S. N. HASKELL by Stephen Nelson Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 31, 1882

S. N. HASKELL

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

From Holland.

JULY 17, I left Sweden for Haarlem, Holland. At Hamburg I parted with Bro. Gardner, as, under the circumstances, it was thought best for him to return to Switzerland. The 21st I reached the hospitable home of Bro. Velthuysen with whom I spent the Sabbath. By his assistance as interpreter, I also had the pleasure of speaking to the company who embraced the Sabbath under his labors at that place. As reference was made to the two denominational bodies with whom God has intrusted the Sabbath truth in the present generation, the Lord seemed to come near. Although there are scattered individuals who observe the Sabbath outside of these denominations, their influence is comparatively very small.

In 1664, three years after the martyrdom in England of John James, a Sabbatarian, those observing the seventh day sent Stephen Mumford to America as a missionary. This was forty-four years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth. The next year after the arrival of Mr. Mumford, his first convert in America, a sister, began to keep the Sabbath. Twenty days later a brother took the same step. The following year, in January, 1666, another sister joined the number of Sabbath-keepers; three months later another brother, and two weeks after this still another brother united with them.

On Dec. 23, 1671, the first Sabbatarian Church in America was formed at Newport, R. I. In 1802, a Seventh-day Baptist Conference was organized, consisting of eight churches, nine ministers, and eleven hundred and thirty members. Thus God saw fit to honor this people by intrusting to their care his downtrodden Sabbath, and the work went on. The Seventh-day Adventists received their first light in 1844, from Seventh-day Baptist publications. About forty in Washington, N. H., at first accepted of the light, and from this small beginning another denomination sprang into existence. God has blest the efforts of this people to make known the requirements of his law, so that now their influence is felt in every civilized nation of the globe. And yet we are not accomplishing one tithe of what we should accomplish. As the matter opened up before our mind, and we realized to some extent, how God is blessing the humble efforts of his feeble people with an unpopular truth, all seemed to be affected.

Accompanied by Bro. Velthuysen we visited a company keeping the Sabbath in Friesland. Here we enjoyed some of God's blessing. These brethren are Seventh-day Baptists, but respecting the law of God we were in full sympathy with each other. We felt a special interest for them, and much regret that the paper published by Bro. Velthuysen, in their own tongue, advocating the Sabbath of the Lord, cannot have a circulation similar to that of our French paper at Bâle. Bro. Andrews sends out monthly from that place thirty-five hundred copies. It visits almost every portion of France, and other parts of the world where the French language is spoken. Holland has four million inhabitants, three-fifths of whom are Protestants. While America will ever be the great field of operation, and every nationality can be reached in that country, there are millions in Europe who must in some way have their attention called to the truth.

There are as many different denominations in Holland as elsewhere, and, as in other European countries, in many things the people are superstitious. The priests bear rule, and it is very difficult for the people to get out of the old beaten track. The supporters of every work of reform must realize that they have a special work to do, and that it is of the utmost importance. When this is the case with us, God will bless our efforts, and make them successful. Circumstances would then yield to the message we bear, and the work we have to do. But when we are lost in difficulties, and circumstances mould us and our work, God cannot do great things for us. We trust that the time is not far in the future when God will cause his face to so shine upon the efforts of his people, that the whole earth will be lightened with his glory. When the inhabitants of this world have been warned, the curtain will drop upon the scene, and the faithful who have acted well their part in the work will receive their eternal reward.