. But his Sabbath-keeping in Hayti led those who were connected with the mission work in that island to arrange for an interchange of views between Eld. Jones and Eld. J. W. Morton the Presbyterian missionary to Hayti. The result of that interview and of the tracts which Eld. J. gave to Eld. M. was that the latter within a few days’ time became an observer of the Sabbath of the Lord. Both these brethren lost their places as missionaries in a brief time after this.
Mill Yard church, of which Bro. Jones is now the pastor, consists of but a handful of Sabbath-keepers, yet it is a church in which all observers of the seventh day must feel a very deep interest. It is the oldest existing Sabbath-keeping church of which we have knowledge. Its oldest records were destroyed in a disastrous fire many years since, and it is not known how it originated, nor by whom it was organized. Probably the earliest Sabbath-keepers in England received the Sabbath truth from those who witnessed for it during the Dark Ages. This is the church of which the martyr John James was once pastor. The first object of interest to me in London was the spot where Mr. James’ head was set on a pole, which is but a short distance from the Mill Yard church. And next to this I felt a lively interest to examine other memorials of ancient Sabbath-keepers of which this church and its graveyard constitute an important part. Since the coming of Bro. Jones, the inside of the church building has been repaired, and it presents a very neat and tasty appearance.
Bro. Jones is laboring with great earnestness and perseverance to vindicate the claims of the Sabbath and the law of God, and to bring men through the power of the gospel of Christ to the fulfillment of the righteousness of the law of God. He is also by means of advertisements opening a correspondence with all the scattered Sabbath-keepers in Great Britain and Ireland, and with all who are friendly to the Sabbath. There are some very encouraging things in the discovery of Sabbath-keepers and in the conversion of a few here and elsewhere to the observance of the commandments of God. Sister Jones, the daughter of the former pastor of this church, Eld. W. H. Black, is an efficient helper in this sacred work.
Last Sabbath was an occasion of deep interest to me. In the forenoon Eld. Jones expounded the 8th Psalm. In the afternoon I spoke on the duties and responsibilities of those to whom God has committed his Sabbath from James 2:12. Then it being the day for the celebration of the supper of the Lord we united in the sacred ordinance.
Hereafter I will speak something of the causes which have so nearly exterminated the observance of the Sabbath in Great Britain. This morning I start with Eld. Jones to visit those in Tewkesbury and Glasgow who observe the Sabbath, or who are interested to understand concerning it. This is all that I can do in this country at this time, and this much seems plainly to be duty. I will then give some general view of the Sabbath-keepers in Great Britain. I believe the time has come when a special effort should be made for this country and when the state of things is propitious for such an effort. I have been sensible of the presence of God every day since we left Boston, and especially since we came to England. I am sure that God is ready to bless the preaching of his truth if we only walk before him to his acceptance. We expect to be in Switzerland the last of next week. We ask to be remembered in the prayers of the people of God.
J. N. Andrews.
London, Oct. 5, 1874.
Report from Bro. Matteson.
By John Matteson
I send hereby a short sketch of labor and experience, hoping it may be of interest to the readers of the Review. I have so much to write every month for the Danish-Norwegian monthly that I have found but little time to write for our dear American papers.
I went to Chicago shortly after our good camp-meeting in Lodi, Wis. Four of our brethren in Chicago were drowned in Lake Michigan in the spring. They were about thirty miles out on the lake fishing, and were overtaken by a fearful storm, which ended their lives as also the lives of many others. They were all active brethren, and one of them had been a leading man in the church since its commencement. We feel the loss of them very much.
Eight brethren and sisters had received the truth and united with the church since I was there in the spring. One more brother was baptized and received into the church. Two sisters left us. They went to Norway to visit their old parents. We had services in the chapel on the Sabbath July 4, surrounded by a terrible noise and confusion. The people were celebrating the Fourth to commemorate the independence of America. Next morning we could read of the terrible consequences of all this disorder which they call liberty. Many had lost their lives, others their health or limbs, by the reckless use of powder.
We celebrated the Sabbath of the Lord by prayer and praise, to commemorate the creative works of God, and to prepare for the new creation and eternal liberty from the bondage of corruption.
I held meetings two weeks in Stoughton, Wis., a small town mostly inhabited by Norwegians. I obtained the use of a commodious church edifice, Congregational. From 30 to 150 were in attendance. The majority of the people are very ignorant of the Bible, superstitious, priest-ridden, and have no idea whatever of experimental religion. We held ten meetings without the least disturbance. But Monday evening the priest came with a crowd. He belongs to a genuine daughter of the State-people's-and-world's-church of Norway. (The Lutheran church is divided in this country into five large divisions. Each division declares that the other is utterly false and heretical, and that their sect alone is the genuine daughter of the great mother church. Over this, most of them keep up a continual battle in religious and political papers. Last year two of these sects sent representative men to Norway to ask the old mother which one was the genuine daughter. She declared she could not tell. She liked them all, if they would only continue to send her money to help her missions.) Said priest requested that I should answer three questions concerning my faith. He exhorted me twice to answer like an honest and upright man. I promised to do so, and to answer ten or twenty more questions if he desired.
Two questions were proposed and answered, when he suddenly seemed to change his mind, and broke forth with a host of bitter lamentations and accusations against me, calling me a false prophet, a wolf, a deceiver, &c. He said it pained him in his heart to see his sheep enter this house evening after evening and patiently listen to such terrible doctrine. Of what consequence is his use of the Scriptures? said he; the devil himself used the Scriptures when he came to our Saviour. He closed with a strong warning to every one who wanted salvation, to flee out of the house. Then he led the way and about half of the people followed him with noise and loud talking. Most of those who went out remained by the house, talking aloud and disturbing us for half an hour till I closed the meeting.
I had to talk loud to be heard, and replied among other things, that if he proved me to be a wolf he proved also that he himself was a hireling, for Christ says that the hireling fleeth when the wolf cometh. He has compared my use of the Scriptures to that of the devil, said I, but you all know that Satan came to Christ in the wilderness with three propositions or questions. Jesus answered the first, but the devil did not like his answer. He answered the second. Then what? Did Christ run away? Not at all. The devil presented the third question. Then he ran. Who ran? The Saviour? Far from it; but the devil left him. Thus the Saviour always did when any one came to him with questions. He did not feel uneasy, or become angry, or exhort his disciples to run away, but he answered plainly and pointedly with the Scriptures until his opposers sneaked off. The priest has not followed the example of Christ.
Next evening a number of these sheep assembled around the house. They kicked against it with their boots, threw stones against the wall, made a continual noise with the window-blinds, thrust sticks through the blinds against those who were in the house, talked and cried aloud all through the service, opened the doors and threw groups in unto the floor, &c. Several of these true Christians(?) were married women, and some came with the babies in their arms, to help prove that they alone possess the true religion. (These Lutherans believe firmly that all other sects are heretics.) Some threatened to kill me. The next night they returned intending to continue their savage work; but the police stopped them. Thus ended these remarkable demonstrations by Christian people (?), in a Christian village (?), in this enlightened nineteenth century, in the celebrated land of freedom.
The priest lost many of his friends. Our last meetings were well attended. Five souls were buried with Christ in baptism. A few others decided to serve the Lord.
I have had some good meetings with our brethren in Oakland when I have been at home writing for the Tidende. They are firm in the truth, and try to move forward with the people of God.
I attended the quarterly meeting in Chicago from September 26–28. Sunday evening, our house was crowded with attentive hearers, the hall was filled, and the stairs out to the sidewalk. Their attention was called to the coming reign of terror produced by spiritism, atheism, socialism, free-love, and the commune. They listened with interest for an hour and twenty minutes.
Our brethren in this place had pledged $53 to help the Advent Tidende. They paid $111, which they sent to the Office. Besides this, they pledged about $300 to pay on their meeting-house by the 1st of November. $170 out of this was paid down. The last $200 are due on the meeting-house lot May 1, 1875, but they can now pay it by the 1st of November. There is now only $100 left of their debt on the house. The past year has been full of hard times for the laboring class in Chicago, but the blessing of the Lord has been with our brethren. They have made progress both spiritually and temporally above all expectations.
I attended the camp-meeting at Lapeer, Mich., where we were faithfully instructed and much encouraged by the servants of God. Since then, I have held meetings among the Danes in this place. There is but little outside interest here at present, but the brethren are firm in the truth. Their number has also been increased this year. Two have died in the faith. Two apostatized. Present number, eighteen. Our brethren decided to build a meeting-house and pledged $600 for this purpose. It will be erected in the spring. Bro. A. Rasmussen was unanimously chosen and ordained elder among them. Bro. Niels Larsen is clerk and treasurer. We were much blessed as we united in the ordinances. It is three years143since I saw these brethren. They have been faithful and willing to take part in every branch of the work to help it forward. We part, with new and deeper feelings of brotherly love, determined to strive earnestly with God's remnant people for a place in the everlasting kingdom.
John Matteson.
Gowen, Mich., Oct. 14, 1874.
ALIKE IN SUNSHINE AND STORM.
By G. A. Guerrier
WHEN the woes and temptations surrounding this life,
Together conspire to bring me to harm,
I smile in my joy as I arm for the strife;
For God is alike in the sunshine and storm.
The armor of God is a shield for his child,
And weighs not his faith by its matter of form,
Then fear not the tempest, though lowering and wild;
For God is alike in the sunshine and storm.
Hath he hidden a season his face from our view?
Do we feel in our hearts a dread pang of alarm?
Then pray on and sing on, e'er faithful and true;
For God is alike in the sunshine and storm.
In his wisdom divine let us put all our trust;
By attendance on duty we keep the heart warm;
We will know as we rise from earth's turmoil and dust,
In the light of our God, we are done with the storm. G. A. GUERRIER.
Aroostook Co., Me.