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Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists - Contents
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    ELDER MATTESON’S CONVERSION AND EARLY LABORS

    IN 1862, John G. Matteson, a young Baptist minister who had come from Denmark only a few years before, received light on the immortality and kingdom questions through papers and books published by the First-day Adventists; and in the fall of the following year he embraced the Sabbath. He was at this time living at Poy Sippi, Wis., and it was here that his attention was called to the subject of the Sabbath through the efforts of Bro. P. H. Cady of that place. Bro. C. had carefully preserved his old Reviews, and had lent them to a Danish brother, who, in turn, lent them to Eld. Matteson. These papers contained the reply of J. M. Aldrich to the “Fifty Unanswerable Arguments against Seventh-day Sabbath-keeping.” This established him on the Sabbath question. The reading of Eld. Waggoner’s “Refutation of the Age-to-Come” helped him out of the labyrinths of the age-to-come theory, and he soon began to preach the doctrines he had embraced. When Eld. Matteson visited Bro. Cady, and after presenting many objections to the Sabbath doctrine, confessed that he had become fully satisfied that the seventh day is the Sabbath, and declared his intention to keep it, Bro. C., who for years had stood alone, and had longed for friends of like faith, shed tears of joy that God had heard his prayers, and blessed his efforts to bring precious light to other minds.HSFM 58.2

    Late in the fall, Eld. M. walked forty miles to become acquainted with the brethren of the Mackford church, and to attend their quarterly meeting. He was much strengthened by this visit, and encouraged by the love and union that he found among the brethren. During the next six months he labored earnestly among his former friends in the vicinity of Poy Sippi, and from thirty to forty began to keep the Sabbath.HSFM 58.3

    During the next four years, Eld. Matteson traveled most of the time, preaching principally to the Scandinavians, and a goodly number of churches were raised up in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Later he labored also in Iowa and Illinois. In those days these western Conferences were not very strong, and many of the American brethren had but little confidence in foreigners; and for the four years’ labor, Eld. Matteson received but twenty dollars from the Conferences. The donations from the friends for whom he labored were scarcely sufficient to meet his necessary expenses, and sometimes he was forced to borrow money in order to reach his field of labor; but the Lord sustained him, and blessed his labors. His wife worked hard, and they lived very economically; and she never called him home from his field of labor on any consideration, although he was sometimes absent from home from six to fifteen months at a time.HSFM 58.4

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