Advent Pioneers Biographical Sketches and Pictures

STEPHEN N. HASKELL

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FATHER OF HOME MISSIONARY WORK
April 22, 1833 — February 9, 1922 APBP 12.1

Stephen N. Haskell was a convert of Joseph Bates and an Adventist preacher named William Saxby. He was a soap manufacturer and a soap salesman by trade. But in time he exchanged his soap routes for the missionary preacher’s circuit. APBP 12.2

When he began to preach about 1853, he had no financial support except what he could earn in his business. There were few preachers among the Sabbath-keeping Adventists, so Haskell with his original mind began to train lay members for witnessing. In 1869 he began the tract and missionary work. He was the first to organize tract societies. In 1882, he pioneered an academy in South Lancaster which was destined to become Atlantic Union College. This was the third Seventh-day Adventist school, being antedated only by Battle Creek College and Healdsburg College. APBP 12.3

Haskell was a good organizer and administrator. He served for years as a conference president. In fact, at one time he served as president of the New England and California conferences simultaneously. APBP 12.4

In 1885, Stephen Haskell became a foreign missionary, helping to open the work in Australia and New Zealand. His influence was especially strong in the Australian publishing work. APBP 12.5

As a General Conference minister, he made the first trip undertaken by an Adventist official around the world. That was in 1888 and 1889. He was a careful Bible student and an excellent teacher. To him goes the credit for the concept of Bible readings so popular among Seventh-day Adventist laymen and ministers. He died in 1922, his head topped with the glory of many years and his life graced with many benevolences. APBP 12.6

A Story About Stephen N. Haskell

W. C. White tells the following story about Stephen Haskell’s experience in introducing the Bible reading idea to Seventh-day Adventists: APBP 12.7

“During the camp meetings which I attended with my mother, Ellen White, during the autumn of 1879 and the spring of 1880, Sister White said to our ministers, regarding camp meeting work, that there ought to be less preaching and more teaching. It was some time before this made any serious impression upon Elder Haskell’s mind, but in the spring of 1880, at the Hanford camp meeting, Mother repeated this in such an emphatic way that Elder Haskell was thoroughly aroused, and after thinking the matter over, he invited me (W. C. White) one morning to go with him in the grain field nearby for a season of prayer. He said he could not quite understand what Sister White meant, and we talked the matter over and then prayed about it. Finally he said he would try it and see what he could do, and one forenoon meeting in the big tent he started in, asking questions on leading features of our faith and asking the brethren to look up the texts that he cited, and read them. APBP 12.8

“When the meeting had proceeded this way for perhaps half an hour, it began to rain, and when it came time for the meeting to close it was raining exceedingly hard and no one desired to leave the tent. So Elder Haskell extended his Bible studies until the meeting had continued nearly two hours. The people seemed delighted with the instruction and with the method in which it was given, and they asked that other studies be conducted in the same manner, and thus as far as I know, the Bible reading work in which Elder Haskell led out and others enthusiastically joined in, was begun.” — The Ministry, December 1948, p.21. APBP 12.9

The plan that Elder Haskell inaugurated was called “fireside preaching.” The name “Bible readings” came to birth at a camp meeting in Lemoore, California. The idea caught hold like wildfire. In Los Angeles, San Francisco, Healdsburg and San Jose, interest ran high — also at the Upper Columbia camp meeting in Washington State. The California Conference passed the first formal resolution recommending the plan of Bible readings. A course of instruction was offered in Healdsburg for lay people who wanted to serve in the field holding Bible readings. Then in Michigan and Indiana, at the camp meetings held there, the plan was adopted. APBP 13.1

An institute for teaching Adventists to give Bible readings was begun at Battle Creek on October 30, 1883. Three hundred people joined the class under the leadership of S. N. Haskell. The attendance increased until it passed the thousand mark. These people were called “helps” (1 Corinthians 12:28). The monthly Bible Reading Gazette was born in 1884. The Bible readings were not short and simple as they are today. The first one had 149 questions! APBP 13.2

Today the Bible reading plan is one of the most successful means that Seventh-day Adventists have of winning people to the truth. APBP 13.3

See: The Bible Instructor in Personal and Public Evangelism by Louise C. Kleuser, pp.350-351; also, “Origin of Our Bible Work” in Ministry magazine, December, 1948. APBP 13.4