Cabin Boy to Advent Crusader *3 left*

No history of the beginnings of the remnant church could be complete if it failed to mention Joseph Bates. He was 54 years old when he began to proclaim the Sabbath truth. Yet he had been a preacher of the first angel’s message for years before the great disappointment of 1844.

Never seeking the limelight, he was perfectly satisfied to do his duty as he saw it. Duty for Bates as a boy began at sea. At the age of 15, when the USA was barely 30 years old, he followed the call and challenge of the sea, was captured and forced to serve in a foreign navy, and eventually commanded a ship of his own. As captain, Bates was known not only for his fairness, but for requiring all his men to sign a temperance pledge.

Retiring successfully in his mid thirties to be with his family, Bates followed God’s leading into the Millerite movement, and finally into the fledgling Advent church and the Sabbath message. He devoted the last 25 years of his life to keeping the commandments of God, and to the task of proclaiming and exalting the seventh-day Sabbath.

Though he was never interested in being the leader of the Adventist Church, he was certainly a pillar of its beginning!

This is a reprint of the original book, and features the classic pen and ink illustrations by Harry Baerg. 190 pages, paper.