From 1885, Seventh-day Adventist mission activities expanded significantly,

reflecting the Protestant interest in foreign missions. Influential promoters of

missions included Stephen Haskell and Ellen White, who wrote and spoke with
firsthand witness to the challenges and opportunities of distant lands. Haskell
made his first visit to Europe in 1882, pioneered the Advent message in
Australia and New Zealand, and accompanied Percy Magan to survey
opportunities and problems for Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in Africa,
India, and the Orient. Ellen White spent two years in Europe, visiting England,
France, Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia, and Italy, and labored in
Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania from 1891 to 1900. Many Adventist
leaders became personally exposed to the world outside America, with George I.
Butler becoming the first General Conference president to visit Europe in 1884.
Seventh-day Adventist church membership growth in Europe was steady
but not dramatic. Canvassing and tent evangelism were less effective in
Europe due to the island's wet climate and importation of periodicals and
books from America. To address this, the Present Truth was started as a
monthly magazine in 1884 and sold 10,000 copies per issue by 1888. Young
women canvassers were the most successful promoters, and under E.J.
Waggoner's editorship, its circulation climbed to 17,000. Ellen White also
stressed the importance of door-to-door visitation, which Stephen Haskell
preferred and implemented in England when he arrived to direct Seventh-
day Adventist work in 1887.
Haskell transferred the Seventh-day Adventist headquarters and
printing activities to London, a city previously avoided by
Adventists. He started a visitation program with three female Bible
workers, which grew rapidly. Despite initial resistance from some
London Seventh Day Baptists, Sabbath keepers in London increased.
Top Adventist leaders, including Loughborough, Haskell, Prescott,
and Waggoner, were sent to England. Emphasis was placed on
training colporteurs, with a total of 77 in the field by 1896.
Evangelistic campaigns led to the organization of small churches in
England and Wales.
England, despite its small membership, became a global
hub for spreading Adventism, largely due to the efforts of
Liverpool's George Drew, who distributed Seventh-day
Adventist literature to numerous ships visiting the busy
port and convinced captains to leave it at their ports.
Seventh-day Adventists initially enlisted the most adherents in Scandinavia
due to the vision of J. G. Matteson, a firm believer in literature ministry.
Matteson launched an evangelistic and health journal for Denmark and
Norway, and authored and printed various books and tracts. In 1880, he
organized the Danish churches into the first conference outside North
America. The Norwegian Conference was formed seven years later, and by 1884,
they had pierced the Arctic Circle and established a small company of Sabbath
keepers in Hammerfest.
Despite facing difficulties in Sweden, the Adventists eventually attracted
1000 listeners to a tent meeting in Stockholm in 1887. In 1892, conference
president Olaf Johnson began work in Helsinki, Finland, and by the end of
the century, there were three tiny Finnish churches. Danish Adventists also
launched a missionary endeavor, dispatching David Ostlund to Iceland in
1897. Ostlund established his own press and began a semi-monthly
magazine, Fraekorn ("The Seed"), which became the most widely circulated
journal in Iceland. By 1900, Scandinavian Adventists had developed
secondary schools in Denmark and Sweden and operated private treatment
rooms. Dr. J. C. Ottosen launched Skodsborg, the most famous Adventist
sanitarium in Europe, with influential patrons including members of the
royal family.
Adventism in central Europe was slow due to limited American Adventists
who spoke French and Italian or Romanian. The Bourdeau brothers were
sent to warn France and Switzerland, but were unable to convert Romanian
believers. The Romanian believers became scattered, and Adventism
disappeared there. D.T. Bourdeau worked in northwest Italy but had little
impact. In Switzerland, a publishing house was established in Basel, which
published French, German, Italian, and Romanian journals, tracts, and
books. German language printing was transferred to Hamburg in 1895, and
the building was converted into a sanitarium. This type of Adventist
witness remained unrecognized until the twentieth century.
Adventist literature gained interest in southern Russia, particularly
in the Crimea, due to German farm families who had been encouraged
by the Czar's government. By the late 1870s, Adventism had taken
root in several German-Russian communities, and Seventh-day
Adventist tracts were being sent to relatives and friends in the "old
country." Gerhardt Perk, an agent of the British and Foreign Bible
Society, learned about the distinctive Seventh-day Adventist doctrines
from a Crimean neighbor who loaned him one of the tracts.
Perk added Adventist literature to his Bibles, which made his work more
dangerous as it invited readers to leave the Orthodox state church. Proselyting
was strictly forbidden by Russian law, and after Alexander II's assassination,
repression of all Russian dissidents continued. An octogenarian longed to
return to Russia to share his newfound faith, and he developed an ingenious
way to witness by taking tracts to the village marketplace and pleading poor
eyesight.

L. R. Conradi, an octogenarian, was invited by Gerhardt Perk to visit Russia

and preach openly. They were imprisoned for teaching Jewish heresy and
endured cramped cell conditions, meager food, and intimidating threats. After
being released, they continued to visit interested persons in south Russia and
among German colonists in the Volga River basin, but with more cautious
public activities.
Several German-Russian Adventists from Kansas returned to
the Caucasus and Volga regions, finding it easier to work
among German colonists but more dangerous to speak to
native Russians about religious matters. Persecution and
banishment to remote areas, including Siberia, led to the
start of Adventist companies in new areas.
The spread of Adventism in Germany began to slow after James
Erzberger returned to Switzerland in 1878. Conradi, a dynamic executive
and organizer, was the main pillar of German Adventism for 35 years.
He organized an effective canvassing work in Germany, recruiting
Gerhardt Perk to sell Seventh-day Adventist literature in the German
Rhineland. Conradi established headquarters for the German church in
Hamburg in 1889, and within five years, had nearly fifty colporteurs
working in Germany and among German-speaking persons in Austria-
Hungary, the Balkans, and the Netherlands.
In 1899, a country estate near Magdeburg was purchased, and Friedensau
Missionary Seminary was developed. By 1900, Adventist membership in
Germany was approaching 2000, more than three times the number of
Advent believers in France, Switzerland, and Italy combined. However, the
two years of military service required of all German young men proved a
problem, as they refused to engage in ordinary labor on the Sabbath.
German evangelistic efforts were directed toward cities, and sometimes
ingenuity was demonstrated by hiring a room to serve as a bookshop and
soliciting orders for the shop. This spirit led to German colporteurs taking
the lead in introducing Adventism into Holland, the Austrian Empire, the
Balkans, and Poland.
Seventh-day Adventist teachings entered the Turkish Empire through a Greek
shoemaker, Theodore Anthony. Anthony, a recent immigrant from
Constantinople, accepted Adventism in California in 1888 and returned to his
birthplace to spread his faith. His initial contacts with Greek and Armenian
Christians caused antagonism within the registered Christian churches. After
spending two weeks in prison, Anthony was released and began working in his
cobbling trade. He found Armenian Z. G. Baharian and convinced him of the
truthfulness of Adventist doctrines. Baharian spent two years in Basel,
becoming more established in his beliefs. When Baharian returned to Turkey,
he and Anthony held evangelistic services and contracted with a local printer
to print tracts. The printer took responsibility for getting the publishing
permit himself, which was difficult for the two Adventist men to do.
In the 1890s, Baharian and Anthony established small Sabbath
keepers in Asia Minor, facing extreme difficulties and threats
from authorities and mobs. By the early 20th century, there
were several hundred believers in Turkey. The 1882 riots
temporarily ended Adventist work in Egypt. Armenian
Seventh-day Adventist families settled in Cairo and
Alexandria, and Italian believer J. Leuzinger began ship
missionary work in Port Said. Louis Passebois and Ida Schlegel
started a health home and restaurant in Cairo.
Adventist activity in Australia and New Zealand began to grow steadily, with the
organization of the Echo Publishing Company to produce local papers, tracts, and
books. Pioneer colporteur William Arnold discovered a good market for Adventist
literature and sold over 2000 books during his three-year stay in Australia. American E.
R. Palmer arrived in 1895 to organize canvassing work, and Australia served as "the
model field for the book work." Early Adventist efforts in Australia centered around the
suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney, where tent efforts and camp meetings proved
effective among middle-class individuals. A notable feature in Australia was the
tendency for entire families to join the church. In New Zealand, S. N. Haskell visited
Edward Hare and convinced him to join the church. Edward's brother, Robert, returned
to labor more than thirty years in Australia and raised two sons who would later add
luster to the Adventist cause. The Australasian field was blessed with particularly good
help from America, with Arthur Daniells being sent to New Zealand for evangelistic
work and later becoming president of the New Zealand Conference.
In 1876, John I. Tay arrived off the Pacific island of Pitcairn, where nearly 150
descendants of Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian wives lived in a simple, devout
society. James White and John Loughborough had heard of Pitcairn in 1876 and
managed to send a box of Adventist literature to the islanders. Ten years later, the
islanders discovered evidence that Saturday was the true Sabbath, but they hesitated
to change long-established habits.

John Tay requested permission to stay on the island until the next ship called, and
after considerable discussion, many were convicted of the true Sabbath. By the time
the American left the island five weeks later, all its adult inhabitants had accepted
the full range of Seventh-day Adventist doctrines. The news of the conversion of the
Pitcairn Islanders sent a thrill throughout Seventh-day Adventist ranks, prompting
the General Conference to build a small missionary ship to carry personnel and
supplies from island to island.
In 1887, the General Conference authorized spending $20,000 to build or buy
such a vessel to be in operation by the next year. However, closer consideration
convinced Adventist leaders that a suitable ship could not be readied that
quickly, so they decided to send John Tay back to Pitcairn to strengthen his
converts. Elder A. J. Cudney of Nebraska was to accompany him and baptize
the new believers.

In October 1890, the two-masted, 100-foot-long schooner Pitcairn was ready to

sail with its crew of seven and three missionary couples: the John Tays, the E.
H. Gateses, and the A. J. Reads. After several weeks' stay, the mission ship
moved on to Tahiti, Rarotonga, Samoa, Fiji, and Norfolk Island.
Seventh-day Adventists were introduced to South Africa by a cobbler and a diamond-
prospector. William Hunt, who had learned the faith from Loughborough in
California, shared Adventist literature with J. H. C. Wilson, a former Wesleyan
Methodist preacher in the Kimberley diamond fields. This led Wilson and others to
announce their intentions to become Seventh-day Adventists. Seven years later, the
first Adventist missionaries arrived in the Cape Colony. Two Dutch farmers, George
van Druten and Pieter Wessels, became convinced of Saturday as the true Sabbath
through their study of Scripture. They sent an appeal to Battle Creek for a Dutch-
speaking minister to teach them more. The "Macedonian call" was read at the 1886
General Conference, which spontaneously rose and sang the Doxology. A missionary
party of seven led by D.A. Robinson and C.L. Boyd arrived in Cape Town, where they
found forty people interested in becoming Seventh-day Adventists. David Tarr, a
former Methodist lay preacher, began a chain reaction that provided Adventism with
nearly a score of full-time workers in South Africa.
Elder Boyd became interested in presenting the message of salvation
to the African tribal peoples in the area, but his individualistic
temperament kept him from gaining support among his fellow
workers. In 1890, he was recalled to America. A stream of South
African youth, including David Tarr and several of the Wessels
brothers, headed for the United States to attend Battle Creek
College. With the Wesselses' liberal support, the Cape area could
boast an Adventist college, sanitarium, publishing house, and
orphanage. A benevolent home was also begun in the Kimberley
area.
The General Conference, led by the Wessels family, sought to establish a mission
station in the land occupied by the British South Africa Company north of the Cape
Colony. After a meeting with Cecil Rhodes, Adventist representatives A.T. Robinson
and Pieter Wessels received a letter granting them all the land they could use, with a
nominal annual rent of $60. The development of the Solusi Mission began in 1894,
but faced opposition from Adventist leaders in America. Ellen White's letter
convinced the Seventh-day Adventist Foreign Mission Board to proceed with the
project. However, a tribal revolt, famine, and a malaria epidemic led to the
missionaries' withdrawal. Despite these challenges, conversions among the Africans
led to the salvation of Solusi, the oldest Seventh-day Adventist mission among
indigenous Africans. Additionally, Seventh-day Adventist work was attempted along
the west African coast in present-day Ghana, but the constant scourge of fever led to
its abandonment until early in the twentieth century.
The Seventh-day Adventist movement in the Caribbean began in 1883 when a ship
missionary in New York City convinced a ship captain to deliver a bundle of
literature to Georgetown, British Guiana. The parcel was gathered by bystanders who
read and lent the papers to neighbors. Some began to keep the Sabbath, and one
woman forwarded copies of Signs of the Times to her sister in Barbados. In response,
veteran canvasser George King accompanied Elder G. G. Rupert to Georgetown in
1887, selling $800 worth of books. William Arnold followed up with five trips
through the Caribbean islands, selling over $8000 worth of books. Mrs. E. Gauterau,
an Adventist converted in California, returned to her native Bay Islands in 1885 to
share her new faith. Six years later, Elder Frank Hutchins arrived to follow up on her
interest. The Sabbath Schools provided funds for Hutchins to build a mission
schooner, the Herald, to work among the Bay Islands and along the Central American
coast. Mrs. A. Roskrug returned to Antigua in 1888 and had a small Sabbath School
meeting weekly.
In 1891, Italian-American tailor Marchisio spread Adventist
literature in Mexico, selling English copies of The Great
Controversy. Dan T. Jones established a sanitarium and school in
Guadalajara. G. W. Caviness, who was removed from Battle Creek
College, helped in an interdenominational Bible-translation project
in Mexico. In 1899, Caviness launched permanent Seventh-day
Adventist work in Mexico City through an English-language school.
Frank C. Kelley's attempt to introduce Adventism to Colombia in the late 1890s
ended after three years due to his wife's health. Despite the principal languages
spoken in South America being Spanish and Portuguese, Seventh-day Adventists
gained their first converts from German- and French-speaking immigrants to
Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The first Seventh-day Adventists to reach South
America were Claudio and Antonieta de Dessignet, who learned the message from
D. T. Bourdeau in France. Two families in Argentina learned of Adventists from
newspapers they received from Europe, Pedro Peverini and his wife, and Julio and
Ida Dupertuis, members of a Swiss-French Baptist colony. Their inquiries led
Seventh-day Adventist leaders to consider opening work in South America. The
Sabbath School Association agreed to assign the offerings collected during the last
half of 1890 to the "South American Mission," totaling over $8000.
In 1890, four German-Russian farm families, led by George Riffel,
decided to send Adventist workers to Argentina as self-supporting
workers. Riffel had previously spent time in Argentina but had
been driven out by grasshoppers. He learned about Adventism
through L. R. Conradi's evangelistic meetings and wrote about it
to friends in the German-Russian colonies. When they arrived in
Argentina, they met Reinhardt Hetze, who was convicted of his
beliefs and became a staunch Seventh-day Adventist.
The first three official Seventh-day Adventist representatives to South
America arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, selling German and English books
among a largely Spanish-speaking population. Despite the difficulties, they
made one important convert, Lionel Brooking, who began canvassing and
selling French books to French Protestant immigrants.
In 1894, the General Conference sent Elder F. H. Westphal to oversee the
development of Adventist work in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and
Brazil. By that time, over $10,000 worth of literature had been sold in
Argentina and southern Brazil, and there were probably 100 Adventist
believers in Argentina. The Thurstons, who spoke no Portuguese and had
no Portuguese literature, supported themselves by selling English and
German books.
Adventist missionaries in Brazil began spreading Adventism by
sending literature to a German colonist. The Adventist German
periodical, Stimme der Wahrheit, sparked interest among the German
colonists in Santa Catarina state. In 1893, American colporteurs and
Brooking moved to southern Brazil, converting Alberto Bachmeyer, a
German sailor. In 1895, Jean Vuilleumier of Switzerland was sent to
aid Westphal in Argentina, whose familiarity with languages proved
useful. Vuilleumier used French, German, Spanish, and English in
various areas.
In 1897, American colonizers Fred Bishop and Thomas Davis began the first
Adventist endeavor in Chile. Despite having limited money, they managed to
sell six Bible Readings and eventually ran out of books. They learned Spanish
by using the Bible as a textbook, and young Victor Thomann, who had seen
them in a dream, accepted them as messengers from God. He and his brother
Eduardo began selling Adventist tracts in Spanish, and Eduardo became the
first editor of the Spanish Signs of the Times. The Adventist faith spread from
Argentina to Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru. In 1898, a self-supporting group
moved from Chile to Peru. A former Presbyterian canvasser, who was not yet a
Seventh-day Adventist, first sold Patriarchs and Prophets and Steps to Christ
in Bolivia, suffering persecution and imprisonment before miraculously
delivering it.
Seventh-day Adventists in India began working among the English-speaking
population in 1893. Miss Georgia Burrus, a Bible instructor from California,
arrived as the first Mission Board appointee in Calcutta, learning Bengali for a
year. Reinforcements arrived at the end of the year, and Burrus and Mae Taylor
opened a small school for Hindu girls, allowing them to visit Hindu families'
zenanas. Through public lectures in English, treatment rooms, and printing
tracts in Bengali, the Adventist message spread. After two years, there were four
or five Bengali families and as many Europeans who had accepted the
Adventist faith. In 1898, W. A. Spicer arrived in Calcutta and began an
evangelistic monthly, the Oriental Watchman. By the end of the century,
Adventism had managed only a small toehold along the eastern coast of Asia.
In 1896, President W.C. Grainger and T.H. Okohira established an English-
language school in Tokyo, attracting sixty young men. The first two
Japanese converts were soldiers and one an army doctor. They began a small
Japanese-language monthly, The Gospel for the Last Days, funded by health
food sales. Elder Grainger died three years after his arrival, but his work
would be copied and expanded by young student missionaries. As the
twentieth century began, Seventh-day Adventists began work on all
continents and major nations. Despite the expansion of the Adventist
concept, Adventists in 1901 remained largely an American church, with four
out of every five still living in the United States.