As I am privileged to meet with our fellow believers here in Battle Creek, I am happily reminded of the fact that it was from this church that men and women went forth to pioneer the advent movement in the northlands of Europe about sixty years ago. It was here that our pioneers received their preparation for evangelistic, colporteur, and medical ministry.
Of course you are already acquainted with the fact that the medical ministry as it is carried on by our people has found a ready soil in the lands of Europe which I represent. The Skodsburg Sanitarium in Denmark is a widely known institution, and its influence for the good of the advent movement is widely felt. The system of treatments and various kinds of -baths that are being given in that institution is generally known by the name "the Skodsborg method." It is a good method, too, :and many non-Adventist places giving treatments resort to the trick of advertising that they use this method. However, we are not embarrassed much by this, for they cannot really practice the Skodsborg method to the satisfaction of their patients unless they have had their training in one of our institutions.
The Danish government has conferred special honors on the founder of the Skodsborg Sanitarium, Dr. C. Ottosen. And early this year (1938), on the recommendation of his cabinet, the king of Sweden awarded the present medical director, Dr. A. Anderson, who for many years has served the institution, with the insigne of the Order of the North Star, making him a knight of that order. This is the highest Swedish order conferred on any one not of the royal family. It is a mark of distinction usually granted only to diplomats or persons who have done something which greatly benefits humanity—usually in the field of science and research.
We have two sanitariums in Sweden, and our training schools both in Finland and in Sweden are turned into sanitariums for three months every summer, with good returns both to the institutions and to the patients that come.
Then we have a fair-sized clinic and treatment room in the capital city of each of these countries—Helsingfors and Stockholm. There are also about a score of privately owned clinics being operated in Finland, as well as a private sanitarium.
Effective in Removing Prejudice
All of these institutions have a Seventh-day Adventist personnel, and have been a real source of blessing to our work in the East Nordic Union. They remove prejudice as nothing else could. They have opened the door to many a heart for the advent message. We have many who have accepted our message as a result of coming to one of our institutions. Many, many more have been so favorably impressed with what they have heard and seen in our sanitariums that they have become real friends to this advent people. Among these we could mention some in all walks of life, such as ministers of other churches, educators, leading businessmen, editors, senators, government officials, and common working people. Many of the last-named are accepted as charity cases. Our leading sanitarium at Hultafors grants help to charity cases to the amount of from three to four thousand dollars yearly.
Here is a little incident that took place last July when I visited our summer sanitarium in Finland, which gives evidence of the influence of our institutions. As I rode out to the institution from the city in an omnibus, I overheard a conversation between some passengers who were also going to the summer sanitarium. They had had the place recommended to them by some friends, and one of them was quite well informed as to some of our peculiarities. She said, "The people who own the institution are called Adventists. They keep Sunday on Saturday; they don't eat meat ; they drink a cereal coffee instead of the real coffee, and instead of the real tea they make a tea of apple leaves. I don't know much else about them, but they are a good people, everyone says."
A little boy in the company had become so interested in the description of Adventists that he cried out quite loudly, "Mamma, what are the Adventists like?"
The mother answered: "I don't know, Sonny; but we shall soon find out."
This was on Friday, and on Sunday morning
I had a chance to speak with one of the women whose conversation I had overheard in the omnibus. I told her I understood this was her first visit to this place, and then I inquired how she liked it by this time. "Oh," she said, "I have heard so much good about this place and these people, but the half has not been told. Where do all these genial, trustworthy young people come from?"
'"From our churches," I replied. And I told her that we have many more such young people.
While visiting another of our sanitariums, I was talking with the manager, when the wife of a noted university professor came by. She commented on the pleasant weather we had just had after an unusually rainy and cold spell, and said, "And for this good weather, we should be grateful to God and your gardener." I was curious to learn what our gardener had had to do with the changing of the weather. She explained, "A few days ago I passed by the greenhouses and heard the gardener talking to someone, but I didn't see any one around. I stopped and listened, and he was talking with God. He was telling God that if He didn't give sunshine and suitable weather, the whole strawberry crop of several acres 'would be lost, that this was God's own institution, etc." Then she added, "God heard his prayers. Isn't that wonderful, to see a man with such childlike faith talking with God !"
In Finland we started a monthly health journal in January, 1937, and I admit that some of us had our misgivings about the success of such a venture in a country of three and a half million inhabitants, most of whom live in towns and villages. I am happy to report that we already have a circulation of 25,000 copies monthly, of which more than half are subscriptions. God is truly blessing our medical missionary work. We have witnessed it as an "opening wedge" for our work into many a heart.
* Excerpts from sermon at Autumn Council, Battle Creek, Michigan, 1938.
