SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST CHURCH, SCIO, ALLEGHANY COUNTY, NEW YORK.
This church was organized in 1834, but remained for a long time without many additions, or the services of a settled pastor.
Rev. Ray Green assumed the parochial charge in 1845, and continued until 1847.
Rev. Rowse Babcock, the present incumbent, was installed in 1848.
In reviewing the progress of Sabbatarianism within the bounds of this Association, we find abundant reasons for encouragement. An interest hitherto unprecedented in the modern history of the Sabbath-keepers, has been awakened. Many have embraced the truth in opposition to the popular sentiments of the day, among whom are several ministers of eminent talent and piety, who may be reckoned as pillars in the cause of God.
The number of churches has proportionately increased, but it must be confessed that many of them are infant bodies, utterly unable to support the pastor whose services they require, and without whose presence they can never rise to any degree of strength and usefulness. They want such pastors as the Hopkinton, the Berlin, the Piscataway, and the Shiloh Churches possessed during the first century of their existence. Men who could preach the truth for its own sake, who could share with and for their brethren—live as they did—dress as they did—and even work as they did.[42] Under such plain but substantial guidance, these churches all rose to great spiritual strength and permanence. Whatever honour belongs to him who is instrumental in gathering and organizing a church, much more is justly due to the one, who, at the expense of personal sacrifices and temporal inconveniences, adopts the spiritual infant, administers to its necessities, leads it through the green pastures and by the still waters of the heavenly pilgrimage, and finally brings it to such a degree of maturity that it is able to go alone. It is a lamentable fact, that some of these churches for the want of such leaders are even now threatened with extinction. Upon whom in such cases must the delinquency rest?
SECTION VII.
SOUTHWESTERN ASSOCIATION.
Most of the churches embraced in this confederacy are of recent origin. Many of them occupy highly advantageous situations in the broad, the bright, the glorious West, and give every promise of rising to future eminence and usefulness.