Thirty-Three Years

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 26, 1907

Thirty-Three Years

THIRTY-THREE years ago the fifteenth of September Elder J. N. Andrews and family sailed from Boston for Europe. At that time there was one church of Sabbath-keepers in Prussia, about sixty Sabbath-keepers in Switzerland, and a few individuals of this faith in Italy, Germany, and Denmark. At that time there was no publishing office of this denomination in Europe, no sanitariums, no division of the field into conferences, or even mission fields; in short, no organized work of any kind for the promulgation of this truth. The whole continent was virgin soil, so far as the proclamation of this message was concerned. Thirty-three years have passed, and it will be a matter of interest and encouragement to all our people to note what God has accomplished in that field in the proclamation of his last message during that time.

The work in the territory to which Elder J. N. Andrews went in 1874 has progressed to such a degree that Europe, then unworked and unorganized, presents the following organizations: Five union conferences, fourteen conferences, and twenty-five mission fields, with active work progressing in them all. During this time there have sprung into being in that field seven publishing houses, from which are issuing millions of pages of literature every year, devoted entirely to the giving of this message. There were no sanitariums in all that territory in 1874; now there are eight. There were no schools then; now there are four. Denominational institutions in that territory have grown during these years from nothing to a valuation of $761,760.95. The little company of laborers entering the field in that year has increased to 1,012, and the believers have increased from a few scattered individuals to a total of 13,768, more than seventeen hundred of whom came into the truth last year. Truly the hand of the Lord has been in the work, and to him belongs the glory for all that has been accomplished.

Since the sending out of that little missionary expedition, “this gospel of the kingdom” has been threading its way into all the earth—into Africa, north, south, east, west, and central; into India, China, Japan, and Korea; into Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America; into Australia, New Zealand, and the islands of the sea. Thirty-three years is not a long time; but during that time God has wrought wondrously in carrying to the nations of earth an unpopular truth, to develop a people loyal to his law and looking for the Saviour’s return.