S. N. Haskell: A Review

S.N. Haskell-Adventist Pioneer, Evangelist, Missionary, and Editor by Gerald Wheeler is the eleventh in the Pioneer Series.  It is anticipated that before the series is finished, there will be more than 30 volumes in this series.

I found this book extremely fascinating: One of the things I found very interesting is the author gave historical information about the times and how that likely affected Stephen Haskell.

For example:  Stephen got married when he was 17 and, because he was as a result depriving his father with 4 years of work that would be expected from him, he paid his dad $150.00 to compensate for the loss of his service as a son.  The author brings out that that in the early 1800s children were an economic asset and thus for Stephen to marry and need to support his own wife, his family was losing his services. Stephen stated that the $150.00 “was far more than I was worth to him.”

Mary, his first wife was more than 20 years older than Stephen and they were married until Mary died more than 40 years later.  Stephen then later married Hetty who was young enough to be his daughter.  It seems that both marriages were happy. 

Stephen Haskell was one of the Pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He preached, taught and  was an administrator. He also authored several books, made the first official around the world trip of any Adventist leader casing out where it would be good to send missionaries and learning what would work here and there. He visited other mission stations in various countries and one of the things he learned is that one of the most important things to do is to be able to adapt to different cultures.

“When Haskell was in India, he had mentioned to a longtime missionary that his denomination was interested in preparing people for overseas service, possibly including India itself. When Stephen asked what should be the core element of their education, the missionary said, “First adaptation; second, adaptation; third, adaptation; and fourth adaptation. When they get that learned, let them come here, and I will find them work.“

In 1911 Stephen Haskell went to Maine and discovered that a bill was coming up for vote for Prohibition in the state. He spearheaded an endeavor to distribute thousands of copies of a special issue of the Youth’s Instructor on Temperance. His wife Hetty approached the WCTU-The Women’s Christian Temperance Union about helping distribute this newsletter. With their help and others over 50,000 copies were distributed and Prohibition was voted in. It shows what power there is in good printed material.

Please click on the following line to read more about this new book and you can read the first chapter on line and order the book on line too.

http://www.adventistbookcenter.com/s-n-haskell.html

I recommend this book.