John Nevins Andrews
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John Nevins Andrews was born in Poland, Maine, July 22, 1829, and was reared in the State of his birth. He did not enjoy the blessings of a higher education, but was a self-made man. As such he was well educated. He was the type of person who loves study and could gather information and develop himself independently. Through his own efforts in this way he gained a working knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. These subjects he pursued with the motive of understanding the Scriptures and gaining a fuller knowledge of God's purpose for man as revealed in His Book.

Although he was only a boy of fifteen at the time of the 1844 movement, he had a deep spiritual experience, looked earnestly for the coming of the Lord in October, 1844, and passed through the refining fiery ordeal of disappointment and persecution at that time. During the period of uncertainty following the great disappointment, he came in contact with the little group that was preaching the third angel's message. As a result, he took his stand with Joseph Bates and Mr. and Mrs. White publicly in a meeting at Paris, Maine, September 14, 1849, and accordingly became one of the quartet of outstanding early founders of the Seventh-day Adventist movement.

When only twenty-one years of age this earnest youth held an important place at this incipient period of the denominational development, and became a shining example of what consecrated young people can do, once their whole heart is in God's truth. At twenty-one he became one of the leading writers for the Review. His article in the May number of 1851 occupied five full pages, and is believed to be the first detailed exposition of the thirteenth chapter of Revelation, interpreting the two-horned beast as the United States.

It fell to the lot of this youthful warrior to battle for the Sabbath, and especially against the "no law" teaching that rose in those days under such men as O. R. L. Crosier. Though self-effacing by nature, he was bold as a lion in contending for truth. It deeply grieved young Andrews that Crosier, who with Hiram Edson had helped to write out the exposition of the sanctuary truth, should now fight against the Sabbath. He wrote Crosier:

"Deeply have I regretted the course pursued by yourself. . . . I know very well that such men as J. B. Cook, yourself and others, who have drawn back from obedience to the fourth commandment, can exert a greater influence against it than those who have never obeyed it. I have loved you both, for the testimony you once bore to the truth of God. My heart has bled to witness your strange course since. But I leave you to the mercy of that God, whose commandments you dare to fight." -- In The Review and Herald, Aug. 5, 1852.

Poor Crosier, who turned from the truths he had for a little time acknowledged, never left his mark in any other living movement, whereas our pioneers were founding a work that circles the globe and brings abundant fruitage of redeemed souls in all parts of the world.

The next few years were spent in traveling from place to place seeking out those who were ready to listen to an unpopular message from the mouth of a youth. The long journeys, accompanied as they were by tiresome riding with few conveniences and amid the greatest hardships, were destined soon to undermine the health of the frail worker. A letter written by Hiram Edson in 1851, during a journey through New York and Pennsylvania with Mr. Andrews, gives the twentieth-century reader some idea of the difficulties these brethren encountered:

"A portion of our journey was through a country that was new. The roads were new and rough, over cradle knolls, stumps, and rough log ways, slough holes, and trees fallen across our pathway. Much of our route was through deep valleys, and deep and narrow ravines, with almost perpendicular banks, so that fallen trees reaching across the ravine from bank to bank, were many feet above our heads as we drove through beneath them. Then again we were climbing the mountains and high hills of the Alleghenies.

"But being guided by the good hand of our God, we found a goodly number of the Lord's scattered but chosen ones, here and there, upon the mountains and high hills, famishing for the bread of life, to whom was given a 'portion of meat in due season.'"

Winter and summer he traveled and wrote. One worker, writing during the winter, spoke of the deep snows and arctic blasts that beat through the raiment of the none too heavily clad itinerant. In the morning the man of God awoke with his beard covered with frost and ice as the result of the moisture of his breath congealing in the unheated spare room or cold cabin. And yet, in spite of the hardships, in a letter written October 27, 1851, he said:

"In the midst of tribulation and affliction my soul is joyful in God. I was never more deeply impressed with the importance of the work in which we are engaged, than at the present time. My heart is bound up in it, and in a work so sacred I would cheerfully spend and be spent. Souls are perishing, who may now be reached, the time for labor is short, the night in which no man can work is at hand. Shall we not, then, while the day lasts, do what we can, so that by any means we may save some?"

In the autumn of 1852 Mr. Andrews held a series of meetings at Rochester, New York. At one of these meetings J. N. Loughborough, a minister of the Sunday-keeping Adventists, came with an array of Bible texts in hand to refute the Sabbath-keeper's argument. To Mr. Loughborough's great surprise the youthful speaker answered every objection from the Word of God even before it was presented. As a result of this and the following meetings, Mr. Loughborough cast in his lot with the Sabbatarians.

About this time James White invited some of the Advent believers living in the East to move to Iowa, secure homes cheaply, and bring the third angel's message to that new State. Among the first of these were Edward Andrews and his wife, the father and mother of J. N. Andrews, who left Maine and settled in the northeast corner of the State in the autumn of 1855. Mr. Andrews, 'broken in health, came with his parents to help hew a home from the virgin wilderness.

He spent that winter clerking in his uncle's store at Waukon, and in the spring the elder Andrews secured a quarter section of fertile Iowa land about three miles south of the village, where they were joined by their former neighbors of Maine, the Stevens family. They purchased tools, implements, oxen, and other farming necessities, and built log houses and barns. They evidently gave a good report of the land, for during the summer other families followed, until by autumn the company numbered about thirty. Among these were families that were later to shine brilliantly in denominational leadership.

In the autumn of 1856 Mr. Andrews married Angeline S. Stevens, whose parents, as has been stated, had also moved from Paris, Maine, and settled in Iowa near the parental home of Mr. Andrews.

In February, 1858, he attended a conference at Round Grove, Illinois. J. H. Waggoner, in reporting this meeting, speaks of having met Mr. Andrews for the first time, and states that all partook of his feelings when on this occasion he thanked God as he heard Mr. Andrews vindicate the truths of the third angel's message in a clear and convincing manner, and express his determination to devote his time thereafter to the work.

However, this wish to give his entire time to the work was not realized until the following summer, when, after the General Conference held in June, 1869, he went with Mr. Loughborough to assist in the Michigan tent effort.

On August 29, 1864, J. N. Andrews left Battle Creek for Washington, D.C., to attempt to secure for Seventh-day Adventists, recognition from the War Department as conscientious objectors, and to ask for them assignment to noncombatant service in hospitals and elsewhere, in order that they might not be compelled to take human life. He was kindly received by Abraham Lincoln's government and his request was granted. This move, the first of its kind by Seventh-day Adventists, set a precedent that has become part of the Adventist belief, and developed into the National Service Organization of the church.

As early as 1864, as the importance of reforms in the manner of living was seen by the ministers, Mr. Andrews began to advocate healthful living through the columns of the Review. Other ministers advocated the same thing. When instruction came to this people through revelation to Mrs. White that Seventh-day Adventists should establish a health institution of their own, there was a hearty response, and the first Adventist health institution, known as the Western Health Reform Institute, was opened in Battle Creek, September 5, 1866.

On May 14, 1867, Mr. Andrews was elected president of the General Conference and filled the office one term, which at that time was one year.

The first Seventh-day Adventist camp meeting was held at Wright, Michigan, opening September 1, 1868. One of the leading lights at this meeting was J. N. Andrews, whose scholarly sermons were delivered with great freedom. His pointed messages were filled with tenderness and sympathy.

The next few years Mr. Andrews spent in faithful ministry, making long journeys from place to place in winter and journeying from camp meeting to camp meeting in the summer months.

During the decade of the sixties he produced his best lasting literary work, History of the Sabbath and First Day of the Week. This book was the result of painstaking historical research, and although nearly a century has elapsed since its writing, the revised edition remains a standard publication among Seventh-day Adventists today.

In 1872 his wife died, leaving her husband with two adolescent children, Charles and Mary. In the sixties the providence of God opened the way for our work to enter Europe. Michael B. Czechowski, a Polish Catholic immigrant to America, came into contact with the Seventh-day Adventists at a tent effort at Findlay, Ohio. He had been educated for the priesthood, but in reaching out for greater light, had severed his connection with the church. After accepting the message he preached for a time in New York. Anxious to take the message of the Sabbath and the soon coming of Christ back to his European friends, and not waiting for support from his Sabbath-keeping brethren, he solicited funds from friendly first-day Adventists and returned to take up labor in the Piedmont valleys among the Waldensians. He entered Switzerland, and in addition to publishing a paper, called the Everlasting Gospel, he published tracts in both German and French. Becoming discouraged, he left his converts, went to Romania, and began the same work there. Before long, letters from the believers in Switzerland began arriving at the denominational headquarters. The believers were invited to send a representative to America. In response they sent a young man named James Erzenberger, who stayed a year and a third, and returned to Europe in 1870. These events awakened the Adventists to their responsibility to the world. Prior to this time the burden of beginning the work in America had blinded them to the true meaning of the gospel charge, "Go ye into all the world."

Taking cognizance of this wider call of God, The General Conference session of 1874, on August 15, voted that Mr. Andrews go to Europe in answer to the providential openings there. This step was a momentous and revolutionary one. The selection of Mr. Andrews was a tribute to the scholarly worker, for it is needless to say that the members of the General Conference were anxious to select a strong man for this first overseas mission effort on the part of Seventh-day Adventists.

P. Z. Kinne, of Middletown, New York, who was well acquainted with Mr. Andrews, said that at one time it was reported that Mr. Andrews could repeat the Bible from memory. Mr. Loughborough, hearing of it, accosted him one day: "John, I hear you can repeat the whole Bible; is that so?" He answered, "So far as the New Testament is concerned, if it was obliterated, I could reproduce it word for word; but I would not say as much of the Old Testament." This was confirmed by Mr. Andrews' son.

Exactly one month after his appointment, J. N. Andrews sailed from Boston. Arriving in Switzerland, he organized the work and became in effect the first president of the European Division.

Few can realize the task before him when he faced his work as the first Seventh-day Adventist worker sent overseas. The idea of the denomination's having a representative thousands of miles away was entirely new. The General Conference Committee, far removed from the problems in a distant field, could not understand the difficult circumstances under which Mr. Andrews labored. Furthermore, precedents had to be set. Mr. Andrews was a pioneer, establishing precedents and struggling to formulate policies and methods of work. This, together with natural prejudices of any people for a foreigner, made his work very heavy.

During his first year in this strange land the most prominent place on his daily program was reserved for the study of French. A little later he added Italian and German, for not only were these three languages spoken in Switzerland, but the mastery of them was necessary to the forwarding of the message in the other countries of Europe. Soon a large correspondence with scattered interested ones claimed his attention. Then came the work of instructing the believers more fully and organizing them into a church and a tract society. Finally he prepared tracts, which were published in the French language. At the end of the first year there were seventy-five known Sabbathkeeping Adventists in Europe.

On a stormy winter day, January 8, 1876, the first worker from America arrived to stand by the side of the pioneer worker, who had labored without any of his fellow countrymen for more than a year. This worker was D. T. Bourdeau. He brought courage and a tangible evidence of sympathy from America. The same year the General Conference voted to raise $10,000 for a European publishing house. Mr. Andrews established this institution at Basel, Switzerland, and in July the same year began the publication of Les Signes des Temps ("The Signs of the Times"). He personally edited this paper until his death.

Early in September, 1878, Mr. Andrews received a cablegram from the brethren in America directing him to attend the General Conference to be held at Battle Creek in October. He left Europe, taking with him his daughter, Mary, who was suffering from consumption. He had hopes that the Battle Creek Sanitarium would be able to arrest the disease. With untiring faithfulness and loving paternal hope he watched by her side day by day, only to lose the battle, for she passed away in November. The loss of this seventeen-year-old child, the hope of his life, was almost too much for the bereft father, who had pinned his fondest hopes on this daughter, who had learned the language and was developing into what he felt sure would be a great help to him. In his sorrow after this bereavement he spoke to Mr. Kinne: "I seem to be having hold upon God with a numb hand."

At this time Mrs. White wrote a beautiful letter of consolation, an extract from which is herewith given:

"In my last vision, I saw you. Your head was inclined toward the earth, and you were following in tears your beloved Mary to her last dwelling place in this world. Then I saw the Lord looking upon you full of love and compassion. I saw the coming of Him who is to give life to our mortal bodies, and your wife and children came out of their graves clad in immortal splendor."

Fearing for his health, Mr. and Mrs. White persuaded him to stay in America for the winter. He attended the General Conference in April and preached the dedicatory sermon at the Battle Creek Tabernacle. He sailed for Europe in May, but had to stop in England to rest before going farther. He arrived in Basel, August 11, after an absence of nearly a year. From this time on it seemed the source of his vitality was sapped. His physical powers gradually declined. Yet his mental powers seemed unimpaired and he became wrapped up in the silent ministry of the printed page. In spite of other duties and of ill-health he produced a large quantity of literature. During the seven years from 1876 to 1883 he wrote more than 480 articles, or an average of five or six a month.

Elder Andrews for some years had been threatened with tuberculosis of the lungs. The damp climate of Europe evidently hastened the development of this most dreaded scourge of the nineteenth century, commonly called the white plague.

In July, 1880, the Review stated that Mr. Andrews was reported quite feeble and it was feared that consumption would soon terminate his important labors. The situation was so critical that July 24, 1880, was appointed as a day of prayer for his recovery. After this Mr. Andrews felt better and expressed the conviction that God would restore his health, although he was feeble and his cough was bad at times. He was invited to go to America, but declined, for he felt the trip would prove fatal. That autumn he spent a number of weeks in England in company with Mr. Loughborough. The best physicians in England prescribed that he get away from the fogs of the British Isles, and he returned to Switzerland.

In the latter part of the year 1882 the General Conference sent S. N. Haskell to visit Mr. Andrews, to help him with his work and to encourage him. On seeing the need of larger quarters for the growing work and the increasing institutional family, Mr. Haskell rented a new building twice the size of the place then occupied, and since his sick colaborer would have shrunk from the task of moving, he tactfully had the task performed while the two friends were absent on a pleasant trip together.

One year later, in February, 1883, Mr. Andrews wrote:

"Our missionary work in Central Europe was never so interesting as at the present time. We bestow much labor and care upon the preparation of our journal.

I have still to contend with serious difficulty in my lungs, and I am conscious that I may be suddenly taken away. I have been able to work during the past three years by what seems to me a constant miracle. Every month, whatever may be my condition of feebleness, the Spirit of God comes upon me, and enables me to perform much work on Les Signes des Temps. The shadow of death has rested heavily upon me this winter, but it has seemed to me, for several weeks past, that God has been turning the shadow of death into morning."

He continued to write and read proof in bed in spite of entreaties of his friends that he spare his strength.

At the time of Dr. J. H. Kellogg's visit in the spring of 1883 on his way back to America from Vienna, where he had been doing postgraduate study, he could do nothing for the sick man. The doctor was so struck with the intensity of Mr. Andrews' interest in his work, however, and the broad plans he was laying, that he wrote a pathetic appeal to America urging that everything in the power of the General Conference should be done to save the life of this man of God.

In response to this appeal the General Conference sent a number of workers to aid the dying missionary. Mr. Andrews' aged mother and B. L. Whitney, a special friend of his, were sent to be with the solitary and worn-out worker. Nothing more could have been done by way of earthly comfort in his trying hour. Mr. Whitney reported that when they arrived, the last of July, the patient was wasted almost to a skeleton, was able to take only a few steps with great effort, and could sit up only a little while during the day. Yet though the prospect of death was very near, he clung to his work and to life for the sake of his work.

The humility and consecration of this man of God is seen in this extract from a letter written on his fifty-fourth birthday, July 22, 1883:

"Today I enter my fifty-fifth year. My life seems wholly filled with faults. I pray that I may be thoroughly cleansed in the blood of Christ." Day by day he grew weaker until on the morning of the twenty-first of October he said that he wished he might die that day. The leading brethren were called in for the last time to pray for the recovery of their fellow worker. Late that afternoon these workers gathered around the bedside to petition God in behalf of the sick man who lay motionless, only whispering now and then to his mother, who stood by the side of her dying son. When the brethren arose from their knees, "the sun was setting in the cloudless west, its golden rays filling the room, while the aged lady was quietly fanning the face of her dying son. It was a scene of solemn stillness. Heaven seemed near. Presently Albert Vuilleumier, who was standing at the foot of the bed, took out his eyeglasses, and, looking intently at the tranquil face, exclaimed, 'Why, he is dead!' So he was. He had passed away so peacefully that not one among the bystanders had noticed it."

He died October 21, 1883, and was buried near the work he loved so much at Basel.

The same spirit of self-abnegation that actuated him during his whole life is seen in his anticipation of death, when, months before his decease, he solemnly charged the Review that no words of eulogy appear in the paper.

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