went . Of one of his later journeys he says : " I . . . kept the Bible open in my hand . I felt my power was in the Book , and that its might would sustain me ." -- Ibid ., page 201 .
Thus he persevered in his labours until the message of the judgment had been carried to a large part of the habitable globe . Among Jews , Turks , Parsees , Hindus , and many other nationalities and races he distributed the word of God in these various tongues and everywhere heralded the approaching reign of the Messiah . In his travels in Bokhara he found the doctrine of the Lord ' s soon coming held by a remote and isolated people . The Arabs of Yemen , he says , " are in possession of a book called Seera , which gives notice of the second coming of Christ and His reign in glory ; and they expect great events to take place in the year 1840 ." -- Journal of the Rev . Joseph Wolff , page 377 . " In Yemen . . . I spent six days with the children of Rechab . They drink no wine , plant no vineyard , sow no seed , and live in tents , and remember good old Jonadab , the son of Rechab ; and I found in their company children of Israel , of the tribe of Dan , . . . who expect , with the children of Rechab , the speedy arrival of the Messiah in the clouds of heaven ." -- Ibid ., page 389 .
A similar belief was found by another missionary to exist in Tatary . A Tatar priest put the question to the missionary as to when Christ would come the second time . When the missionary answered that he knew nothing about it , the priest seemed greatly surprised at such ignorance in one who professed to be a Bible teacher , and stated his own belief , founded on prophecy , that Christ would come about 1844 . As early as 1826 the advent message began to be preached in England .
The movement here did not take so definite a form as in America ; the exact time of the advent was not so generally taught , but the great truth of Christ ' s soon coming in power and glory was extensively proclaimed . And this not among the dissenters and nonconformists only . Mourant Brock , an English writer , states that about seven hundred ministers of the Church of England were engaged in preaching " this gospel of the kingdom ." The message pointing to 1844 as the time of the Lord ' s coming was also given in Great Britain . Advent publications from the United States were widely circulated . Books and journals were republished in England . And in 1842 Robert Winter , an Englishman by birth , who had received the advent faith in America , returned to his native country to herald the coming of the Lord . Many united with him in the work , and the message of the judgment was proclaimed in various parts of England .
In South America , in the midst of barbarism and priest-craft , Lacunza , a Spaniard and a Jesuit , found his way to the Scriptures and thus received the truth of Christ ' s speedy return . Impelled to give the warning , yet desiring to escape the censures of Rome , he published his views under the assumed name of " Rabbi Ben-Ezra ," representing himself as a converted Jew . Lacunza lived in the eighteenth century , but it was about 1825 that his book , having found its way to London , was translated into the English language . Its publication served to deepen the interest already awakening in England in the subject of the second advent .
227