Passion, Purpose & Power

II. Early Sabbath-Keeping Adventism
1845-1849

10. Acceptance of the Seventh-day Sabbath

Three teens make a difference PPP 48.1

Three teenagers: Marian Stowell (1829-1913), Oswald Stowell (1828-1918), and J. N. Andrews (1829-1883), were among the very first of the former Millerites to accept the seventh-day Sabbath in 1845. PPP 48.2

In the spring of 1845 one of Elder [T. M.] Preble’s tracts was sent to my father,¹⁴ containing extracts from reliable historians telling how the Sabbath—the seventh day of the week—had merged into Sunday observance, with no claim of divine authority for the change. All references to the Bible were hunted out, that were given to me in this wonderful tract. The promise made was fresh in my memory. I expected to stand alone. From my heart I said, “No other day but the one God gave and sanctified will I observe.” PPP 48.3

I handed the tract to my older brother,¹⁵ saying nothing. He was ready to join me. It was Friday; he split up all the wood necessary for over Sunday. I made my usual loaf of cake that I might not be a Sabbath-breaker any longer. PPP 48.4

The next Monday I gave the tract to J. N. Andrews. He read and returned it, saying, “Have your father and mother read this?” PPP 49.1

“No, but I have, and found that we are not keeping the right Sabbath. Are you willing to keep the right Sabbath, Brother John?” PPP 49.2

“Indeed I am. Will you keep it with me, M _____?” PPP 49.3

“Of course, Brother O. and I kept last Sabbath. We will be glad to have you join us; but you take Elder Preble’s tract back for your father and mother to read without saying one word in regard to it.” PPP 49.4

“All right.” PPP 49.5

Very soon came the words, “Have Brother and Sister Stowell read this tract?” PPP 49.6

“No,” was their son’s reply, “but M. and O. have.” PPP 49.7

One room soon held us all. Two families kept the next “Lord’s day,” not the first day of the week, but the one given to our first parents in their Eden home. PPP 49.8

There was missionary work to be done, and no time to lose. My father enclosed a ten-dollar bill in a letter, directed as follows: “To a Seventh-day Baptist Minister, Hopkinton, R. I.” Soon after came Father Griswald, as we called him, bringing with him the ten-dollar package my father had ordered. PPP 49.9

Elder G. was surprised to find us followers of William Miller, and still strong believers in his doctrine after the disappointment. The distribution of these Seventh-day Baptist tracts soon added to our small number seven other families, representing North and South Paris, Norway, and Woodstock, Me. Soon after an excellent tract came from the pen of Elder Joseph Bates, the reading of which brought in our beloved Elder James White and his wife.—Mrs. M. C. Stowell Crawford, “A Letter from a Veteran Worker,” The Watchman, April 25, 1905, p. 278. PPP 49.10

Following the clear light PPP 49.11

Once fully convicted of the seventh-day Sabbath, nothing could stop Joseph Bates from observing it or from sharing it with others. Bates came to be known in Adventist history as “The Apostle of the Sabbath.” PPP 49.12

My friends and neighbors, and especially my family, know that I have for more than twenty years strictly endeavored to keep the first day of the week for the Sabbath, and I can say that I did it in all good conscience before God, on the ocean, and in foreign countries as well as my own, until about sixteen months since I read an article in the Hope of Israel, by a worthy brother, T. M. Preble, of Nashua [New Hampshire], which when I read and compared with the bible [sic.], convinced me that there never had been any change. Therefore the seventh day was the Sabbath, and God required me as well as him to keep it holy. Many things now troubled my mind as to how I could make this great change, family, friends, and brethren but this one passage of scripture was, and always will be as clear as a sunbeam. “What is that to thee: follow thou me.” In a few days my mind was made up to begin to keep the fourth commandment, and I bless God for the clear light he has shed upon my mind in answer to prayer and a thorough examination of the scriptures on this great subject. Contrary views did, after a little, shake my position some, but I feel now that there is no argument nor sophistry that can becloud my mind again this side of the gates of the Holy City.—Joseph Bates, The Seventh-Day Sabbath, A Perpetual Sign, From the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment, 1846, p. 40. PPP 50.1

Prudence Bates was a devoted wife. She had approved of her husband’s spending his money in the cause of the coming of Christ, for she held with him in that. But . . . she was not with him in this new Sabbath truth, nor was she for yet four years. During that time he used to drive with her to her Christian church on Sunday, go home, and come back to get her after service, for he would not keep the pope’s sabbath; he kept the Lord’s Sabbath. In 1850 she followed him into the third angel’s message, with its Sabbath truth, and for twenty years, until her death, she was a devoted and beautiful Sabbathkeeping Christian worker.¹⁶—Arthur W. Spalding, Footprints of the Pioneers, p. 47. PPP 50.2