The American Sabbath Tract Society is the publishing agency of the denomination. Its head-quarters are at Alfred Center, N. Y. It publishes the Sabbath Recorder, the organ of the S. D. Baptists, and it also publishes a series of valuable works relating to the Sabbath and the law of God.
During the two hundred years which have elapsed since the organization of the first Sabbatarian church in America, God has raised up among this people men of eminent talent and moral worth. He has also in providential ways called attention to the sacred trust which he so long since confided to the S. D. Baptists, and which they have been slow to realize in its immense importance.
Among those converted to the Sabbath through the agency of this people, the name of J. W. Morton is particularly worthy of honorable mention. He was sent in 1847 a missionary to the island of Hayti by the Reformed Presbyterians. Here he came in contact with Sabbatarian publications, and after a serious examination became satisfied that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord. As an honest man, what he saw to be truth he immediately obeyed, and returning home to be tried for his heresy, was summarily expelled from the Reformed Presbyterian church without being suffered to state the reasons which had governed his conduct. He has given to the world a valuable work, entitled, “Vindication of the True Sabbath,” in which his experience is related, and his reasons for observing the seventh day set forth with great force and clearness.
The S. D. Baptists do not lack men of education and of talent, and they have ample means in their possession with which to sustain the cause of God. If in time past they have not fully realized that they were debtors to all mankind because of the great truth which God committed to their trust, there is reason to believe that they are now to some extent awakening to this vast indebtedness.[1100]
There is also in the State of Pennsylvania a small body of German S. D. Baptists found in the counties of Lancaster, York, Franklin, and Bedford, and in the central and western parts of the State. They originated in 1728 from the teaching of Conrad Beissel, a native of Germany. They practice trine immersion, and the washing of feet, and observe open communion. They encourage celibacy, but make it obligatory upon none. Even those who have chosen this manner of life are at liberty to marry if at any time they choose so to do. They established and successfully maintained a Sabbath-school at Ephrata, their head-quarters, forty years before Robert Raikes had introduced the system of Sunday-schools. This people have suffered much persecution because of their observance of the seventh day, the laws of Pennsylvania being particularly oppressive toward Sabbatarians.[1101] The German S. D. Baptists do not belong to the S. D. Baptist General Conference.
We have already noticed the fact that Sabbath-keepers are numerous in Russia, in Poland, and in Turkey. We find the following statement respecting Sabbath-keepers in Hungary:—
“A congregation of seventh-day Christians in Hungary, being refused tolerance by the laws, has embraced Judaism, in order to be allowed to exist in connection with one of the ‘received religions.’”[1102]
The probability is that as the laws of the Austrian Empire bear very heavily upon all religious bodies not belonging to some one of the tolerated sects or orders, these “Seventh-day Christians” on “being refused tolerance” in their own name, secured the privilege of observing the seventh day by allowing their doctrine to be classed by the civil authorities under the head of Judaism, and so bringing themselves under the tolerance accorded to the “received religions.” We do not say that this was right, even as a technicality, but it is evidently the extent of what they did. There is no reason to believe that they abjured Christ. We also learn that there are Sabbath-keepers in the north of Asia:—