"Excuse me, son, but would you let me cross the border underneath your wagonload of hay?"
The farmer looked up, scrutinized the strange priest who had made the unusual request, murmured, "Yes, father," and loyally proceeded to conceal him at the bottom of his narrow wagon.
The priest, M.B. Czechowski, was fleeing for his life. The Franciscan monastery in central Europe of which he was a monk had become dangerously involved in national politics. He had almost reached the international border. He would be safe if he could cross it unobserved.
If.
Out of sight beneath the hay in the nineteenth wagon of an extensive caravan, Czechowski bounced and swerved the remaining distance to the checkpoint, then felt the vehicle stop to await inspection. Squinting through a crack to watch the customs officer do his work, he was greatly alarmed to discover that the elderly inspector probed the contents of each wagon with a sword! The energy involved appeared to tire him not at all despite the sweltering summer heat. He examined the eighteenth wagon as energetically as he had the first.
Czechowski prayed. Then, as the nineteenth wagon rumbled into position, the inspector wilted. Steadying himself, he called out to the driver, "Have you anything to declare?"
"I swear I have not even a loaf of bread, sir!" the farmer replied.
"Hurry up, then, and get a move on," the officer commanded. "Don't keep your wagon parked here all day!"
As the vehicle pulled ahead, a perspiring Czechowski managed to peer backward through another crack. He saw the inspector probe the next wagon as vigorously as before. [1]
M.B. Czechowski is certainly one of the most colorful, and possibly one of the most controversial, characters in the story of Adventism. People haven't always agreed even on his name. Do his initials "M.B." stand for Michael Belina or Michael Bonaventura? And how does one pronounce "Czechowski"? (He preferred the sound "Chahofsky." [2]) He could tell a dozen stories like the one above. Even if all of them didn't happen exactly as he told them, it's not hard to understand after reading a few of them why, once he made up his mind to return to Europe, he found his own way to get there.
Born in Poland in 1818, he entered the monastic order of St. Francis as a youth, idealistically assuming that modern monks were as chaste and self-denying as Francis of Assisi had been. Disillusioned, he tried to reform the monastery, with the result that he passed from one exciting episode to another. In due course he made a personal appeal to the pope in Rome, was imprisoned for a year, was exiled three years to France, and was driven thence into Switzerland. There in 1850 he renounced both priesthood and Catholicism and got married.
The next year he sailed for North America, where, after laboring awhile for the Baptists in Canada, he was converted in 1857 to the third angel's message during tent meetings in Findlay, Ohio.
The following spring, at a conference in Battle Creek dealing with work for immigrant ethnic groups, Czechowski was assigned to ministerial labor with the Bourdeau brothers among French-speaking Americans.
It was exhilarating to have a real live ex-Catholic priest in the ranks. His former sacrifice and present zeal received frequent mention in the Review, and his perennial poverty attracted generous responses, notably from the Whites. James White, however, who had three children of his own, became increasingly perplexed as to why Czechowski, who had four, was so constantly in need of disproportionately large living allowances. Before long, White was writing in the Review about the good "counsel" Czechowski required from his brethren. [3] When Czechowski sometime later left northern New York, abruptly and without counsel, and launched an expensive but relatively fruitless mission in Brooklyn and New York City, matters came to a head.
In 1861 James White was on a tour of the Eastern States trying to organize conferences but encountering a discouraging degree of opposition. Surely Czechowski, whom he and his wife had befriended so liberally, would heed his advice. The former priest insisted, however, on marching to the beat of his own drummer, and in exasperation White wrote in the Review about the New York mission: "We are done moving out in any enterprise connected with the cause until system can lie at the bottom of all our operations. ... Let others who choose push the battle in confusion." [4]
It was a turning point. Czechowski, opposing not only James White but also C.O. Taylor, A.C. and D.T. Bourdeau, and others, remained on in New York, preaching in several languages and raising up a small company of believers.
'Czechowski's real goal was to work in Europe. When the General Conference organized in 1863 and the Review reported its interest in sending Snook there as a missionary, Czechowski hoped his dream might soon come true. When J.N. Loughborough came to Brooklyn the following winter to hold evangelistic meetings and organize a church (of sixteen), Czechowski implored him to mention his name to the executive committee. Loughborough, instead, implored him to wait for a while. Many years later, Loughborough recalled that he had not felt free to be candid with the would-be missionary. He had told him that the church couldn't yet afford to send him. He had wanted to say that the man himself was "too rash" to be sent. [5]
As early as 1858 Czechowsi had confided to Ellen White in a letter that it was his deep desire to "visit my own native country across the big waters, and tell them all about Jesus' coming, and the glorious restitution, and how they must keep the Commandments of God and the Faith of Jesus." [6]
In her turn Ellen White wrote Czechowski a number of letters through the years. In 1861 she told him that she had been shown in vision that in rejecting the counsel of his fellow ministers he did wrong. She commended him as "conscientious and perfectly honest before God"--an unusual compliment from the Lord's messenger--but reminded him that he had given his brethren reason to be dismayed at his poor judgment. She urged him not to "mark out a course" for himself but to await the decisions of the church; and she specifically warned him not to let unbelievers wean him away with false praise. [7]
The leadership considered his request to be sent abroad and reluctantly turned it down for the time being, hoping he would yet develop into a prudent manager so that they could send him sometime later. [8]
Thereupon Czechowski did the very thing Sister White had written him not to do. He went to a camp meeting in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, [9] conducted by the Advent Christians, told them about his dream, and won their high praise and enthusiastic endorsement.
The Advent Christians were an organization of former Millerites who rejected the Sabbath and sanctuary messages but accepted the sleep of the dead. They had organized formally with headquarters in Boston in 1860, the same year Seventh-day Adventists settled on their name. Miles Grant, who edited their World's Crisis, agreed to let Czechowski solicit funds through the columns of that magazine.
The main branch of Millerism, asserting the immortality of the soul, had organized as the American Millennial Association, later known as the Evangelical Adventists, in 1858. The editor of their Advent Herald also opened his paper to the former priest. (All told, the first-day Adventists numbered in the 1860s some ten times the membership of Seventh-day Adventists.)
Thus supported, and accompanied by his family and Miss Anna Butler, a sister of the George I. Butler who one day would be General Conference president, Michael Belina (or Bonaventura) Czechowski set sail for Europe on May 14, 1864.
For fourteen months he labored diligently in the vicinity of Torre Pellice in the Waldensian country of the Italian Alps. There he won several individuals to the Sabbath, notably J.D. Geymet, Francis Besson, and a little later, apparently, Mrs. Catherine Revel. [10] Yielding at last to overwhelming opposition and taking along John Geymet--and, of course, his family and Anna Butler--he transferred his operations in September 1865 to Switzerland.
Czechowski and Geymet visited from house to house, preached in public halls, printed and sold tracts, and issued a periodical, L'évangile éternel ("The Everlasting Gospel"). Three years later, when Czechowski departed Switzerland for good, he left behind him about forty baptized believers worshiping in several companies.
Their main church, in Tramelan, was organized early in 1867, the first Seventh-day Adventist church outside North America.
To secure financial support from his willing benefactors, Czechowski filed regular reports with the Advent Herald and the World's Crisis, whose editors became increasingly fond of him, urged their readers to support him, and forwarded their contributions to him from time to time.
Aided by the fact that English was to them a foreign tongue, Czechowski managed for three years to keep his converts uninformed about all Adventist groups in America. But one eventful day in the latter part of 1867, Albert Vuilleumier, who knew just enough English so that he could make it out with the aid of a dictionary, noticed among Czechowski's belongings a copy of the Review for July 16. Haltingly but with growing excitement he read phrase by phrase till he discovered that there were Sabbath-keeping Adventists in North America too! Quickly he dispatched a letter--in French--to Battle Creek; and after some delay due to the language, the folk in Battle Creek read with growing excitement about Sabbath-keeping Adventists in faraway Switzerland.
Letters flowed back and forth, but mutual joy was marred by news that the building and equipment which Czechowski had purchased for publishing L'évangile éternel were heavily mortgaged, the note was coming due, and the former priest was off in Italy doing missionary work. Czechowski's weakness had surfaced again, disastrously.
While the creditors postponed the deadline to January 1869, the Americans invited the Swiss to send them a representative, and then set about raising money to bail them out. There was a stipulation. It was felt under the circumstances that if the Americans provided the cash, title to the press should not be held by any individual but by the Swiss believers as a whole. Czechowski said No! And the press was lost. [11] About that same time he left Switzerland permanently. He worked a short time in France, Germany, and Hungary; then he settled in Romania, where he supported himself and made yet another group of converts. Under obscure circumstances, he died of "exhaustion" on February 23, 1876, in Vienna, at the age of fifty-seven.
There is no doubting his missionary zeal. Always poor, he traveled incredible distances on foot. On at least one occasion he slogged endless miles after dark through muddy fields in a driving winter rain. On another, he slipped on snow to the very edge of a precipice. He believed God had called him to his special ministry. Once, he reports, an influential family in Italy was prepared for his arrival by a dream. [12]
The quality of his converts is also noteworthy. J.D. Geymet, Francis Besson, Jonah Jones, and others forsook all immediately to become full-time missionary workers. Albert Vuilleumier, a watchmaker, doubled vigorously as an elder, sometimes even baptizing people. James Erzberger, already a minister-in-training, transferred his loyalty to the Sabbath-keeping church for life. Mrs. Revel, in spite of severe, opposition at home, remained a Sabbath keeper over sixty years till her death at ninety-nine. Mrs. Pigueron, one of the first three baptized in a lake at Neuchatel, renamed an Adventist over seventy years. Several of the young couples Czechowski baptized are, through their descendants, still active in Seventh-day Adventist work to the present day.
When the news first broke that Czechowski was preaching the Sabbath in Europe, the various "first-day" Adventists, chagrined and angry, dropped him flat. Seventh-day Adventists, however, were understandably delighted and hailed him as "this noble hearted man." They touched lightly on his faults and tended to blame themselves for not having helped him overcome them. The 1872 General Conference session officially acknowledged "the hand of God in planting the truth in Switzerland." [13]
But when Andrews got to Switzerland in 1874, he found that many of the Swiss Adventists remembered Czechowski chiefly with "much pain and sadness." [14] Debts, disappointment, and the devil had sown seeds of disillusion. The Swiss were clinging loyally to the truth about the Sabbath--but also, stubbornly, to rumors about Czechowski's assumed adultery and ultimate apostasy. [15] Though they welcomed Andrews with open hearts, they were in no position to help him get the new press he badly needed, [16] and he died without obtaining it.
Interest in Czechowski has escalated in recent years, stimulated in part by the centenary of his death. Loyal Europeans are endeavoring, if they can, to disprove all the tragic rumors.
"We have this treasure," Paul observed of every Christian evangelist, "in earthen vessels."
Ellen White didn't say that if Czechowski went to Europe God would forsake him! God evidently did bless the preaching of this one-time Catholic priest. Yet, without passing sentence, it is tempting to think what more might have been. What if, to ease his natural pride, Czechowski back in 1858 had attributed his lack of self-management to his years in a monastery (where every temporal need was supplied) and had honored the friendly counsel of his colleagues and the inspired advice of Ellen White? On the growing edge of evangelism he might have quickly built a solid reputation for creative teamwork. Conspicuous as he was, he might have helped significantly to turn the tide in favor of organization at a crucial time in his church's history. When the General Conference considered sending B. F, Snook to Europe, it might well have appointed him instead, ten years before J.N. Andrews was sent out! His press in Europe need not have failed. The flow of missionaries could have begun a decade earlier than it did. And in due course M.B. Czechowski might have closed his days honored and appreciated on both sides of the Atlantic, the first official Seventh-day Adventist overseas missionary.
Notes: