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THE. KING'S BUSINESS
WORK IN THE OIL FIELDS By Frank J. Shelley
At Lost Hills we w trt most kindly wel comed by Mr. Stearns, the Superintendent, and his~ wife, who is a Christian. Visited the various small leases scattered about two and a half miles away. Gave a Bible reading in several homes and conducted two services on Sunday. No services have been held here for fifteen months. At Olig, by request, we made an address to the school children at the school house and met a dear Institute boy, Rev. Albert Seigle, who has done a grand work for God there. McKittrick was described to me as the “hardest place on God’s earth.” It is almost entirely given over to Satan; nothing but saloons and gambling, and the few there who name the name of the Lord are very -much discouraged. We purpose going there shortly. Please pray for this place and for our work in this neglected and most needy field. Spoke, at several school houses—Brown- gold and others.—on the Lord’s Coming, Matt. 25:6, and the interest shown encour aged us in the Lord. definite Bible study.. The,fruit of this work will never be known until we shall meet up yonder with Him. All over the State are scattered men, discharged from the prison, who have gone out to live for Christ and are still making good in the very largest sense, the result of their Bible Study while at San Quentin which gave them an insight into the great plan of Jehovah God. Class work has been conducted at San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, Melrose, Elmhurst, San Jose, Redwood City, San Francisco, Los Altos, Sacramento, Stockton, Eureka, Areata, Blue Lake, Bay Side, Scotia, Hydesville
\ \ T E have visited various leases between * * Maricopa and-Lost Hills, a distance of about sixty miles. Distributed 400 Gos pel tracts, fifteen Gospels of John. Preach ing Services, five per week. Bible Classes taught, nine. We found one backslider near Maricopa, and Dr. Torrey’s favorite Scripture of Jer emiah 2 was the means God used in bring ing her back. The places where we reach most of the men are the boarding houses. At Fellows, God gave us two souls, a man and his wife. These will be baptized and united with the Presbyterian Church. At Bellridge Oil Co. lease there was a fine interest. No services of any sort have been held here' for about fifteen months. We got two under conviction; preached a simple message from John 4:10; “If thou knewest the gift of God,” and the interest manifested was truly encouraging and refreshing. The next day we held Bible readings in some of the-homes; led an old man of about sixty in a simple prayer of acceptance and left him trusting in the Lord. O NE of the joys attending the ministry of the Word is the genuine heart response received from those helped to a better knowledge of God and His Word, and in this respect, the people have responded to our ministry since coming to San (Francisco and the Bay Cities very graciously. I am now to leave the field of service and make my headquarters in Seattle, Washington. Summarizing the work for the past four years—it has been our privilege to teach a large class of'men at San Quentin every week on Saturday. This class has had a membership of from 75 to 150 who have come of their own volition each week for
------- P — O — THE EXTENSION DEPARTMENT Geo. W. Hunter, Representative
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