We have had many fears that students who attend Battle Creek College will fail to receive all the benefit they might, in the way of religious culture, from the families that furnish them rooms. Some families do not enjoy the sweet influences of the religion of Christ, although they are professed Christians. The influence which this class of persons exert over the students is more objectionable than that of those who make no pretensions to godliness. These irreligious, irresponsible formalists may stand forth before the world in pretentious leaves, while, like the barren fig-tree, they are wholly destitute of that which alone our Saviour values,–fruit to his glory. The work wrought on the heart by the grace of God, they know nothing about. These persons exert an influence which is detrimental to all with whom they associate. There should be committees, to see that the homes provided for the students are not with mere formalists, who have no burden for the souls of the dear youth.

On Thursday, August 23, our little company, consisting of Eld. Smith, my sick husband and myself, accompanied by sister Ings, left Battle Creek for the camp-meeting at Groveland, Mass. This movement of ours required considerable faith. To judge from appearances, it looked like presumption for my husband and myself to attempt the journey. I had been, and was still suffering much from a severe cold, taken while on the Indiana camp-ground, and had been under treatment at our Sanitarium, being much of the time a great sufferer.

This meeting has been one of the largest and most successful ever held by our people in this State. Twenty-six tents were on the ground, and three hundred of the brethren and sisters were assembled together. The camp was well located in a beech grove, quite open on the ground, but canopied by interlacing branches that formed a natural roof of leaves, so dense that during a slight shower, scarcely a drop of rain sifted through, and not a parasol or umbrella was raised while the sun was shining. The weather was generally favorable, excepting on the Sabbath, when a heavy rain storm interrupted the sermon of Eld. S. H. Lane, in the forenoon, and broke up the meeting for the time. In the afternoon, the people assembled under the large tent, and we spoke to them on the subject of Peter’s ladder of sanctification, making temperance a prominent point in the discourse. We had the very best attention throughout. The tent was crowded, quite a large representation being from the city of Kokomo.