Show AT AN OPET AIR MEETING elder tames james duckworth president of the liverpool conference of the british mission writes from preston july io 10 as follows to the millennial star last friday evening elders ira bennion samuel 0 crosby and myself proceeded to the market place here in preston freston lor for the purpose ot of holding an open air meeting alter after singing and prayer we had a respectable audience of perhaps one hundred people who listened quite attentively to our remarks elder bennion spoke upon the first principles ri sciples of the gospel and he was waft U followed lowed by elder crosby who took for h his is subject divine authority no sooner h had ad he cowed ceased speaking than a well dressed gentleman genteman who had been a very interested listener and who appeared from his language and manner to be some kind of a local preacher instantly sprang into the ring and taking off his hat he harangued the people tor for about ten minutes opposing the doctrines we had been advocating and incidentally mentioning nigg that he was well acquainted with the mormons cormons and their teaching he first tried to show that baptism is not essential to salvation although he declared his belief that all the true christians should be baptized the repeatedly peat edly used example of the th ef op on the cross and a few isolated pas passages sag which apparently sustain the doctrine of belief alone wet e brought forth to prove the inefficacy of baptism he then declared that god did not call aaron but that moses called him and there therefore foie he was called of man he finished by say ing that all are called who would sincerely believe on the lord jesus christ we permitted the gentleman to proceed without interruption and he left as soon as he had finished though he was invited to stay and listen to the other side ot the question this incident naturally aroused an intense interest in the audience and when I 1 stepped forward to reply to the charges the people were all eager to listen I 1 showed them how unchristian like it was for one professing pro tessing to be a gentleman to interrupt us as our assailant had done the true explanation of the story of the thief on the cross was given which brought out the idea of preaching to the spirits in prison and salvation for the dead this was followed by showing that the authority of the servants of god was respected by our father as ar though he himself were present and according to st luke x 16 and stjohn xin 20 20 he that rejects the author iced servants of christ rejects christ and the father it was also proved that aaron being called by direct command of god through moses was called of god himself and not of man the interruption instead of doing u Q harm as it was intended resulted in good we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and now ti afe e adversary is aroused we feel more than ever determined to con dinue our labors with zeal and energy we receive greater encouragement from our open air meetings than from anything else for when the lord sees that we are not afraid to go up upon on the street and testily of him and his gospel he comes to our assistance and gives us them the necessary strength |