ITALY

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 25, 1877

Bro. H. P. Ribton, M. D., of southern Italy, writes the following private letter to Bro. Andrews who sends it to us:—

“Dear Bro. Andrews: I send an English translation of an article which I have written in Italian, hoping to be able some day to print it, and which I thought perhaps our brethren in America might like to put into the ADVENT REVIEW; also an article on wine, which I thought might be acceptable to the HEALTH REFORMER.

“In the same enclosure I send, at the request of some of my Italian brethren, an appeal to them, as I mentioned in my last. God will enable me to do the great work I want to do if it be his will. I feel thoroughly with you that the time is short and we ought to make superhuman efforts to save souls. Oh! that the rich would give us the one-thousandth part of what they spend on pleasure and fleshly lusts, and we might encircle the earth with our missionary labor.

“Would you like to bring out an edition of LES SIGNES DES TEMPS in Italian? I could do all the work for you (were I even to devote half the night to it); and we have excellent printing presses here.

“I have one zealous brother, a martyr to his faith (turned out of his home, lost his wife and six children through hardship, and has still four children in great peril through persecution; he is now dependent on his persecuting family for his bread). My wife suggests to me to ask you if you could give him any employment on the journal? He has a peculiar talent for writing and composing, and is practically acquainted with all the work of a printing house. I enclose his last letter; you see what a good hand he writes. He knows French, and would be invaluable if you brought out LES SIGNES DES TEMPS in Italian.

“Thanks for the journals. I will do my best in canvassing for them, and hope to obtain for you some orders soon. Will write again shortly. May God give you an abundant harvest in Switzerland.

“Yours sincerely in the cause of Christ, “H. P. Ribton.”

Bro. Ribton sends the following for the REVIEW:—

To the Seventh-day Adventist brethren in America.

“Dear Brethren: I have been throughout the past year an active laborer in the Lord’s vineyard. Acquainted all my life with the means of grace, it pleased the Lord about a year and a half ago to bring me through a baptism of fire, by which I became in some degree dead to the world, and my eyes were opened to the importance of an implicit obedience to all God’s commandments. I then, in the midst of severe temporal trials and difficulties, became a preacher of his word, and my labors, as far as I was able to carry them on, were blessed. The Lord graciously gave me still more light last summer (which I take as an earnest of his having called me entirely from the world to be a laborer of his), for he sent me, in an extraordinary way, first a journal of the S. D. Baptist brethren in England, which taught me the true nature of the Sabbath, and afterward some numbers of the ADVENT REVIEW AND SABBATH HERALD, which made me acquainted with the third angel’s message. Since then I have felt myself united in spirit with you.

“Dear brethren, I have been stirred with a burning and irrepressible desire to throw myself wholly into missionary work in this beautiful but benighted country, and I have a feeling that God has prepared me through many extraordinary dispensations (which space does not allow me to recount) to become a laborer for you; and that he will send me the means of doing his work through you. I am practiced as a speaker and writer, and speak the language of this country equally with yours. There are fields here white for the harvest. I have around me some faithful brethren, attached to me through the work I have already done, and, if God gives me the means, can make the third angel’s message heard from the Alps to the southernmost point of this peninsula. You have sent it into Switzerland, and a voice within impels me to call to you, like the Macedonian who appeared to Paul in the night visions: Come over into Italy, and help us.

“If it seem good to God, he will enable you to do, not only this, but greater things than these; but whatever be his will, my spirit shall ever be one with yours, and all that he gives me shall ever be devoted to him. May he bless your work, and multiply it abundantly, is the prayer of your brother in the expectation of Christ’s speedy coming, H. P. Ribton.”