Victories in Hayti by W. Jay Tanner

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 21, 1907

Victories in Hayti

By W. Jay Tanner

If I have not sent in any report for some time, it is not because there has been any diminution in the progress of the message in this field. The past month I baptized four young people at Plaisance. Two others were to take part in the ordinance, but sickness prevented. Our company at this place numbers seven, the eldest of which is twenty-seven, and the youngest fifteen. These young people are all sober and intelligent, and some of them know what it means to step out to obey God in the face of severe opposition, if not real persecution.

During the past three months the Catholic clergy have been extremely active in their efforts to hinder our work and to bring us into reproach. Their efforts came to a crisis the second week in July, when a simultaneous attack was made on our two workers, the one laboring at Grand Rivière, and the other at Plaisance. At the latter place, with the aid of an army officer, who is an ardent Catholic, a charge was made against our native laborer, Brother M. Nord Isaac, accusing him of trying to raise a revolution. No severer charge can be brought against an individual here; and, indeed, it often happens that the mere suspicion that one has revolutionary tendencies means a summary execution. There is no doubt that it was intended that Brother Isaac’s voice should thus be silenced; for a strong effort was made to present an effective case against him, although in reality he had done absolutely nothing unlawful, or that could in any way complicate him with the authorities.

He appeared before the Délégué extraordinaire of the president, and his officers, to answer to the charge, on the Sabbath, July 13. Without any witnesses except the Word of God, which he carried in his hand, he was able to make a strong and effective defense that was accepted by the Délégué, and he was, accordingly, exonerated. Owing to the fact that this official has the name of being very severe with suspected cases, and that there is some unrest just now, due to the approach of a new election, it is considered by some that our helper was very fortunate to get off so easily; but for our part, we consider that it was but another interposition of Him who is overruling all things for the progress of his message.

The evening of the day on which Brother Isaac appeared before the officials here at the Cape, our Swiss worker, Brother Fawer, had a skirmish with the priest at Grande Rivière. This brother had secured permission to hold public meetings on La Place, and had been getting the ears of a large number of people. In the midst of their meeting on the night in question, the priest appeared on the scene, followed by a crowd of boys and young men beating drums and old tin-pans. They kept up such a din that our people were compelled to stop their service for a time. However, word was carried to the commandant de la place that our meeting was being interfered with, and he dispatched a company of soldiers, who drove the priest and his followers away. In this confusion, some of the Catholics, angered at the action of the priest, stoned his house; and the next week it was a priest, and not a poor Adventist predicateur, who was summoned before the Délégué extraordinaire to answer for his conduct. The outcome of this is, I understand, that the priest is to be removed from his present charge. Be that as it may, the cause here has scored another victory; and I have no doubt that many have at least been led to see that our work stands for truth and good order.

The Catholic clergy have now changed their tactics a little, and are seeking to make us appear ridiculous and odious before the public. A few Sundays ago the bishop solemnly warned the people to beware of the Jews, meaning us, telling them that because of us God would soon send an earthquake, as he did in Jamaica, or some other calamity, to punish these Jews and all those who would receive them. Let no one imagine that this was without effect. Many of the better class, and the Europeans, have begun to manifest a desire to keep as far away from us as they can; and the lower classes are, for the first time since we came here, beginning to hoot at us when we pass them on the street. Of course these things do not move us. They only show us that the battle with the papacy has now begun in earnest in its own territory, and that we may expect a warm running fight until the end comes.

W. JAY TANNER.