He also visited the United States , on the journey thither preaching on the island of Saint Helena . He arrived in New York in August , 1837 ; and , after speaking in that city , he preached in Philadelphia and Baltimore , and finally proceeded to Washington . Here , he says , " on a motion brought forward by the ex-President , John Quincy Adams , in one of the houses of Congress , the House unanimously granted to me the use of the Congress Hall for a lecture , which I delivered on a Saturday , honored with the presence of all the members of Congress , and also of the bishop of Virginia , and of the clergy and citizens of Washington . The same honor was granted to me by the members of the government of New Jersey and Pennsylvania , in whose presence I delivered lectures on my researches in Asia , and also on the personal reign of Jesus Christ ." -- Ibid ., pages 398 , 399 .
Dr . Wolff traveled in the most barbarous countries without the protection of any European authority , enduring many hardships and surrounded with countless perils . He was bastinadoed and starved , sold as a slave , and three times condemned to death . He was beset by robbers , and sometimes nearly perished from thirst . Once he was stripped of all that he possessed and left to travel hundreds of miles on foot through the mountains , the snow beating in his face and his naked feet benumbed by contact with the frozen ground .
When warned against going unarmed among savage and hostile tribes , he declared himself " provided with arms " -- " prayer , zeal for Christ , and confidence in His help ." " I am also ," he said , " provided with the love of God and my neighbor in my heart , and the Bible is in my hand ." -W. H . D . Adams , In Perils Oft , page 192 . The Bible in Hebrew and English he carried with him wherever he 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 labors 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
247