The Ministerial Reading Course by J. L. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 12, 1914

The Ministerial Reading Course

By J. L. S.

The registrations for the Ministerial Reading Course are continuing to come in to the Educational Department. Last week we received an order for fifty copies of “Preparing to Preach” to be sent to Australia. Workers in England and Europe and other foreign lands are registering in the course. Already we are getting letters from those who, having finished the first book, give their impressions concerning it. One writes as follows:—

“Just a word in regard to the book ‘Preparing to Preach,’ which I have read quite carefully. I find it full of very important and useful instruction to the ministry. The reading and study of this book ought to make our ministers more proficient in presenting the great truths of the third angel’s message to the world in this generation.

“I, for one, am much pleased with the information derived from the study of this book, and hope that it may help me to be a better preacher, and that I may continue the study of the Word of God and such books as will help in presenting the Scriptures in such a way that souls will be won for Christ.”

Another brother writes: “I am very much interested in the improvement of the ministry of the denomination, and will do all I can to encourage the ministers of my acquaintance to adopt the Reading Course you have prepared. It is not so much quantity as quality in our preaching that accomplishes the most. Some of our preachers do a great amount of preaching, and do not give much attention to the quality of the matter presented, or the manner in which it is given. From my viewpoint, there must be a radical change of methods of training men for the ministry. Today we are perplexed in our efforts to find men who are able to secure and hold the attention of educated, thinking men and women, because of a lack of proper study and preparation for the occasion. Many of our men are worked so hard that they do not have time for study and self-improvement; hence, a poor quality of sermon and work done. Tell the ministers it is not how much they do and say, but how well it is done and said. Our ministers need an opportunity to improve.”

Early Experiences in Preaching the Message

In a letter, of which we take the privilege of publishing a portion, Elder S. N. Haskell relates some of his early experiences, which we believe may be of help and profit to young men in the ministry. This letter shows what God

can do through human instrumentalities, when they cooperate with him, in the salvation of souls. It also makes evident the strength which continuous Bible study gives to the Lord’s servants in their ministry:—

“The first sermon I ever heard on the subject of the second coming of Christ was in 1852. I was then but nineteen years old. My memory was good, and I talked so much about the subject that the man at whose place I was visiting became annoyed, and said to me, ‘Why don’t you preach it?’ I told him I would if he would get me an audience. To my astonishment, he got together a large roomful of people, and I dared not back down, so I preached my first sermon.

“The next year I went to Canada to preach, without any license or encouragement, only my own conviction. I made it a test that if the Lord would give me some converts who would want to be baptized, I would take that as a call to preach. I spoke in a schoolhouse about five miles from Trent. I did not say one word to a soul privately about his salvation during the two weeks that I preached. It took me all of each day in the woods to study up something to say at night. The schoolhouse was crowded each night, and people stood on the outside, at the open windows. Finally, I concluded no one was converted, and I would go to another neighborhood, where I had been invited to hold a few meetings, and then I would go home. I had neither money nor conveyance, so I walked.

“On my way to this neighborhood, a man with a farm wagon overtook me, and asked me to ride with him. I found he had attended my meetings, and had been converted, and wished to be baptized. He also said that his wife had been converted, and she wished to be baptized. So when I returned, I began to call on the people, and imagine my surprise to find, if I remember correctly, twenty-five converted and wanting baptism. This was my first experience. The next year a Brother William Saxby, of Springfield, gave me the tract ‘Elihu on the Sabbath.’ As I was on my way to Canada, I spent one day in the woods studying the tract and my Bible, and from that time have been a Sabbath keeper.

“I came back to the States expecting to convert everybody to the Sabbath in about ten minutes, for I supposed everybody believed the Bible. I attended a conference of First-day Adventists, held in Worcester, Mass. At once I was ostracized, and a Brother Hale, of Hubbardston, Mass., took pity on me, and invited me to his home. I went with him, and remained several months, and that autumn about fifteen embraced the truth. Each of their names I remember quite well. This was before I became acquainted with Seventh-day Adventists.

“My Bible was my principal study for two years from the time I heard the first sermon on the coming of Christ. I carried it under my arm every day, and put it under my pillow every night. For two years I think it was never five feet from me day or night. During those years I got out a chronology from the Bible alone. I knew so little of other books that I did not know of any chronology ever gotten out by any other person. I offered it to the World’s Crisis if they would publish it. I was then

informed of the many chronologies published. I began to obtain a library, and as a result it created a taste for reading works on that subject and other Bible themes, until in the course of fifteen or twenty years I had a library that was worth about two thousand dollars. It consisted of ancient histories, commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and books of like character.

“My attention was soon turned to the obtaining of different translations, until, as I sit writing, I see on my shelves about twenty different translations, some of which I count very rare. These I found to be the best commentaries, as the texts are put in different words to convey the same thought. It was somewhere about 1875 that a fire took place in the house, right back of the room where my library was, and probably about fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of books was burned. I have never sought to replace them, save a few most important ones.

“I think it was in the winter of 1854 or 1855 that a man knocked at my door one night, and introduced himself to me as Joseph Bates. He stopped with me about two weeks. He preached to my wife and me from breakfast till noon, and then from noon till night, and at night the company in Hubbardston came together, and it was then and there I embraced present truth, and have believed it ever since.

“In 1870 we held the first camp meeting here in the East, expecting at that time to organize the New England States into one conference. These States at that time owned only one tent. So Brother Rodman and I purchased a fifty-foot tent, agreeing to pay for it in three months, thinking we would pitch our tent and get people into the truth who would pay for it, as we did not have the money. I had never even been licensed.

“Imagine my surprise when at the camp meeting, Elders J. N. Andrews, J. H. Waggoner, and James White being present, it was recommended that several of the New England States be organized into one conference, and I be ordained to the ministry and made president of the conference. The three brethren already mentioned ordained me. I think in 1873 I was made a member of the General Conference Committee, and a member of the publishing board in Battle Creek. In 1882 I visited Europe, and organized the first European council. In 1885 I went to Australia with Elder Corliss and family, Elder Israel and family, Brother Scott (a Bible worker), and William Arnold (a canvasser for ‘Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation’). I returned within one year, having started a paper and established a printing office, an account of which you can see in the old ‘Missionary Sketches.’ In 1887 I opened the work in London, with three girls as Bible workers. At that time there was only one Seventh-day Adventist in all London. I moved the printing office from Great Grimsby to North London, and organized the first church in London, with the aid of Brother D. A. Robinson. The church there was prepared for a permanent organization. It was completed after Brother Robinson came. We could not borrow a baptistery, and so built one back of the house.

“During 1889–90 Brother Percy Magan and I, as spies, went to search the land in Asia and Africa, Japan and

India. On our return to America we visited Australia. The third time I went to Australia was in 1897, after my second visit to Africa.

“I mention these things to show you that I have always been a pioneer, running my own ship, as it were. I always spent my spare time in studying the history of the nations I visited. Now I am past eighty, living, as Brother Loughborough says, on borrowed time; and much of the time I feel like Caleb, as he expressed it at eighty-five, ‘As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and come in;’ but for several years I have not taken it upon me to do much night work.”

J. L. S.