Editorial Correspondence.
By John Nevins Andrews
How shall the work of God be advanced in this field of missionary labor? is the question present in my mind during all my wakeful hours. One of the first things which suggested itself to my mind when I first thought seriously of this mission was that advertisements, setting forth the object of the mission and asking responses from those interested, should be inserted in at least one leading journal of each country of Europe. On reading Eld. Jones’ reports from London some time later, I was pleased to see that he was acting on this very plan with respect to England, Scotland, and Ireland, and that he was seeing some good result from it. Therefore, when I met the Swiss brethren in our first general meeting, I named this as one of the things that I thought advisable to do. They assented freely to this proposition, and this was all that I desired. I told them that as this was an experiment, no money should come out of their treasury for its execution, and that I would willingly bear the expense of the first trial myself. If it should prove a success, so that we should desire to repeat it in other countries, then they might do all that they found themselves able and willing to do. I will now state the result of advertising in the Journal de Genève, so far as that result has been reached. My call was addressed to those who observe the seventh day as the Sabbath, or who are interested to examine the subject. The first response was from a professor of languages in one of the institutions at Geneva. He is a first-day man, and in response to his letter I addressed him a communication in behalf of the seventh day, and sent him some Sabbath publications. My second letter was from a gentleman who stated that he was proprietor of an extensive watch factory in Geneva. He also is a first-day man. He wrote me that he finds it difficult to establish the sacredness of the Christian Sabbath in the minds of his workmen, and asked counsel as to the proper course. I responded by showing him that the difficulty lies in the nature of the institution; that if he would return to the Sabbath which God ordained, he would find the authority of God’s law to back it up, whereas now he has nothing but a human institution and no greater authority to move the conscience than the authority of man. I sent him also publications on the Sabbath. My third letter is from a gentleman of Geneva who states that himself and his family are adherents to the seventh-day doctrine, and that he desires to enter into communication with me upon the subject. In signing his name he styles himself “maître imprimeur,” meaning, if I understand the term, foreman of a printing office. I have written this gentleman from this place, and have not yet had time for his reply. But to get knowledge of this seventh-day family in Geneva gives me no little joy. My fourth letter is from a gentleman, also a resident of Geneva, who thinks “le Dimanche,” that is, Sunday, the day to be hallowed, but he wishes publications. I shall write him at once, and send him what publications I can. But alas! my stock is almost exhausted. My fifth letter is in English, though from the name and the style I am sure that the writer is a Frenchman. He also is a resident of Geneva. The penmanship is very beautiful. I omit the first sentence it is so warmly expressed. The remainder of the letter reads thus:— “Having just read your appeal inserted in the Journal de Genève, I hasten to let you know that my wife and myself are observers of the divine command relative to the seventh-day rest, and desirous to see it fully observed. Therefore, we are quite willing to hear from you any communication on this most important subject. May the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bless your gospel mission to Europe.
“Yours respectfully, M. de C.”
I have just written to this gentleman concerning our sacred work, and given him quite a full account of the Sabbath-keepers throughout the world. These five letters are all that I have thus far received in response to my advertisement. But two of these letters are from seventh-day families! If it please God, I shall very soon after my return to Neuchatel visit these Geneva friends. These things greatly interest our friends here in Prussia. I expect them to meet the expense of advertising in an Amsterdam paper for Holland Sabbath-keepers, and in a Berlin paper for other Sabbath-keepers in Prussia or in the German Empire. We shall thus expend about forty dollars. It gives me great pain to find that I have no publications. Some time must elapse before we can have many either in German or in French. But wherever I go I find people who can either speak or read English. In the educated families, there is almost always some member that can read English. If I only had a plenty of our works in English these would actually go far toward meeting some of the most urgent calls, even in Germany itself. I brought all the books that I could, and from choice I paid for them myself. Now I feel free to beg. My books are gone. Here are candid men and women that can read English, and that would take our books and read them to others if I only had them to hand out. I think I could circulate the books without throwing them away. If the friends of Christ in America feel it a privilege to do so, I trust they will meet the expense of such a box, and the General Conference Committee will manage the matter so as to incur the least expense, and to have the least delay. The box can be sent through Morris’s European Express, 50 Broadway, N. Y. I ask especially for copies of the History of the Sabbath. I shall be grateful for whatever is sent. I will try to have our friends in Europe do their full duty relative to helping in the support of the cause. But when they have done this, our means are very limited compared with the expense of the work before us. We shall not incur debts. We will do all that the providence of God renders possible, but we will keep within our means, that God’s work be not dishonored by debts which we cannot pay. Something must shortly be done for the friends in Italy. Though we study the strictest economy as to the expense of a journey, it does, nevertheless, cost something to travel several hundred miles. I have never taken pleasure in past years in making long journeys backward and forward and not stopping to labor in the places visited. I have no more disposition to this course here than I had in America. But some of these journeys at present must be taken, though I will labor earnestly to make them of some account. The past week has been one of earnest, constant labor. One of the greatest difficulties in our way here is the great expense of hiring a hall. This is something like three times the expense in the United States. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to reach the public. I am not willing to leave Germany till I see Bro. Ertzenberger well under way in a course of public lectures. We have therefore sought every opening for meetings, and have spoken in every place where there has been any room to be had. We have meetings nearly every day and some days have two. I will give our experience in the village of Hilden, Thursday evening last, to show what kind of things are to be met in this country. The only hall that could be obtained is a large hall in the second story of a hotel. There is a custom connected with such halls that I did not know. It is in good order to drink beer and to smoke while listening to the speaker. The first intimation that I had of this was when entering the hall I saw that four rows of tables extended the entire length of that large hall, and that the chairs were placed by the side of these tables, and on each table was a match case. A good congregation assembled, very intelligent in appearance, and they were very well dressed. Before our services commenced, a waiter handed about beer, and he renewed this from time to time during the meeting! Moreover, a considerable number smoked during the service! The reader will say, perhaps, that it would have served them right had I turned away and left them. But it was this place or none. Paul says, “Instant in season, out of season.” If this was not a good place, it was at least a poor one, and that is better than none at all. But now I will say that these people paid the strictest attention. I could never turn my eye to any part of the hall in which I did not see every eye fixed steadfastly upon me. And when prayer was offered by Bro. Ertzenberger at the commencement and at the close, every person stood up and remained motionless. We had a very solemn meeting, and God gave great freedom in speaking. The meeting next evening was at a private house. Here the smokers came again, though they ceased to smoke on coming in. But to see men sit before you with pipes about four feet long is a strange sight. As some of them seemed possessed of fair mental powers, I watched them to detect some tinge of shame for having such implements of folly in their hands. But I looked in vain. These persons smoke during their entire waking hours. I am told that they take their pipes with them to their beds, and smoke as they lie down to sleep! Tobacco is the god they worship; or rather their base appetite is their god, and the tobacco is the incense which they burn to the demon they worship. The Sabbath truth is too pure to dwell in the same heart with this vile weed; and it is no small witness to this that our German Sabbath-keepers are wholly clear from tobacco. I cannot close without mentioning a very interesting item that appeared in the German papers of last week. It is this: That a few days since there died at Prague, in Bohemia, a Sabbatarian, aged one hundred and five years. From some cause he has been very highly honored by the last two Austrian emperors, and at their request has visited them both in their palaces. The papers say that this man was the last of the sect of the Sabbath-keepers. I do not believe this statement; for though Sabbath-keepers have always been in a minority, God has always had these witnesses to his truth, and though their enemies have wished them to die out, and have thought from age to age that they would, they have thus far waited in vain. The smoking flax will not be quenched till God shall send forth judgment unto victory, and the time shall come when from one Sabbath to another all flesh shall come to worship before the Lord. Hereafter, if God will, I will tell the readers of the Review something more concerning the Sabbath-keepers in Bohemia. The incident, however, is a confirmation of the facts stated in the History of the Sabbath, pp. 463, 464. These Sabbath-keepers have existed from the time of the Reformation, and I have no idea that they are now extinct. Elberfeld, Prussia, Feb. 21, 1875.