Bermuda Islands by M. Enoch

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 23, 1909

Bermuda Islands

By M. Enoch

SITUATED on the Atlantic, seven hundred thirty miles due south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and seven hundred miles southeast from New York, the Bermuda Islands, with a population of about eighteen thousand, appear as a mere speck on the map. Yet our island home seems to us who live here quite a place after all. Only about one third of the people are white. There is not a more equable climate in the world than is found in Bermuda. With the sun nearly overhead for about three months, the heat is not so extreme as one would imagine, and sunstroke is seldom known. The winters are very mild, and snow never falls. Jack Frost can not cross the Gulf Stream. Lying between the North and the South, the climate is semitropical. Miasma is unknown, and the fevers of the tropics find no place here. Crops grow, and flowers bloom, the year round. This is indeed a land of perpetual summer.

Such, and more, is Bermuda; but sin prevails, and disobedience is just as marked here as elsewhere. However, “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”

After a residence of a little over sixteen years, my wife and I rejoice that there are at present about one hundred Sabbath-keepers, including the children, though there was not a resident Seventh-day Adventist when we came.

After a stay of six years and four months, Elder J. A. Morrow and wife, who came here from the tropics to recruit their health, left us, to attend the last General Conference; and as they have been assigned to labor elsewhere, the work is left for us to carry on.

As a result of the faithful labors of Brother and Sister Morrow, eighteen natives and nine Portuguese are live members, with their names on the church roll. There are six Sabbath-schools on the islands. The only large Sabbath-school is at Hamilton, with a membership of about fifty. Two of these schools are made up of parts of two families; the other three are family schools. Some of our members are Home Department members.

Elder Morrow has visited and scattered reading-matter everywhere, and has held meetings in the most important parts of the islands. For over two years, Sister Morrow taught the children of Sabbath-keepers, with some others. We know that her faithful work with these children will produce eternal fruits.

We began the erection of our church building Jan. 3, 1906, and the first meeting was held in it six months later, July 14. As the building now stands, unceiled, with the lot, fifty feet wide and eighty-five feet long, it costs about £400 ($1,920). We raised about one half the amount. By following the directions found in “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, pages 102, 103, as far as we could, we paid, last year £25 ($120), and we have on hand another £25, to pay August 5. This will reduce our indebtedness £50 ($240). For this we praise the Lord. How the remainder will be paid, we know not. We began by faith, and we are holding on by faith. Matt. 18:19. When we began to build, times were not so close as they have been since. This has not been through failures of crops, but because the New York market has failed us for three years, and the farmers have not only lost all, but they have been placed in inextricable indebtedness to the merchants. We have faith still that our debt will be paid. Praise the Lord!

M. ENOCH.