LETTER FROM SWEDEN by A. E. Bruce

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 29, 1879

LETTER FROM SWEDEN.

By A. E. Bruce

Österlings in Stanga, April 15, 1879.

DEAR BROTHER: Your welcome letter has reached me and I hasten to express my thankfulness for it. In answer to the question, How many in this vicinity are keeping the Sabbath and other kindred truths, I will say that there is one, who now lies at the point of death. She is eighty-three years old. There are also Madame Westberg and myself. I am seventy years old. And being old we do not come in close relation with many, so we can do but little in spreading the truth. I have sent a whole volume of the Herald to my friends and acquaintances. They have returned them to me without any reply. Some who have read have expressed an interest in them.

It is now a practice that those who are in any office in the government must lose their wages, if they interest themselves for any other religion than the Lutheran. And even should men search and study for themselves, they expect to obtain no more light than did Dr. Luther and the preachers of the Lutheran sect. Some are afraid of the tracts and hardly dare read them. We get the appellation of Jews. Sunday is with

many the only time for the Sabbath; they say that Jesus was Lord over the Sabbath; they Methodists stand high among both the high and low classes. The Baptists have also a chapel in the southern part of Gottland. There are several sects here, and each is doing all it can to advance its own interests. Every sect believes its own doctrines best, and those who investigate usually find themselves standing at last on the same platform they had at first—uncertain as to what is right. I feel anxious that God's Holy Spirit may enter their hearts. Without the influence of the Holy Spirit there will be no success. Independently, one after another may be persuaded and conscientiously compelled to keep the Lord's Sabbath; but among the masses the Sabbath is of too small account, and with many it is even unnecessary.

May the God of grace bless our American brethren with success in all their efforts. Pray for your friend and brother in Christ.

A. E. BRUCE.

These three were among the first who embraced the truth in Sweden.

JAMES SAWYER.