Good morning and welcome to Spring Camp meeting 00:01:02.43\00:01:05.92 2010 here at the 3ABN worship center. You know 00:01:06.29\00:01:10.12 when you see a bunch of great looking people 00:01:10.27\00:01:11.92 standing before you and you've got a suit on and 00:01:12.12\00:01:13.89 a microphone you almost want to automatically say 00:01:13.98\00:01:15.77 happy Sabbath. It just seems to fit. And then 00:01:16.06\00:01:18.58 of course the next thing you want to say is shall 00:01:18.61\00:01:20.81 we have the offering. It seems we just go when 00:01:20.93\00:01:23.50 you got a bunch of people together but we welcome 00:01:23.53\00:01:25.30 you today number two of our camp meeting 00:01:25.34\00:01:28.36 encounter with the Lord. And if you were with us 00:01:29.59\00:01:31.94 last night you know we had a wonderful 00:01:32.09\00:01:33.36 time in the Lord didn't we. 00:01:33.50\00:01:34.51 Two powerful presentations, one by 00:01:35.18\00:01:36.86 Dr. Bill Knott and other by our friend the 00:01:37.07\00:01:40.20 roadrunner we call him David Asscherick. 00:01:40.42\00:01:42.32 And he did stand still long enough to give us a 00:01:44.43\00:01:46.46 powerful word from the Lord. Until this morning 00:01:46.63\00:01:49.53 sitting is going to really be a great one because 00:01:49.66\00:01:52.00 I am a lover of Adventist history and Bill Knott 00:01:52.26\00:01:56.70 is going to be telling us about Adventist History. 00:01:56.76\00:01:58.31 He is of course the editor editor of the Adventist 00:01:58.34\00:02:01.36 review and is doing a very, very fine job in that 00:02:01.53\00:02:04.14 capacity, a preacher of the word and a student of 00:02:04.32\00:02:07.06 Adventist history and we will hear in this particular 00:02:07.15\00:02:10.55 seminar some of the nuggets he has gleaned 00:02:10.70\00:02:13.22 over the years as pastor, editor, writer and author 00:02:13.78\00:02:17.18 in the Adventist Church. But before he comes, 00:02:17.48\00:02:19.33 our friend Darrell Marshall is here. 00:02:19.77\00:02:21.25 Now, I've got a little secret I heard about 00:02:21.36\00:02:23.27 Darrell Marshall. He is going to getting 00:02:23.57\00:02:25.53 married very soon and I, I told him backstage, 00:02:25.85\00:02:30.32 all of those women is going to be weeping, 00:02:30.71\00:02:32.24 wailing and gnashing of teeth. Because Darrell 00:02:32.44\00:02:36.46 Marshall would no longer be available, but he has 00:02:36.49\00:02:38.53 been by himself for a while now as you know his 00:02:38.67\00:02:41.76 wife died tragically several years ago and 00:02:41.98\00:02:45.58 he has dedicated himself to ministry. But somebody 00:02:45.74\00:02:47.92 caught his eye and his ear. His future wife 00:02:48.22\00:02:52.18 is an expert organist on the Hammond B3. 00:02:52.38\00:02:55.86 And if you know anything about the Hammond B3, 00:02:55.91\00:02:57.29 that's a particular organ with a great sound and 00:02:57.50\00:03:00.45 she is an expert organist. So she played just the 00:03:00.68\00:03:03.56 right note and landed a big fish. 00:03:03.65\00:03:07.48 Darrell Marshall is coming to sing 00:03:09.33\00:03:10.75 'there is a river' and then after him without 00:03:11.06\00:03:13.74 further ado our presentation on Adventist 00:03:13.87\00:03:16.25 history will come from Dr. Bill Knott, 00:03:16.28\00:03:17.88 editor of the Adventist Review. 00:03:18.05\00:03:19.55 There is a river and it flows from deep within. 00:03:36.96\00:03:55.16 There is a fountain and it frees the soul from sin. 00:03:56.79\00:04:15.16 Come to these waters, for there is a vast supply. 00:04:16.81\00:04:34.82 There is a river that never shall run dry. 00:04:36.84\00:04:54.96 There came a thirsty woman, 00:04:56.39\00:05:03.73 and she was drawing from a well. 00:05:06.32\00:05:13.34 You see her life, it was ruined and wasted, 00:05:15.95\00:05:24.12 and her soul was bound for Hell. 00:05:25.99\00:05:33.57 Oh! But then she met the Master, 00:05:34.53\00:05:45.23 and he told her of her sin 00:05:46.09\00:05:53.50 He said if you'll drink from this water, 00:05:56.06\00:06:04.58 you'll never thirst again. 00:06:06.03\00:06:14.73 There is a river and it flows from deep within. 00:06:16.67\00:06:35.20 There is a fountain and it frees the soul from sin. 00:06:36.77\00:06:54.43 Come to these waters, for there 00:06:56.76\00:07:06.59 is a vast supply. 00:07:06.85\00:07:13.70 There is a river that never shall run dry. 00:07:16.88\00:07:37.46 Amen. Amen. She wasn't pretty, 00:07:40.09\00:07:55.51 she wasn't witty, she wasn't charming or famous 00:07:57.53\00:08:02.86 or rich but her story changed the life of the 00:08:03.48\00:08:09.71 Seventh-Day Adventist church and it's changed 00:08:09.83\00:08:13.53 my life too. I want to tell you this morning 00:08:13.68\00:08:17.06 about a remarkable woman who many of you 00:08:18.15\00:08:20.60 may never have heard of, those of us who have 00:08:20.88\00:08:24.68 grown up in this faith will remember some small 00:08:24.84\00:08:29.80 pieces of a story that ended badly, described in 00:08:30.06\00:08:34.02 first and second volume of testimonies. 00:08:34.13\00:08:36.21 We will get to that in a movement but I want to 00:08:37.27\00:08:39.30 show you first a picture of a woman named Hannah 00:08:39.46\00:08:42.85 More. Her story begins in a town called Union 00:08:43.11\00:08:49.41 Connecticut. I happened to know quite a lot about 00:08:49.76\00:08:52.40 Union Connecticut because I was the pastor of the 00:08:52.56\00:08:55.90 district that included Union Connecticut but 00:08:55.99\00:08:58.29 never knew her story when I worked there. 00:08:58.46\00:09:00.69 I drove the back roads of Union all the time. 00:09:02.69\00:09:05.41 Union is one of those towns that got settled 00:09:06.11\00:09:09.03 last and least because it's a very poor farming 00:09:09.06\00:09:12.31 territory. It's a jumble of rocks and ponds and 00:09:12.37\00:09:15.79 twisted pine trees and it's difficult to get any 00:09:15.97\00:09:18.68 flat acreage to grow much on. And the New England 00:09:18.93\00:09:22.25 farmers who tried to make a living there mostly did 00:09:22.42\00:09:24.90 it with dairy and with a few subsistence crops. 00:09:24.93\00:09:29.02 Hannah More's parents were no exception, 00:09:29.53\00:09:31.49 they were trying to raise a family and eke out a 00:09:31.52\00:09:35.11 living on a farm that almost exactly straddled 00:09:35.28\00:09:38.30 the Connecticut Massachusetts border 00:09:38.39\00:09:40.23 in Northeastern Connecticut. 00:09:40.51\00:09:42.01 Hannah was born is 1808, just a few months before 00:09:42.86\00:09:46.74 Abraham Lincoln. So, she is a contemporary of many 00:09:46.95\00:09:50.75 of the figures of early Adventism and of American 00:09:50.78\00:09:53.55 history in the 19th century that you are 00:09:53.65\00:09:55.51 familiar with. She grew up in the 00:09:55.85\00:09:59.26 Congregationalist faith that was the dominant 00:09:59.40\00:10:01.74 religion of New England at the time. In fact I will 00:10:01.86\00:10:04.76 show you a picture here of her home church in 00:10:04.95\00:10:07.78 Union. It's still a functioning 00:10:07.93\00:10:09.98 congressionalist church I know I was just there 00:10:10.78\00:10:13.43 with them last fall. They've invited me to 00:10:13.55\00:10:15.77 come back and tell her story in the church she 00:10:16.02\00:10:18.77 used to worship in, that comes up soon I hope. 00:10:18.84\00:10:21.40 She grew up there as part of the great revivals of 00:10:23.02\00:10:26.24 the 1810's and 20's role through New England. 00:10:26.39\00:10:30.06 The second great awakening was happening 00:10:31.33\00:10:32.97 over almost a 50 years span from about 00:10:33.03\00:10:35.59 1800 to 1850 in America and it rolled through 00:10:35.87\00:10:39.95 New England in successive waves, bringing more 00:10:40.09\00:10:42.60 and more people to revived faith in Jesus 00:10:42.75\00:10:45.06 Christ and ultimately sowing the seeds of the 00:10:45.35\00:10:49.44 Millerite movement and Adventism as we know 00:10:49.50\00:10:51.58 it today. But Hannah More was one to faith as 00:10:51.61\00:10:54.93 young child and took her stand for Jesus publicly 00:10:55.06\00:10:59.07 at the age of 12 in that Union Connecticut church. 00:10:59.12\00:11:01.94 She was from a family of all girls save one 00:11:03.56\00:11:06.58 younger brother and I have a sense that 00:11:06.74\00:11:09.64 there must have been something special going 00:11:10.67\00:11:12.37 on in the More household. There must have been a 00:11:12.40\00:11:15.64 kind of intellectual climate some would call 00:11:15.86\00:11:18.26 it today, a place of learning and activity 00:11:18.29\00:11:21.32 because the More girls particularly became well 00:11:21.54\00:11:24.57 known in the Union Connecticut community 00:11:24.83\00:11:26.76 and in surrounding towns for their amazing 00:11:27.08\00:11:29.87 memories. When Hannah would go to Sunday 00:11:29.99\00:11:33.51 school with her sisters, the other children when 00:11:33.73\00:11:37.30 asked to recite Bible verses for their memory 00:11:37.40\00:11:39.92 verses would all shake their heads and just 00:11:40.13\00:11:42.65 point at the More sisters because they would 00:11:42.87\00:11:45.17 rattle off 200 and more verses at a time. Amen. 00:11:45.33\00:11:48.78 One of her contemporaries tells us from later 00:11:50.05\00:11:52.22 in life that Hannah More had the entire 00:11:52.33\00:11:55.43 New Testament memorized and portions of the Old. 00:11:55.69\00:11:58.59 And you thought J.N. Andrews was the only one 00:11:59.41\00:12:01.49 who had accomplished that. No, in fact God was 00:12:02.06\00:12:05.57 working in lives in many places including this 00:12:05.82\00:12:08.44 humble life in Union Connecticut. 00:12:08.58\00:12:11.18 Hannah with these amazing intellectual gifts 00:12:12.70\00:12:15.51 this memory gift that God had given her, 00:12:15.99\00:12:18.21 longed to do something with her life that 00:12:18.52\00:12:20.63 mattered more, she felt than milking cows and 00:12:20.78\00:12:23.97 working on a dairy farm with her family. 00:12:24.99\00:12:27.42 She knew she said that she had been dedicated 00:12:28.00\00:12:30.41 to the Lord from before her birth and she had 00:12:30.56\00:12:34.57 made her own commitments and by the time she 00:12:34.76\00:12:37.32 was in her late teens she had already begun to 00:12:37.37\00:12:39.89 seek work a public school teacher in the 00:12:40.20\00:12:42.62 many little school houses around that area of 00:12:42.70\00:12:44.81 Connecticut. We have recovered letters and 00:12:45.04\00:12:47.16 fragments of her time there, but she really 00:12:47.19\00:12:49.52 didn't want to be a school teacher in a public 00:12:49.60\00:12:51.35 school system the rest of her career what she 00:12:51.55\00:12:53.79 really wanted to be above all else was a missionary. 00:12:54.03\00:12:57.96 There was just one problem, if a woman 00:12:58.98\00:13:01.69 wanted to be a missionary she better have a husband 00:13:05.26\00:13:06.23 and Hannah as a young adult was not exactly the 00:13:06.79\00:13:10.23 kind of person by her giftedness and her strong 00:13:10.26\00:13:13.38 personality that was going to leave young man 00:13:13.56\00:13:16.00 weeping in the Isles. Hannah was a school 00:13:16.16\00:13:19.83 teacher, she was a clear, thoughtful, articulate 00:13:19.96\00:13:22.62 woman with these amazing skills as I mentioned 00:13:22.77\00:13:25.82 it and it seemed that while her sisters each 00:13:25.85\00:13:28.46 found husbands Hannah did not. She began 00:13:28.67\00:13:32.82 writing the mission boards in her late 20s, 00:13:32.94\00:13:36.32 I want to go as a missionary she said. 00:13:37.07\00:13:39.41 And they wrote back and said just as soon as your 00:13:40.24\00:13:41.92 married and she would continue writing even as 00:13:42.29\00:13:45.66 she continued public school teaching for eight 00:13:45.88\00:13:48.38 years she wrote the mission boards in Boston 00:13:48.59\00:13:51.31 pleading for an opportunity to go and 00:13:51.74\00:13:54.00 serve as a missionary particularly in one region. 00:13:54.20\00:13:56.77 While she would have liked to go to Africa, 00:13:57.68\00:13:59.27 her heart she said was set on going to the area 00:14:00.22\00:14:03.77 then known as Indian Territory, present-day 00:14:03.96\00:14:08.56 Oklahoma. The region in which the five civilized 00:14:08.67\00:14:13.04 tribes of the American southeast to which they 00:14:13.17\00:14:16.29 had been forced to go on the trail of tears 00:14:16.47\00:14:19.13 when they were driven out of Georgia, 00:14:19.41\00:14:20.54 North Carolina and Tennessee by state 00:14:20.70\00:14:22.94 militias and the United States president did 00:14:22.98\00:14:26.25 nothing to stop the injustice. Lawful 00:14:26.52\00:14:29.39 landowners, individuals who had long titles to 00:14:29.66\00:14:34.21 those lands were driven out, whole families and 00:14:34.25\00:14:36.79 clans, thousands of them died on the trail 00:14:36.82\00:14:39.71 of tears. And by the early 1830's as these stories 00:14:39.74\00:14:42.92 were washing through New England Hannah's 00:14:42.95\00:14:44.98 mind burned with a desire to do something to 00:14:45.30\00:14:48.30 help this afflicted people. So she kept 00:14:48.39\00:14:51.25 writing the mission board, let me go to Indian 00:14:51.32\00:14:54.30 Territories she said and they said you must be 00:14:54.55\00:14:57.56 crazy. You're a single woman but you know 00:14:57.67\00:15:00.37 persistence often pays off and eight years of 00:15:00.55\00:15:03.42 writing they either got tired or something and 00:15:03.67\00:15:06.17 soon someone from the mission board came out 00:15:06.43\00:15:09.05 to where Hannah was attending the refresher 00:15:09.24\00:15:10.98 school course in Western Massachusetts. 00:15:11.26\00:15:13.41 They interviewed her and they realized that 00:15:13.60\00:15:15.84 she had the gifts of a teacher and a missionary 00:15:16.04\00:15:19.08 though she wasn't married yet. In fact 00:15:19.86\00:15:21.72 the mission board president, who became 00:15:23.23\00:15:24.89 famous later in the century is one of the 00:15:25.04\00:15:26.89 most prominent mission directors in the country. 00:15:26.96\00:15:29.65 He said in cryptic line about Hannah, I will not 00:15:33.38\00:15:34.35 say that she is ill formed but she is better 00:15:34.36\00:15:36.25 suited to a teacher than a wife. 00:15:36.40\00:15:38.49 So much for male chauvinism. Hannah 00:15:40.99\00:15:46.08 finally got that opportunity in 1840. 00:15:46.34\00:15:49.12 A call to go and work at Dwight mission and what 00:15:49.90\00:15:52.53 is now Eastern Oklahoma in the middle of Cherokee 00:15:52.90\00:15:55.70 Territory where the Cherokee had been 00:15:55.85\00:15:57.70 resettled after being driven out of the southeast. 00:15:57.73\00:16:00.61 But getting there was going to take some doing. 00:16:02.39\00:16:04.64 The mission board wrote and said, by which method 00:16:05.76\00:16:09.09 of water would you prefer to travel canal 00:16:09.15\00:16:11.56 boat, steam boat and she said I frankly don't know, 00:16:11.81\00:16:16.23 I have never been on water longer than to 00:16:16.35\00:16:17.84 cross the Connecticut River. The thought of 00:16:21.90\00:16:22.87 making a 2500 mile journey down rivers and 00:16:22.88\00:16:25.10 across up and up other river branches was 00:16:25.76\00:16:28.57 daunting but Hannah didn't stop it much. 00:16:28.81\00:16:31.15 She traveled down to Pittsburgh with another 00:16:32.31\00:16:34.16 missionary couple then boarded a boat on the 00:16:34.19\00:16:37.04 Ohio, went down to the Mississippi, sailed down 00:16:37.30\00:16:40.24 the Mississippi and eventually up on a 00:16:40.27\00:16:42.49 tributary into eastern Oklahoma. And they 00:16:42.53\00:16:45.71 let her off, they let her off as evening fell at a 00:16:45.74\00:16:50.43 little isolated wharf with a single cabin. 00:16:50.65\00:16:53.38 She by herself, the family that met her 00:16:55.53\00:16:58.71 there said well it's dark, you probably want to 00:16:58.83\00:17:01.38 stay here tonight and she did. Discovering the 00:17:01.60\00:17:06.55 next morning that she had already met the first 00:17:06.90\00:17:09.06 Native Americans, because that was the family 00:17:09.14\00:17:11.80 that hosted her. It was another day and half 00:17:11.91\00:17:14.03 journey by horse pack fording streams riding 00:17:14.14\00:17:17.11 through uncharted areas with an Indian guide that 00:17:17.27\00:17:19.90 got her to Dwight mission and let me tell you 00:17:20.19\00:17:21.91 I have been to Dwight mission several times 00:17:22.30\00:17:24.32 it's still difficult to get there. You have to know 00:17:24.40\00:17:27.36 where to get how to do it and no GPS will get 00:17:27.39\00:17:29.88 you there. She arrived at Dwight mission for 00:17:30.01\00:17:34.59 what would be a seven years stay with no 00:17:34.62\00:17:37.08 furloughs. Seven years away from her family in 00:17:37.59\00:17:41.35 New England. Away from her aging parents, 00:17:41.38\00:17:44.49 seven years devoted to the people she had come 00:17:45.59\00:17:48.15 to serve, whose cause she had taken up in her 00:17:48.26\00:17:50.97 heart. She wanted justice done for them, she wanted 00:17:51.15\00:17:53.83 the gospel in their life and she was determined 00:17:53.92\00:17:56.44 that God was gonna use her to bring it. 00:17:56.56\00:17:58.30 Amen. Amen. At the mission station 00:17:59.17\00:18:01.17 she was the dormitory dean. She taught classes, 00:18:01.38\00:18:05.13 she served as a cook, she thought embroidery 00:18:05.54\00:18:08.24 and needlework. We have recovered a picture of 00:18:08.27\00:18:11.80 that early Dwight mission station, actually we know 00:18:11.99\00:18:15.25 now that this is one of the earliest Prince ever 00:18:15.28\00:18:19.09 made of that place, Dwight mission in the 00:18:19.35\00:18:21.79 1840s is exactly when Hannah was there was 00:18:21.93\00:18:25.38 imaged in what's no called daguerreotype, 00:18:25.41\00:18:27.58 not photography. If we can put that slide up we 00:18:27.79\00:18:30.62 will see the oldest known photo of the place 00:18:30.65\00:18:33.57 where she worked at the time she was working 00:18:33.60\00:18:35.97 there. You can see it was carved out of the 00:18:36.11\00:18:38.75 wilderness. And in fact when you look at the 00:18:38.79\00:18:42.39 next pictures in this sequence as we go now to 00:18:42.43\00:18:45.27 a picture of the old school house that comes 00:18:45.30\00:18:47.63 from a little later than when Hannah taught there. 00:18:47.66\00:18:50.34 You can see this is not exactly a university of 00:18:50.54\00:18:53.56 major renowned. In fact even today as we go to 00:18:53.76\00:18:57.17 the next slide you will see that they have taken 00:18:57.20\00:18:59.99 some of those old timbers and put them 00:19:00.10\00:19:01.59 back together in a house that resembles one of 00:19:01.62\00:19:04.26 the kind that was there when Hannah taught 00:19:04.47\00:19:06.26 there between 1840 and 1847. But Hannah 00:19:06.51\00:19:10.39 discovered something as she worked among these 00:19:10.42\00:19:12.47 people. They were desperately poor, 00:19:12.50\00:19:14.55 they had been dispossessed from their 00:19:14.78\00:19:16.14 land but not all of them were poor and not all 00:19:16.42\00:19:19.43 of them had a keen sense of justice as she had. 00:19:19.46\00:19:22.25 Many of them had brought their slaves with them 00:19:22.57\00:19:24.92 from the American southeast. And Hannah 00:19:25.09\00:19:27.76 was disappointed to discover that the people 00:19:27.88\00:19:31.59 she had come to free were themselves keeping 00:19:31.82\00:19:35.57 others in slavery and what made it worse for 00:19:35.60\00:19:38.94 her was that the mission board for which she 00:19:39.05\00:19:41.22 worked tolerated the holding of slaves by 00:19:41.39\00:19:44.33 people who had joined the same faith that she 00:19:44.51\00:19:46.28 belonged to. She had read the Gospel, she knew 00:19:46.53\00:19:49.02 that Christ came to set us free, Amen. 00:19:49.05\00:19:52.70 And she was determined to see that freedom 00:19:52.83\00:19:54.66 extended to all the people she served. 00:19:54.93\00:19:57.41 She kept writing the mission board back in 00:19:58.49\00:19:59.93 Boston. We have now recovered some 95 00:19:59.96\00:20:02.55 of her letters over her lifetime. She kept 00:20:03.74\00:20:06.69 writing the mission board urging them to take 00:20:06.76\00:20:08.72 action and they kept saying it is a bigger 00:20:08.75\00:20:10.95 issue than you know Sister More. Hannah was 00:20:11.20\00:20:14.86 not always I suspect the easiest person to work 00:20:15.02\00:20:18.16 alongside in a mission station. Particularly 00:20:18.19\00:20:21.65 when other people were in a sort of go along 00:20:22.07\00:20:24.61 and get along mode. Nothing about Hannah 00:20:25.00\00:20:27.50 was ever casual, if she taught you, you learn, 00:20:27.99\00:20:31.24 if she watched you embroider, you did it 00:20:31.68\00:20:33.50 well, or you pull the stitches out, if she 00:20:33.53\00:20:36.28 cooked it was good food and good for you. 00:20:36.46\00:20:38.58 Hannah knew that excellence was what the 00:20:40.14\00:20:42.21 Lord required. And the longer she stayed there 00:20:42.24\00:20:45.31 and the more she released that the mission 00:20:45.53\00:20:47.14 board wasn't going to change anything she began 00:20:47.32\00:20:49.78 appealing for a new assignment and so, 00:20:49.96\00:20:51.39 they said alright you can go Choctaw territory a 00:20:51.67\00:20:54.46 little further south west in Oklahoma. And so, 00:20:54.49\00:20:57.51 she went and spent another year and half 00:20:57.64\00:20:59.13 there in both places, she learned the native 00:20:59.29\00:21:02.09 language, Cherokee and Choctaw, learned it 00:21:02.51\00:21:04.50 fluently, learned to write it and speak it. 00:21:04.72\00:21:06.83 She alone among the missionaries working 00:21:07.27\00:21:09.43 there, among the congressionalist 00:21:09.62\00:21:10.69 missionaries would go and travel among the 00:21:10.91\00:21:13.09 people staying in their homes. Other white 00:21:13.25\00:21:16.65 missionaries would not do that. She insisted that 00:21:16.81\00:21:19.45 was part of her responsibility. While she 00:21:19.53\00:21:22.64 was at Dwight mission, she often spent time 00:21:22.80\00:21:27.48 down by the river that runs behind Dwight. 00:21:28.09\00:21:30.29 You will see a picture of it coming up now 00:21:30.48\00:21:32.18 I have been down there several times standing 00:21:32.59\00:21:34.50 on the reconstructed dock thinking about the 00:21:34.65\00:21:37.12 woman who must have come down here many 00:21:37.47\00:21:39.70 times to pray, to think, to think about home, 00:21:39.88\00:21:45.10 to think about what it was that God wanted 00:21:45.98\00:21:48.09 her to do with the rest of her life. Down here in 00:21:48.31\00:21:51.10 this quite spot by the river she must have often 00:21:51.26\00:21:54.04 had conversations with the Lord. We know a fair 00:21:54.28\00:21:56.68 amount about her time at Dwight mission because 00:21:56.85\00:21:59.05 she wrote home. There was a post office, 00:21:59.08\00:22:02.05 it was literally at Dwight mission a tiny little hut 00:22:02.92\00:22:06.42 on the edge of the campus and Hannah as a 00:22:06.84\00:22:10.37 very prolific word smith, spun words quickly 00:22:10.60\00:22:14.08 and lots of them. If you'll pull up the next 00:22:15.10\00:22:17.32 slide you will see a sample of one of letters 00:22:17.48\00:22:20.15 Hannah wrote home. Now, if anything looks a 00:22:20.32\00:22:24.03 little odd about that image, its when you begin 00:22:24.19\00:22:27.67 noticing that the writing goes both left, right and 00:22:27.90\00:22:31.42 north, south, it's a kind of writing its become 00:22:31.64\00:22:35.45 known in some places as crosshatch because it 00:22:35.58\00:22:38.84 looks very much like a grid or a quilt. 00:22:38.87\00:22:41.63 Paper was precious on the American frontier and 00:22:42.51\00:22:45.83 so many of Hannah's letters that I've 00:22:45.90\00:22:47.27 recovered she begins in a fairly large looping 00:22:47.51\00:22:50.19 script that gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller 00:22:50.69\00:22:53.62 as she works her way toward the end of the 00:22:53.69\00:22:55.08 paper and then she circles around the 00:22:55.11\00:22:57.09 outside and then she writes on the envelope 00:22:57.21\00:22:59.55 and she circles the stamp. She always had 00:22:59.89\00:23:03.11 more to say. Eventually she came on the idea of 00:23:03.29\00:23:06.97 writing and spacing her writing in this 00:23:07.15\00:23:09.31 crosshatch fashion. You read across left, 00:23:09.55\00:23:12.87 right then you turn the page 90 degrees and read 00:23:12.90\00:23:15.63 across left, right again. Trust me it takes a while 00:23:16.01\00:23:19.65 to decipher words on a page when they look like 00:23:19.77\00:23:22.62 that. I have spent as much as three hours on a 00:23:22.92\00:23:25.56 single page trying to tease the words out of 00:23:25.72\00:23:28.99 the old microfilm from which these were 00:23:29.02\00:23:31.08 recovered. Hannah wrote and taught and prayed, 00:23:31.53\00:23:36.39 watched revivals come through and was excited 00:23:37.09\00:23:39.68 in 1843 when a young Millerite preacher 00:23:39.83\00:23:42.43 straight from Boston, from William Millers 00:23:43.07\00:23:44.75 revival came to Dwight mission with the news of 00:23:44.79\00:23:47.42 the soon coming of Jesus. We know that Hannah 00:23:47.45\00:23:50.21 latched on to that message quickly, 00:23:50.43\00:23:52.03 latched on to the belief that Jesus would come, 00:23:53.71\00:23:55.91 physically come some where between 1843 and 00:23:56.16\00:23:59.04 1844. And there was a lot of opposition among 00:23:59.24\00:24:02.04 her peers at the mission station, the local 00:24:02.20\00:24:04.24 preacher in fact preached a series of 00:24:04.27\00:24:06.88 Anti Adventist sermons proving that as he said 00:24:07.15\00:24:10.30 they were all wrong. Hannah may have gone 00:24:10.33\00:24:12.78 quite but she hid that one in her heart and some 00:24:12.81\00:24:15.80 years later it would blossom. By 1847 when she 00:24:16.08\00:24:20.36 had finished her year and half in Choctaw 00:24:20.39\00:24:22.42 Territory, she was again so frustrated with the 00:24:22.53\00:24:25.89 slave holding habits of those whom she served 00:24:26.16\00:24:28.63 that she requested to go home and she went 00:24:29.25\00:24:31.07 back to New England spent a year convalescing 00:24:31.29\00:24:34.17 after episodes of bad health in Oklahoma and 00:24:34.52\00:24:38.36 then went to work in small public schools in 00:24:38.39\00:24:42.94 the area just south of Watertown, New York. 00:24:42.97\00:24:45.77 Up again on a frontier area where logging was 00:24:46.83\00:24:50.00 the major industry, she worked in hardscrabble 00:24:50.03\00:24:53.11 little towns. I have recovered her name from 00:24:53.24\00:24:56.08 census records, I have even been able to figure 00:24:56.32\00:24:58.56 out the families who lived on the streets 00:24:58.76\00:25:01.18 that were served by the schools where she taught. 00:25:01.34\00:25:03.30 I have been visited the cemeteries where various 00:25:04.04\00:25:06.56 people with whom she stayed during that time 00:25:06.76\00:25:08.68 lie today. While there she became more and 00:25:08.90\00:25:12.40 more convinced that God intended no human 00:25:12.58\00:25:16.14 being to be in slavery. The home she stayed is 00:25:16.32\00:25:19.48 now been identified as a very likely spot on the 00:25:19.51\00:25:22.37 underground rail road running through that 00:25:22.40\00:25:24.22 stretch of Northern New York where slaves who 00:25:24.29\00:25:27.22 had escaped from the south were fleeing to 00:25:27.25\00:25:29.31 Canada. Very likely Hannah herself was part 00:25:29.40\00:25:33.69 of some of those escape attempts, but she still 00:25:33.85\00:25:36.73 had them in her mind I don't want to be a public 00:25:36.85\00:25:39.25 school teacher, I wanna be a missionary, 00:25:39.50\00:25:41.83 I wanna be a missionary. During her time in 00:25:42.67\00:25:45.69 Oklahoma she had come to know some famous 00:25:45.98\00:25:48.12 people and her connections perhaps 00:25:48.30\00:25:50.29 helped her make some of those opportunities 00:25:50.86\00:25:52.71 materialize to become a missionary. One of them 00:25:52.98\00:25:55.81 was the great Cherokee Chief John Ross whose 00:25:55.84\00:25:58.13 picture you will see here in a moment. John Ross 00:25:58.35\00:26:00.60 was one of the most celebrated figures of 00:26:00.83\00:26:03.24 that age among Native Americans. The head of a 00:26:03.46\00:26:07.71 warring Cherokee faction, he spent many years 00:26:07.98\00:26:10.90 lobbying in Washington D.C. well known to the 00:26:11.09\00:26:13.57 mission boards. Hannah almost also certainly 00:26:13.60\00:26:16.37 knew the Cherokee Indian Sequoyah. 00:26:16.46\00:26:19.98 You will remember perhaps from your 00:26:20.99\00:26:22.29 American History lessons that Sequoyah invented 00:26:22.32\00:26:26.01 the Cherokee alphabet. His cabin was a mere 15 00:26:26.04\00:26:29.28 miles from Dwight mission, he was frequently at 00:26:29.61\00:26:31.82 Dwight. We don't have a record of their actual 00:26:31.96\00:26:33.70 meeting but it seems almost inevitable that 00:26:33.83\00:26:36.23 they did because she learned Cherokee and she 00:26:36.28\00:26:39.26 learned the alphabet that he had invented. 00:26:39.41\00:26:41.44 When she went back she; looking for connections 00:26:43.46\00:26:46.05 for people who could recommend her to mission 00:26:46.10\00:26:48.84 stations in Africa, she eventually found an 00:26:49.15\00:26:52.22 abolitionist mission board. An Abolitionist 00:26:52.47\00:26:55.76 mission board was one that insisted no one in 00:26:55.93\00:26:58.58 their ranks could hold slaves or tolerate the 00:26:58.67\00:27:01.71 holding of the slaves. And in 1850 she got the 00:27:01.95\00:27:04.84 call she had been waiting for, 00:27:05.14\00:27:06.33 the opportunity to go to Africa, to serve on the 00:27:06.92\00:27:10.23 west coast of Africa. We'll skip through one 00:27:10.38\00:27:14.12 slide that after showing bead work that she did 00:27:14.44\00:27:16.70 with her students at Dwight mission to show 00:27:16.85\00:27:18.94 you an image of the west coast of Africa as it 00:27:18.97\00:27:22.35 looked to cartographers in the 1850s when she 00:27:22.51\00:27:25.98 arrived there. Hannah More had never being 00:27:26.12\00:27:29.72 on an ocean vessel, but she packed things up, 00:27:29.91\00:27:33.14 sailed out of Boston and in fact we can even 00:27:34.33\00:27:38.12 today discover the manifest of the things 00:27:38.54\00:27:40.76 she took with her. Hannah did not have many 00:27:41.04\00:27:44.65 illusions about what mission service in Africa 00:27:44.91\00:27:47.68 was going to cost. On of the things listed on 00:27:48.26\00:27:51.38 the manifest among her own belongings, 00:27:51.41\00:27:54.37 the few belongings there was a shroud and a 00:27:54.72\00:27:58.20 coffin. That's how she expected to returned she 00:27:58.35\00:28:03.49 literally took with her as many did in those 00:28:03.52\00:28:05.76 days who were going to mission service the 00:28:05.79\00:28:07.99 means by which their bodies would be returned 00:28:08.39\00:28:10.53 to their loved ones one day. And in fact when 00:28:10.56\00:28:13.38 Hannah arrived on the West Coast of Africa 00:28:13.41\00:28:15.67 in what is today Sierra Leone, she went to work 00:28:16.01\00:28:18.54 among a group of West Africans, who had been 00:28:18.73\00:28:22.86 enslaved, who had then been mutinied, who had 00:28:23.15\00:28:25.97 then been arrested, who had then been tried and 00:28:26.09\00:28:28.92 who have ultimately were freed by the 00:28:29.19\00:28:30.50 United States Supreme Court. If you've heard 00:28:30.77\00:28:32.60 the name Amistad, then you know the group 00:28:32.63\00:28:35.79 I am talking about. A group of African slaves 00:28:35.90\00:28:38.91 who mutinied against their slave holders on a 00:28:38.96\00:28:41.86 ship off the Cuba coast, sailed their freed vessel 00:28:42.12\00:28:45.07 into New Haven in 1840 and were ultimately 00:28:45.33\00:28:48.94 arrested by people they thought would welcome 00:28:49.12\00:28:51.11 them, only an act of the United States Supreme 00:28:51.14\00:28:54.65 Court ultimately freed them. They went back 00:28:54.68\00:28:56.54 to the coast of Sierra Leone and Hannah went to 00:28:56.79\00:28:59.98 work among them. So, we have her record of 00:29:00.12\00:29:02.79 working among these famous celebrated freed 00:29:03.00\00:29:06.26 slaves, now repatriated to Africa. On the West 00:29:06.49\00:29:10.12 Coast of Africa things were difficult. 00:29:10.15\00:29:12.58 She went a party of a 11 others, five other women, 00:29:14.64\00:29:17.93 six men, within six months the other 00:29:18.78\00:29:22.97 five women were dead. All victims of Malaria, 00:29:23.20\00:29:28.16 at that time it wasn't known that Malaria was 00:29:29.52\00:29:31.57 communicated by mosquitoes. They kept 00:29:31.75\00:29:34.46 thinking it was something that came up in the 00:29:34.55\00:29:36.40 night air, a miasma Hannah called it. 00:29:36.58\00:29:39.66 We now know that she probably survived because 00:29:40.58\00:29:43.16 she herself had already contracted and survived 00:29:43.19\00:29:46.41 malaria in the American Southwest and probably 00:29:46.60\00:29:49.54 had some immunity. The five other women died, 00:29:49.57\00:29:53.38 the six men said we can't stay here, they went 00:29:53.60\00:29:55.98 back down to the coast 30 miles down the river, 00:29:56.11\00:29:58.61 leaving one person at a mission station of 200 00:29:58.89\00:30:01.71 students, one person to be the teacher, the cook, 00:30:01.90\00:30:06.99 the preacher in the middle of tribal warfare. 00:30:07.86\00:30:12.45 Hannah writes about bodies lying in the 00:30:13.30\00:30:15.43 mission yard as tribal warfare racked the area. 00:30:15.58\00:30:19.10 As Muslim tribes fought animist tribes and you 00:30:20.01\00:30:23.22 could hear the pounding of drums outside the 00:30:23.42\00:30:25.11 mission station all the time. Hannah held forth 00:30:25.14\00:30:30.56 for almost two years as the only missionary up 00:30:31.71\00:30:37.34 there at that mission station. Ultimately they 00:30:37.68\00:30:41.82 sent another family to come work the station, 00:30:41.99\00:30:44.25 a family that became a life long friend of hers, 00:30:44.44\00:30:46.85 but Sunday after Sunday in her faith she stood up 00:30:48.26\00:30:50.65 and she preached trying out the skills to which 00:30:51.33\00:30:53.81 she thought God had called her. She writes in 00:30:53.91\00:30:56.62 another place that she had believed ever since 00:30:56.69\00:30:59.07 she was a young woman that God had called her 00:30:59.16\00:31:01.35 to publicly testify about her faith and so, she did, 00:31:01.51\00:31:04.25 she was the only option Sunday after Sunday 00:31:04.60\00:31:06.77 preaching developing skills leading people to 00:31:07.12\00:31:09.37 Christ as revivals began to break out at that 00:31:09.63\00:31:12.10 mission station, Hannah was there in the middle 00:31:12.31\00:31:14.27 of them praying with sinners on the floor 00:31:14.30\00:31:16.43 weeping along side individuals who were 00:31:16.73\00:31:18.60 giving their hearts to Jesus. The family that 00:31:18.76\00:31:21.17 joined her in the mid 1850s stayed there 00:31:21.39\00:31:23.83 through her time and when she finally got so 00:31:24.21\00:31:26.55 ill in the late 1850s that she had to return to 00:31:26.99\00:31:29.98 America after another seven year on furloughed 00:31:30.26\00:31:33.21 stint, they carried on at the mission station, 00:31:33.50\00:31:36.28 stayed on for some more years. She came back 00:31:36.42\00:31:39.12 in about 1858 to Connecticut to 00:31:39.15\00:31:41.92 convalesce, to try to recover her health. 00:31:42.13\00:31:44.23 She again taught school, again stayed with family 00:31:45.21\00:31:48.73 in her hometown of Union. And by the time 1861 00:31:48.91\00:31:54.54 came along, as Hannah was beginning to again 00:31:54.81\00:31:57.63 have a burning heart to go back into mission 00:31:57.77\00:31:59.71 service she came across a very interesting 00:32:00.01\00:32:03.00 individual. His name was Steven Haskell, 00:32:03.10\00:32:06.13 a very young and yet unordained Adventist 00:32:07.26\00:32:10.39 preacher. Steven Haskell must have been a man 00:32:10.65\00:32:14.38 of some ingenuity. You wouldn't usually 00:32:14.47\00:32:17.70 think of a funeral as an evangelistic opportunity, 00:32:17.86\00:32:20.85 but the first union general to die in the 00:32:21.33\00:32:23.67 American Civil war happened to come from 00:32:23.85\00:32:25.97 a town that neighbored Union Connecticut and 00:32:26.17\00:32:28.32 there was a major funeral as thousands of 00:32:28.35\00:32:30.92 people flocked into the area to attend the 00:32:31.18\00:32:33.63 funeral of this first Union General to die in the 00:32:33.67\00:32:36.57 civil war. Steven Haskell thought, big crowd big 00:32:36.91\00:32:39.95 opportunity, he announced an evangelistic 00:32:39.98\00:32:43.63 series at a little school house and guess who 00:32:43.66\00:32:45.80 showed up. It was a school house after all; 00:32:46.02\00:32:49.05 Hannah More sat there and listened to someone 00:32:50.50\00:32:53.32 talk about the scriptures in a way that resonated 00:32:53.64\00:32:56.97 with her own thinking about where God was 00:32:57.64\00:32:59.76 leading in her life. She didn't have to open her 00:32:59.98\00:33:02.73 New Testament to check out and see whether he 00:33:02.81\00:33:04.78 was quoting correctly. In fact when you read her 00:33:05.06\00:33:09.12 letters, you rarely go more than two sentences 00:33:09.38\00:33:12.48 without a quotation or an illusion to scripture. 00:33:12.89\00:33:15.33 Her writing is laced with the thought and the idiom 00:33:15.50\00:33:18.66 of scripture. She sat and listened to Haskell 00:33:18.94\00:33:22.05 through part of that one day and than discovered 00:33:22.31\00:33:24.73 at the end of the day that Haskell and his wife 00:33:24.76\00:33:26.73 were staying at the same boarding house where 00:33:27.08\00:33:28.66 she was staying that night. Haskell tells us 00:33:28.86\00:33:30.96 later they stayed up most of the night opening 00:33:31.05\00:33:33.68 the Bible and talking together, down in the 00:33:33.71\00:33:35.44 parlor. And in fact Haskell says when he 00:33:35.60\00:33:38.47 came down in the morning. Hannah was still 00:33:38.63\00:33:40.49 sitting there going over those Bible texts he had 00:33:40.83\00:33:43.30 been sharing with her. 00:33:43.33\00:33:44.30 Haskell began feeding her Adventist literature, 00:33:47.38\00:33:50.29 sending her books and pamphlets including J.N. 00:33:51.59\00:33:53.97 Andrews' history of the Sabbath. By the time 00:33:54.20\00:33:57.02 Hannah managed to find a way to get back to 00:33:57.18\00:34:00.09 Africa in late 1862 paying her own way this 00:34:00.33\00:34:04.34 time as an independent missionary. Haskell made 00:34:04.37\00:34:07.68 that she would stay supplied with Adventist 00:34:07.71\00:34:09.86 literature when she reached Africa by making 00:34:09.99\00:34:12.47 sure that a subscription to a little magazine 00:34:12.50\00:34:14.79 called the Adventist review got to her. 00:34:14.98\00:34:17.62 Now you know why I love this story, Hannah 00:34:18.94\00:34:23.81 began reading the copies of review in Herald now 00:34:23.98\00:34:26.49 the Adventist review that arrived by packet both 00:34:26.79\00:34:28.94 there on the West Coast of Africa. You're gonna 00:34:29.22\00:34:31.70 see an image now of one of the places she worked, 00:34:31.76\00:34:34.11 the Cape Palmas mission station right on the very 00:34:34.14\00:34:37.43 Western Horn of Africa. She worked as an 00:34:37.80\00:34:42.74 independent at a variety of mission stations up 00:34:42.87\00:34:45.35 and down the West African coast for the 00:34:45.38\00:34:47.12 several years, but only six months into her time 00:34:47.45\00:34:51.36 there. She wrote a letter, a letter that 00:34:51.52\00:34:54.83 got published in that little magazine she had 00:34:54.86\00:34:56.94 been receiving, from Sister More in Africa 00:34:56.97\00:35:02.26 and in May 1863, she wrote words that I don't 00:35:03.58\00:35:06.98 think I will ever forget. She wrote to the editor 00:35:07.15\00:35:10.92 of the magazine saying you may now be assured 00:35:11.11\00:35:14.90 that you have whole hearted Sabbath keepers 00:35:14.93\00:35:19.47 here on the West Coast of Africa. 00:35:21.61\00:35:22.98 Amen. Amen. Hannah had already 00:35:23.88\00:35:24.85 won a convert, that was her nature after all. 00:35:24.87\00:35:28.12 If you believe something you're not quiet about 00:35:28.56\00:35:30.48 it. Amen. If you believe in the truth you share 00:35:30.60\00:35:33.03 it with some one and one of the persons she 00:35:33.26\00:35:34.64 shared with was an Australian Missionary 00:35:34.72\00:35:37.30 surviving at the same station by the name of 00:35:37.69\00:35:39.21 Dickenson. She persuaded Dickenson of the truth 00:35:39.39\00:35:42.69 of the Sabbath, of the truth of the soon coming 00:35:42.83\00:35:44.55 of Jesus, she wrote you may now considered that 00:35:44.59\00:35:47.46 you have whole hearted Sabbath keeping 00:35:47.60\00:35:49.85 Seventh-Day Adventists here on the West Coast 00:35:50.10\00:35:52.65 of Africa. She and Dickenson and we've 00:35:52.69\00:35:54.99 discovered since Haskell tell us that she made 00:35:55.31\00:35:59.28 numerous converts up and down the West Coast 00:35:59.85\00:36:02.32 of Africa. Amen. But Dickenson perhaps didn't 00:36:02.36\00:36:07.72 manage to finance it very well and his belief 00:36:07.89\00:36:11.96 in the Sabbath soon got him fired. He packed 00:36:11.99\00:36:15.73 things up and went back to Australia and became 00:36:15.81\00:36:18.35 the first Sabbath keeping Adventist on the 00:36:18.55\00:36:21.33 continent of Australia. So, Hannah More not only 00:36:21.43\00:36:25.46 is the first Sabbath keeping Adventist on 00:36:25.53\00:36:28.25 the African continent she is directly responsible 00:36:28.30\00:36:33.04 for the first Sabbath keeping Adventist on the 00:36:33.19\00:36:35.79 continent of Australia. A woman who launched 00:36:35.97\00:36:38.29 Adventist missions on two continents and most 00:36:38.49\00:36:40.41 of you never heard of her. 00:36:40.51\00:36:41.48 We know stories about everyone else, 00:36:43.44\00:36:45.30 every Adventist school child can tell you about 00:36:46.08\00:36:48.52 the time Joseph Bates fell off a canal boat on 00:36:48.55\00:36:51.48 the Erie canal, but we don't know about a woman 00:36:51.66\00:36:55.22 who started Adventist presence on two 00:36:55.72\00:36:57.54 continents. Hannah read herself into Adventism 00:36:57.83\00:37:02.95 more and more, waiting for the opportunity when 00:37:03.09\00:37:05.43 she could be baptized by a Seventh-Day Adventist 00:37:05.51\00:37:09.15 pastor. She believed it she considered herself in 00:37:09.68\00:37:12.40 every sense a Seventh-Day Adventist, taught where 00:37:12.62\00:37:15.29 she could, preach when she could, but by 1865 00:37:15.40\00:37:19.60 and '66, her mission hosts were not so 00:37:19.68\00:37:22.20 comfortable with her Sabbath keeping Adventism 00:37:22.30\00:37:24.91 they were after of all Episcopalians or 00:37:24.94\00:37:27.10 Anglicans or Methodists, and they were not all 00:37:27.38\00:37:30.93 together comfortable with this very clear 00:37:31.08\00:37:34.41 forth right articulate Adventist among them. 00:37:34.44\00:37:37.18 And they began saying things like wouldn't you 00:37:37.95\00:37:39.55 feel it be more comfortable for you 00:37:39.80\00:37:41.26 back in the States. And Hannah released that at 00:37:41.39\00:37:44.54 some point that and her declining health she was 00:37:44.73\00:37:47.02 going to need to return home and so she did. 00:37:47.12\00:37:49.55 In the summer of 1866 she sailed back into 00:37:50.26\00:37:53.77 Boston. When she got to Boston, she got on the 00:37:54.03\00:37:58.27 railway and she rode to a town that I know 00:37:58.54\00:38:00.99 real well. A town called South Lancaster, 00:38:01.16\00:38:03.86 where I spend a big part of my life where Atlantic 00:38:04.12\00:38:06.66 Union College stands today. She went to the 00:38:06.78\00:38:09.67 home of surprisingly enough, Steven Haskell. 00:38:09.70\00:38:12.81 He and his wife lived right beside the Church 00:38:13.58\00:38:16.54 that today is known as the village Seventh-Day 00:38:16.67\00:38:18.90 Adventist church, we'll pull that picture up now. 00:38:19.00\00:38:20.95 You'll look at the interior of a Church that 00:38:21.74\00:38:24.15 was organized in 1864, it was only, had only 00:38:24.18\00:38:28.45 been there a couple of years not in that 00:38:28.48\00:38:31.16 building but as a company of Adventist. 00:38:31.30\00:38:33.45 The very first person ever baptized into that 00:38:34.07\00:38:37.80 church was Hannah More. In 1866, she 00:38:37.83\00:38:42.48 finally got a chance three years after living 00:38:42.52\00:38:44.90 the Adventist faith to be baptized down very likely 00:38:44.93\00:38:48.68 in the Nashua River just a mile away. 00:38:48.71\00:38:50.97 She lived with the Haskells for most of the 00:38:52.65\00:38:54.17 next year, wrote letters to her family trying to 00:38:54.23\00:38:57.49 persuade them of the truth she now believed 00:38:57.72\00:39:00.13 and embraced with all of her life, she had more 00:39:00.22\00:39:02.80 than 20 years of mission experience behind her, 00:39:02.87\00:39:05.48 there was no one in the Adventist Church like her, 00:39:06.02\00:39:08.32 no one yet had caught the vision of foreign 00:39:08.40\00:39:10.35 missions to which Hannah had already dedicated 00:39:10.46\00:39:12.62 her life. No one had the experience of crossing 00:39:12.70\00:39:15.84 salt water, this was after all still eight 00:39:16.11\00:39:18.14 years before Andrews would go to Europe. 00:39:18.33\00:39:20.52 Michael Czechowski in late 1863 had gone off 00:39:21.93\00:39:24.60 an independent to Europe and had begun winning 00:39:24.71\00:39:28.17 some converts but himself ran into trouble 00:39:28.36\00:39:30.52 and ultimately left that faith of Adventism. 00:39:31.26\00:39:32.87 Hannah however, the flame burned more brightly. 00:39:33.58\00:39:36.30 I have read letters where she argues with 00:39:36.93\00:39:38.70 a young upstart nephew of his who considered 00:39:38.73\00:39:41.03 himself quite a theologian and Hannah, as my 00:39:41.13\00:39:43.93 sons would say took him off at the knees. 00:39:43.96\00:39:46.38 Hannah could have marshaled Biblical 00:39:48.06\00:39:49.78 arguments like few people and she didn't hesitate 00:39:49.82\00:39:52.47 to say so. Amen. But a bigger goal has begun 00:39:52.51\00:39:56.15 growing in her mind, she wanted to get where 00:39:56.41\00:40:00.12 there was a large community of Adventists 00:40:00.15\00:40:02.24 and the one place that came to her mind was 00:40:02.96\00:40:05.60 Battle Creek. That's where that magazine was 00:40:05.87\00:40:08.73 being printed. That was where James and 00:40:08.84\00:40:11.02 Ellen White lived at various times when they 00:40:11.17\00:40:13.31 weren't traveling or off at a, at a place where 00:40:13.34\00:40:16.17 James is recovering his health in Greenville. 00:40:16.33\00:40:18.48 So, she made up her mind in the summer of 00:40:19.39\00:40:20.77 1867 to travel to Battle Creek. It was about a 00:40:21.11\00:40:24.55 four day journey by rail then. You can 00:40:24.88\00:40:28.03 imagine taking that long by rail, made her way to 00:40:28.18\00:40:32.49 Battle Creek, financed her own way sure that 00:40:32.75\00:40:35.96 by the time she got to Battle Creek people who 00:40:36.03\00:40:39.38 had seen her letters through the years in the 00:40:39.47\00:40:42.28 review and herald, somebody would create an 00:40:42.37\00:40:44.79 opportunity. They would say Sister More, 00:40:44.84\00:40:47.45 we need a school teacher, there was no one like her 00:40:47.66\00:40:49.97 in Adventism with 25 years of teaching 00:40:50.02\00:40:52.49 experience already much of it as a foreign 00:40:52.67\00:40:54.87 missionary. Someone would say we need a 00:40:54.90\00:40:56.80 governess for our children, some Adventist 00:40:57.01\00:40:58.91 would say Sister More you have spent your life 00:40:59.14\00:41:01.55 for the Lord just live here with us but when she 00:41:01.66\00:41:03.34 got to Battle Creek in July 1867 happened to be 00:41:03.65\00:41:08.14 on carriage; a rail carriage with the wife 00:41:08.35\00:41:11.04 of an Adventist preacher when she got off. 00:41:11.32\00:41:13.28 It just didn't work out. We know that she stayed 00:41:14.34\00:41:19.09 at the Western Health Reform institute what 00:41:19.79\00:41:22.17 would ultimately battle be Battle Creek 00:41:22.20\00:41:23.81 Sanitarium, she stayed the maximum three days 00:41:24.10\00:41:27.41 that you could with paying 50 cents a day 00:41:27.44\00:41:30.77 and 50 cents more for food and she began 00:41:30.80\00:41:33.93 knocking on doors and meeting the Adventist 00:41:34.17\00:41:36.15 leaders who were in town at that time. James 00:41:36.27\00:41:38.66 and Ellen White were sixty miles and about 00:41:38.78\00:41:41.43 three days travel through the Woods of Michigan 00:41:42.55\00:41:45.27 up in Greenville where James was convalescing 00:41:46.26\00:41:48.61 after one of his strokes. The Whites weren't in 00:41:48.69\00:41:51.14 town and that was compounding the tragedy 00:41:51.27\00:41:53.32 because as Hannah went from leader to leader, 00:41:53.65\00:41:55.70 as she went to Uriah Smith, as she went to 00:41:55.73\00:41:58.44 J. N. Luffborough and others they all said. 00:41:58.65\00:42:00.49 Oh! It's so wonderful to meet you, we've read 00:42:00.65\00:42:02.46 your letters and we're so sorry there really are 00:42:02.82\00:42:05.36 no opportunities in Battle Creek. Hannah 00:42:05.69\00:42:08.62 could see school children. School aged children 00:42:08.73\00:42:11.51 who needed teaching and there was no 00:42:11.97\00:42:13.83 Adventist teacher, but somehow they didn't 00:42:14.08\00:42:16.98 need her. No one had a place for her to stay. 00:42:17.10\00:42:20.38 Although she managed a night or two, we know 00:42:20.92\00:42:22.64 that in total she may have spent about eight 00:42:22.88\00:42:25.42 days in Battle Creek trying to find a home 00:42:25.45\00:42:29.05 among the people she longed to live and be 00:42:29.15\00:42:31.98 with. And when that didn't happen; the Battle 00:42:32.34\00:42:37.07 Creek of 1867 when that didn't happen she had 00:42:37.21\00:42:42.02 to begin making other plans. You will see an 00:42:42.05\00:42:43.98 old map of Battle Creek as it looked up on the 00:42:44.12\00:42:46.67 screen just now. You will see the image of the 00:42:46.83\00:42:50.26 street plan of what was then a relatively small 00:42:50.55\00:42:53.91 but bustling the mid American city, out in the 00:42:53.94\00:42:56.52 West end where the Adventists all lived, 00:42:56.55\00:42:59.29 there were homes enough, there was space enough 00:42:59.61\00:43:01.83 but there just wasn't compassion enough for an 00:43:01.99\00:43:05.79 aging missionary whose health wasn't so good 00:43:05.91\00:43:10.08 and who wanted to live among God's people. 00:43:10.76\00:43:12.76 You'll see another picture here coming up of 00:43:13.33\00:43:15.27 the reconstructed 1857 meeting house in Battle 00:43:15.74\00:43:20.21 Creek. This is where person, Adventists were 00:43:20.38\00:43:23.65 worshiping when Hannah was there. We don't, 00:43:23.68\00:43:26.62 we know that she was there over at Sabbath 00:43:26.72\00:43:28.60 very likely she attended worship in the building 00:43:29.09\00:43:31.80 that this reconstructed model now has replaced. 00:43:31.91\00:43:35.67 But after eight days and no success in meeting 00:43:37.80\00:43:43.05 or finding a family to live with no 00:43:43.08\00:43:45.77 opportunities for work, she eventually pulled 00:43:45.87\00:43:49.30 out what would be her last resource. 00:43:49.39\00:43:52.34 She had a standing invitation by that family 00:43:52.68\00:43:54.86 she had known in Africa. The Thompson family 00:43:55.10\00:43:57.43 that had stayed on at the mission station they 00:43:58.21\00:44:00.02 had since moved to Michigan themselves. 00:44:00.23\00:44:02.94 They had since moved way up in the little 00:44:02.97\00:44:06.25 finger peninsula of Michigan up in Leelanau 00:44:06.46\00:44:10.06 County, you will see a map on the screen here 00:44:10.26\00:44:12.11 in a movement of Leelanau County. 00:44:12.14\00:44:14.23 It's way up there in that middle land of Michigan 00:44:14.74\00:44:17.53 where you see the red on your screen, 00:44:17.79\00:44:19.32 its not that far as you look on the map from 00:44:19.73\00:44:22.34 Battle Creek in South Central but they were no 00:44:22.56\00:44:25.01 roads running to Leelanau. The nearest rail road 00:44:25.04\00:44:29.41 was still many, many miles from Leelanau, 00:44:29.71\00:44:32.00 in order to get from Battle Creek to Leelanau 00:44:32.35\00:44:35.07 you had to take the train to Chicago; take the 00:44:35.31\00:44:38.79 train from Chicago to Milwaukee. Get on a 00:44:38.82\00:44:41.80 packet boat in Milwaukee and sail across Lake 00:44:41.95\00:44:44.98 Michigan and get off at the little town of 00:44:45.06\00:44:48.16 Leelanau. Disappointed, heart broken, 00:44:48.45\00:44:52.58 to find no home among the people of God, 00:44:53.36\00:44:55.49 Hannah made that trek knowing that the 00:44:56.95\00:44:58.94 Thompsons would take her in, the Thompsons 00:44:59.05\00:45:01.10 of congressionalist missionary family who 00:45:01.13\00:45:03.68 were settled up there in Leelanau, working 00:45:03.71\00:45:05.57 among French Canadian Trappers and Native 00:45:05.80\00:45:07.71 Americans who worked up there and it's the 00:45:07.79\00:45:10.09 logging industry was beginning to boom in 00:45:10.24\00:45:11.94 Northern Michigan. Hannah arrived at the 00:45:12.01\00:45:15.63 little wharf just down the street from the 00:45:15.66\00:45:17.75 humble home where they lived and up there 00:45:17.89\00:45:21.83 in Leelanau she found. She found the family 00:45:22.82\00:45:27.77 she had been looking for, not the Adventist 00:45:27.86\00:45:29.73 family she had been looking for but one that 00:45:29.93\00:45:31.91 loved her. The children thought of her as Aunt 00:45:32.04\00:45:34.41 Hannah. Mrs. Thompson would quietly secretly 00:45:34.63\00:45:39.70 read Hannah's tracks about the Sabbath when 00:45:40.45\00:45:42.65 her preacher husband was out of the house. 00:45:42.81\00:45:44.58 Hannah writes letters saying she is convinced 00:45:45.92\00:45:48.25 that Mrs. Thompson would take her stand for 00:45:48.33\00:45:50.23 the Sabbath were it not for the job her husband 00:45:50.26\00:45:52.50 was doing. And Brother Thompson, he admired 00:45:52.61\00:45:56.63 Hannah's gifts in fact he said you can go preach 00:45:56.66\00:45:59.16 for me on Sundays. I am a circuit riding preacher 00:45:59.30\00:46:01.69 I can't cover all my congregations and she 00:46:01.84\00:46:03.97 did. He said but there is one rule, you can't talk 00:46:04.22\00:46:06.47 about the Sabbath. That must have been hard for 00:46:06.50\00:46:09.59 Hannah, she lived in the attic of the Thompson 00:46:09.64\00:46:13.35 home you will see an image of it coming up 00:46:13.58\00:46:15.06 here in on the screen in just a moment. 00:46:15.23\00:46:16.62 The home has been added to many times since 00:46:17.15\00:46:19.23 the humble dwelling that Hannah lived in. 00:46:19.35\00:46:21.24 Today it looks like a large substantial place, 00:46:21.78\00:46:24.15 I managed to get inside one time, when it was 00:46:24.34\00:46:26.85 up for sale and convinced a real estate agent to 00:46:26.88\00:46:29.25 let me go walk through those rooms and imagine 00:46:29.37\00:46:32.40 the lady who had lived up there in the attic. 00:46:32.69\00:46:34.59 It was fall of 1868, the Whites discovered and 00:46:36.12\00:46:40.31 when they came back to Battle Creek, excuse me 00:46:40.35\00:46:43.32 in 1867, they, the Whites discovered when they 00:46:43.35\00:46:46.17 came back to Battle Creek what had happened to 00:46:46.20\00:46:48.06 Hannah when they came and they were outraged. 00:46:48.22\00:46:50.27 How would Adventist turn away this woman whom 00:46:51.12\00:46:53.76 God had brought to the Church, how could they 00:46:53.97\00:46:56.54 turn away a person with such skills when the 00:46:56.69\00:46:58.89 church was just beginning to thing about foreign 00:46:59.00\00:47:00.95 missions. Amen. Ellen White told off the good 00:47:01.12\00:47:05.52 members in Battle Creek rather strongly in 00:47:05.80\00:47:07.52 in a sermon there in October. Meanwhile she 00:47:08.01\00:47:10.33 and James were writing letters that had to 00:47:10.62\00:47:12.67 to travel that same route by rail and packet boat to 00:47:12.70\00:47:15.99 get up there to Leelanau, writing to Hannah saying 00:47:16.02\00:47:18.32 we would like to have you come and live with us 00:47:18.63\00:47:20.32 here in Greenville. Can you meet us at the Right 00:47:22.02\00:47:23.05 Michigan camp meeting in late September? 00:47:23.27\00:47:25.12 But that appointment couldn't get made, 00:47:25.96\00:47:28.43 Hannah couldn't raise the money to make the 00:47:28.55\00:47:30.29 return trip and the Whites were desperately 00:47:30.32\00:47:32.51 poor, they were all trying to save money. 00:47:32.69\00:47:35.05 So, they waited a little longer still hoping 00:47:35.32\00:47:37.29 that they would be an opportunity before the 00:47:37.62\00:47:39.51 ice set in the harbors of Northern Michigan for 00:47:39.62\00:47:42.09 Hannah to make the trip back and live with the 00:47:42.34\00:47:45.02 Whites who had offered her a place to live when 00:47:45.05\00:47:47.29 people of Battle Creek had turned her away. 00:47:47.54\00:47:49.23 But you know Northern Michigan is not the 00:47:51.53\00:47:55.83 warmest climate I can testify, the ice comes 00:47:55.89\00:48:01.37 early in the harbors and the winter set in. 00:48:01.53\00:48:04.38 And soon Hannah was writing to say it doesn't 00:48:06.30\00:48:08.24 look like I will be able to come before winter. 00:48:08.35\00:48:10.39 It looks like I will need to spend the winter here. 00:48:11.76\00:48:13.72 The Thompsons were warm and hospitable, 00:48:14.32\00:48:16.33 she was doing things she loved, sharing the 00:48:16.36\00:48:19.46 message of Jesus Christ wherever she had the 00:48:19.63\00:48:21.79 opportunity and still working on Mrs. Thompson 00:48:21.83\00:48:24.66 about the Sabbath. But over that winter 00:48:24.69\00:48:28.24 her health began to decline. It's likely that 00:48:28.44\00:48:32.66 she was suffering from what we would today 00:48:33.07\00:48:34.74 call congestive heart failure. Her condition had 00:48:34.93\00:48:37.93 been weakened by the years of work in Malarial 00:48:38.09\00:48:41.87 Africa. The many bouts of epidemic diseases she 00:48:41.99\00:48:46.18 had endured and as the winter went on; 00:48:46.21\00:48:49.04 she began to develop a racking cough. 00:48:49.21\00:48:51.24 She wrote to the Whites mentioning that she 00:48:52.24\00:48:53.21 didn't really want to complaint to the 00:48:54.96\00:48:56.22 Thompsons but living up there in that little 00:48:56.36\00:48:58.08 attic room where the stove pipe ran through, 00:48:58.28\00:49:00.37 the smoke but occasionally seep out of 00:49:01.48\00:49:04.56 the stove pipe and fill that litte attic chamber 00:49:04.64\00:49:07.14 and made it difficult to breath. She said some 00:49:08.01\00:49:09.98 nights she had to sit up in order to able to 00:49:10.24\00:49:12.49 breathe and try to sleep sitting up. 00:49:12.95\00:49:14.98 By late winter, she was beginning to wonder if 00:49:16.32\00:49:19.10 she would survive this and on the 20th of 00:49:19.13\00:49:22.13 February she wrote what ended up being a last 00:49:22.16\00:49:24.87 letter to James and Ellen White. In it she expressed 00:49:24.90\00:49:29.33 her desire to see them but also her, 00:49:29.36\00:49:32.25 the likelihood that she never would. That in fact 00:49:32.58\00:49:35.62 while she waited for the 00:49:35.65\00:49:36.62 coming of Jesus. That's what happened. March 3, 00:49:44.96\00:49:45.93 1868, George Thompson sent a message down 00:49:45.94\00:49:51.30 to the Review and Herald, indicating a short 00:49:51.55\00:49:54.56 obituary and mentioned that the Adventists would 00:49:54.71\00:49:58.49 certainly want to come and claim Hannah's 00:49:58.61\00:50:01.55 remains because of course they would her 00:50:01.86\00:50:03.34 buried in Battle Creek. It made sense by then 00:50:03.44\00:50:07.74 Ellen White had already told them how much 00:50:07.97\00:50:09.74 they had missed that opportunity and George 00:50:09.98\00:50:11.88 Thompson was quite sure in this notice on 00:50:12.05\00:50:14.17 back page of the review that Adventists would 00:50:14.20\00:50:16.75 finally do their duty. The next Seventh-Day 00:50:16.88\00:50:21.34 Adventists to see her grave were a 120 years 00:50:21.79\00:50:27.11 later my and wife and I. We found our way, 00:50:27.14\00:50:31.79 piecing together old maps and documents, 00:50:33.14\00:50:35.10 getting some help from a Sheriff's office and on 00:50:35.33\00:50:37.87 a cold, cold winter day that started at 27 below 00:50:37.99\00:50:41.55 in Northern Michigan, my wife suddenly sang 00:50:41.65\00:50:44.40 out as we walked out across the cemetery; 00:50:44.43\00:50:46.27 Bill here it is and sure enough there was 00:50:46.56\00:50:49.23 headstone. You will see an image of the 00:50:49.39\00:50:51.62 headstone coming up here now, where they put 00:50:51.89\00:50:54.26 Hannah More they thought temporarily until 00:50:54.43\00:50:57.05 Adventists would come to reenter her in Battle 00:50:57.58\00:51:00.21 Creek, but none ever came. You'll see another 00:51:00.45\00:51:07.19 close up, now the image of her headstone; 00:51:07.47\00:51:10.54 it simply says Hannah More, missionary to 00:51:10.98\00:51:13.47 Africa. It includes a favorite text from 00:51:13.67\00:51:16.49 Galatians at the bottom. The stone today is 00:51:16.71\00:51:20.64 propped up against a family headstone, 00:51:20.81\00:51:22.62 she was buried in the middle of a family plot 00:51:22.77\00:51:24.73 they didn't think she would be there very long, 00:51:25.03\00:51:26.87 today Hannah More the women who never 00:51:27.48\00:51:30.12 married lies between a husband and a wife. 00:51:30.15\00:51:33.40 When Ellen White learned what had happened, 00:51:41.19\00:51:43.16 she wrote some of the strongest words I have 00:51:44.29\00:51:46.70 ever read from her pen. Let me read you a few 00:51:46.85\00:51:50.95 lines. Those who attempted to think that 00:51:51.21\00:51:54.11 Ellen White was simply a mild mannered 00:51:54.49\00:51:57.42 devotional author. Have not read in the case of 00:51:57.69\00:52:02.63 Hannah More in first testimonies or in second 00:52:03.34\00:52:06.03 testimonies where she revisits the story. 00:52:06.25\00:52:09.20 She writes of Hannah More, she being dead yet 00:52:10.32\00:52:14.30 speaketh. Her letters, which I have given will 00:52:15.09\00:52:17.21 be read with deep interest by those who 00:52:17.45\00:52:18.75 have read her obituary in a recent number of the 00:52:18.78\00:52:21.05 Review. She might have been a blessing to any 00:52:21.36\00:52:23.69 Sabbath-keeping family, who could appreciate 00:52:23.80\00:52:25.47 her worth; but she sleeps. Our brethren at Battle 00:52:25.50\00:52:28.47 Creek and in this vicinity could have made more 00:52:28.50\00:52:30.51 than a welcome home for Jesus, in the person of 00:52:30.56\00:52:33.60 this Godly woman. But that opportunity is past. 00:52:33.71\00:52:36.80 It was not convenient. They were not acquainted 00:52:37.03\00:52:39.04 with her. She was advanced in years, 00:52:39.11\00:52:41.10 and might be a burden. Feelings of this kind 00:52:41.14\00:52:43.26 barred her from the homes of the professed friends 00:52:43.45\00:52:45.24 of Jesus, who are looking for his near advent, 00:52:45.27\00:52:47.83 and drove her away from those she loved, 00:52:48.26\00:52:50.01 to those who opposed her faith, to Northern 00:52:50.14\00:52:52.27 Michigan, in the cold of winter, to be chilled to 00:52:52.35\00:52:54.98 death. She died a martyr to the selfishness and 00:52:55.02\00:52:58.39 covetousness of professed commandment-keepers. 00:52:58.54\00:53:01.39 Amen. Providence has administered, 00:53:01.42\00:53:03.86 in this case, a terrible rebuke for the conduct of 00:53:03.91\00:53:06.78 those who did not take this stranger in. 00:53:06.93\00:53:08.71 She was not really a stranger. By reputation, 00:53:09.00\00:53:10.96 she was known, and yet she was not taken in. 00:53:11.09\00:53:13.48 She writes again, this thing was not done in 00:53:15.03\00:53:16.85 a corner. And yet, notwithstanding the 00:53:16.88\00:53:19.05 matter was made public, followed by the great 00:53:19.13\00:53:21.21 and good work in the church at Battle Creek, 00:53:21.25\00:53:23.08 no effort was made by that church to redeem the 00:53:23.32\00:53:25.58 past by bringing Sister More back. And one, 00:53:25.64\00:53:28.47 a wife of one of our ministers, stated 00:53:28.67\00:53:30.27 afterwards, "I do not see the need of Brother and 00:53:30.59\00:53:33.08 Sister Whites making such a fuss about Sister More. 00:53:33.33\00:53:35.44 I think they do not understand the case." 00:53:35.74\00:53:37.67 True, we did not understand the case. 00:53:38.10\00:53:40.48 It is much worse than we supposed. Amen. 00:53:40.62\00:53:43.75 Ellen White continues, poor Sister More! 00:53:46.26\00:53:48.46 When we heard that she was dead my husband 00:53:48.51\00:53:50.66 felt terrible. We both felt as though a dear 00:53:50.88\00:53:53.36 mother for whose society our very hearts yearned 00:53:53.52\00:53:56.10 was no more. She goes on to write, the remark 00:53:56.40\00:54:01.84 was made as an excuse for this neglect. 00:54:01.97\00:54:04.75 We have been bitten so many times that we are 00:54:04.80\00:54:07.19 afraid of strangers. Did our Lord and his 00:54:07.22\00:54:10.56 disciples instruct us to be very cautious, 00:54:10.92\00:54:13.03 and not entertain strangers, lest we should 00:54:13.36\00:54:15.63 possibly make some mistake and get bitten by 00:54:15.75\00:54:18.24 having the trouble of caring for an unworthy 00:54:18.44\00:54:20.07 person? Paul exhorts the Hebrews, "Let brotherly 00:54:20.26\00:54:23.27 love continue," do not flatter yourselves that 00:54:23.33\00:54:25.70 there is a time when this exhortation will not 00:54:25.83\00:54:28.04 be needed; when brotherly love may cease. 00:54:28.16\00:54:30.62 He continues, "Be not forgetful to entertain 00:54:30.94\00:54:32.75 strangers, for thereby some of entertained 00:54:32.99\00:54:34.93 angels unawares. Read it, brethren, the next time 00:54:35.22\00:54:37.69 you take the Bible. Read it, brethren, 00:54:38.06\00:54:39.82 at your family evening devotions. 00:54:40.07\00:54:42.14 The good works performed by those 00:54:42.59\00:54:44.19 who are to be welcomed to the kingdom were done 00:54:44.22\00:54:46.49 to Christ in the persons of his suffering people. 00:54:46.63\00:54:48.91 In second testimony she concludes in the case of 00:54:51.08\00:54:53.40 Sister Hannah More, I was shown that the 00:54:53.65\00:54:56.16 neglect of her was the neglect of Jesus in her 00:54:56.30\00:54:59.82 person. Ellen White was righteously angry that 00:55:00.03\00:55:07.94 this enormous asset that God had brought the 00:55:08.04\00:55:10.56 early church. A woman with more then 20 years 00:55:10.69\00:55:13.26 of foreign mission experience had been 00:55:13.38\00:55:15.66 turned away, that a woman with her gifts 00:55:15.83\00:55:18.02 and her skills had not been welcomed. 00:55:18.16\00:55:20.36 All because some said, Oh! She dresses a little 00:55:20.92\00:55:23.30 out fashion and she is a little elderly and maybe 00:55:23.46\00:55:26.60 her health isn't so good. Ellen White administered 00:55:26.65\00:55:31.05 one of the greatest rebukes that of her career 00:55:31.35\00:55:35.11 in the case of Sister Hannah More. 00:55:35.62\00:55:37.28 And when Adventists gathered in the spring of 00:55:38.33\00:55:40.26 1868 for the first time in May of that year to work 00:55:40.29\00:55:45.24 of how they were going to plan for the coming 00:55:45.27\00:55:48.31 year, their first action, the very first action was 00:55:48.46\00:55:51.34 to form the Seventh-Day Adventist Benevolent 00:55:51.43\00:55:53.62 Association to take care of widows, orphans and 00:55:53.74\00:55:56.67 transients. You know what you call that 00:55:56.93\00:55:58.50 organization today? ADRA. The birth organization 00:55:58.59\00:56:04.20 of today's Adventist Development And Relief 00:56:04.72\00:56:06.45 Agency was founded as a direct consequence 00:56:06.55\00:56:09.35 of the tragic story of Hannah More. Amen. 00:56:09.66\00:56:12.23 You see God can bring some good, good for 00:56:12.36\00:56:15.14 millions around the world out of a case where 00:56:15.23\00:56:17.40 we didn't get it right. I have in my pocket just 00:56:17.62\00:56:21.74 now; your cameras may want a close in on it. 00:56:21.77\00:56:24.40 A little seed, a rose hip in fact, picked from the 00:56:24.43\00:56:30.61 rose bush you saw there beside Hannah More's 00:56:30.76\00:56:32.99 grave. I've been carrying it around for most of the 00:56:33.10\00:56:35.66 last year and I don't really know enough 00:56:35.95\00:56:37.47 about rose hips. To know if the dried seeds in 00:56:37.54\00:56:40.42 there will ever grow. But, will compassion grow? 00:56:40.69\00:56:43.93 Amen. Will that seed ever take root among us? 00:56:44.84\00:56:47.45 I don't know the answer of that one. But, I think 00:56:48.44\00:56:50.88 you do. Will compassion take root among us? 00:56:51.03\00:56:54.31 God willed that it be so. Let's pray together. 00:56:55.45\00:56:57.78 Lord Jesus, this story is known to you, now that 00:56:58.61\00:57:02.63 it is known to us, work on our hearts, change us, 00:57:02.66\00:57:05.36 into men and women with hearts of compassion 00:57:05.68\00:57:08.11 especially for those who share this wonderful hope 00:57:08.52\00:57:11.69 in the soon coming of Jesus, make us ready to 00:57:11.87\00:57:14.40 beside Hannah on that day coming soon and to 00:57:14.89\00:57:17.39 say lo, this is our Lord, we have looked for him 00:57:17.42\00:57:20.53 and he will save us. In Jesus name, Amen. 00:57:21.11\00:57:24.21