p. 59 | The Austrian Problem

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, January 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 4

The Austrian Problem.

Under this heading, the Advance of Jan. 15 publishes the following interesting letter from the Rev. F. H. Foster, their correspondent at Gottingen, Prussia. Our readers will be interested in the question of religious liberty in Austria, as this country is so near our European Mission, and will probably soon be included in its operations.

“The readers of the Advance have no doubt watched with great interest the struggle for religious liberty now going on in Austria. American Christians are familiar with the name of Stupitz, a little village in Bohemia, where religious bigotry and persecution have gone so far as to forbid even a prayer over the dead body of a child, because that prayer was not to be offered by a Catholic priest. Dr. Joseph P. Thompson’s last work on earth was to memorialize the Basle Conference of the Evangelical Alliance in behalf of these obscure Christians; and we now hear with delight that so much success has attended the efforts of the Alliance that an order has been issued to permit household worship by any family with specially invited guests, except that children bound by law to attendance upon the schools, who belong to any recognized church or confession, must be excluded.

“But are American Christians fully aware of the real question at issue in these matters? The American Board is specially concerned here, because it is the work of her missionaries which has brought the question before the Christian public. But the question is by no means simply whether this Society shall work in Austria, but a far more important one, whether any religious labor calculated to bring men to Christ as their Saviour shall be allowed in that empire.

“There lies before the writer evidence that within a short time efforts have been made (and hitherto successfully) to stop every kind of truly evangelical labor in Austria. Not to mention the checks put upon our missionaries, upon Mr. Schauffer in Brunn and Mr. Adams in Prague, the following suggestive cases may be cited: In Vienna, Mr. Edward Millard, after having held Biblical lectures, with the foreknowledge of the authorities, and the co-operation of conspicuous members of both the Protestant churches in Austria, for nine years, was in March last forbidden to continue them. The same month, the Baptists, who have been represented in Vienna since 1845, were forbidden to hold further meetings, and their subsequent assemblies dispersed by the police. The Swedenborgians, who have been legally recognized for ten years, were likewise forbidden to meet, and have only secured, after an expensive law-suit, the mere right of meeting, but cannot celebrate the sacraments. Rev. Mr. Pirie, at Prague, Scotch missionary to the Jews, can hold no service in the language of the country. Rev. Mr. Balzar, of the Free Reformed Bohemian Church, can hold no service whatever.

“It has been evidently, then, the determination of the authorities, previous to this appeal from the Evangelical Alliance, that outside the two recognized churches, Catholic and Protestant (the latter in two divisions, Lutheran and reformed), no preaching of the gospel should be allowed. The issue, as presented simply in this form, is one that must stir every American heart. If any amount of labor and money on the part of our missionaries and churches can break up this iron despotism, seeing we have once embarked in the work we must carry it through. But the Christian heart is still more touched and moved to pity and to action, when it is fully realized that Austria is not only thus shut out from religious freedom, but from the knowledge of the truth. In Austria, Roman Catholicism is synonymous with superstition and ignorance, and Protestantism with unbelief and spiritual death. Mr. Schauffer was originally prevented from continuing his labors in Brunn by one branch of the Protestant church, and Mr. Adams in Prague by another. As already reported in America by telegraph, this Protestant church, in the face of the cruelties at Stupitz and in Prague, memorialized the Emperor against the Evangelical Alliance, saying that they had no desire for more religious liberty; they had enough! It is evident that as little is to be hoped for the gospel in Austria from this dead Protestant church as from the Romanists. The poor Stupitz villagers might die Romanists, and die in their sins, but the Protestant church would not try to save them. And when some one else did try to lead them to Christ, this church, instead of rejoicing, began to fear lest its own numbers should be diminished by similar accessions, and memorialized the Emperor against giving the Stupitz Christians the protection that was their due by law!

“The Bible has already met with much the reception in Bohemia that it did in the days of Huss. Considering the restrictions placed upon our missionaries, great results have already been reached. Patience and faith in God are all that is necessary to a triumphant issue of our labors. Let now the churches understand fully what the question in Austria is, and let them redouble their gifts and their prayers. The land of Huss and of Jerome of Prague shall yet be redeemed to our God!”