Adventism in Québec: The Dynamics of Rural Church Growth, 1830-1910 [review] / Denis Fortin.

As Seventh-day Adventism has spread across North America, it has experienced a variety of regional variations.However, relatively little attention has been given to these geographical characteristics.In the 1940s, Harold 0. McCumber examined The Advent Message in the Golden West, and more recently Doug R. Johnson wrote Adventism on the Northwedern Frontier.Although devoted to particular areas of the United States, neither of these books advanced any argument regarding the particular shape that Adventism took or why it developed as it did in these regions.While providing interesting narratives, these works rlld not provide much in the way of interpretive analysis.Denis Fortin has now added a third work on regional Adventism with his account ofAdventism inQ~ebec.In contrast to the earlier works, the author not only narrates the story of the denomination in this province; he also seeks to explain why Adventism went through cycles of progress and decline.He argues that there were three primary factors that ultimately weakened the church: the continuing migration of members to more populated areas (in this case the United States), a lack of financial resources, and-perhaps most importantly-frequent changes in local denominational leadership and, therefore, inconsistent guidance and support.He concludes that these issues remain significant today not oniy in Quebec, but in rural American churches generally.In pursuing this argument, Fortin traces the development of Adventism in a series of chronologically organized chapters.After briefly describing Quebec's Eastern Townships in the nineteenth century, he examines the Werite Movement's s e c a n t impact on the area.William Miller visited Quebec three times between 1835 and 1840, followed by Josiah Litch in 1842.The latter's arrival resulted in the first Werite campmeeting, held in Hatley in June.Although they faced increasing opposition, the Millerites remained active in Quebec through the Great Disappointment of 1844.During the next few years, these Millerites formed what would ultimately become Evangelical Adventist and Advent Christian Churches."By the end of the 1840s," Fortin observes, "Adventists in the Eastern Townships numbered about one thousand" (51).This Adventist presence drew leaders of the developing sabbatarian Adventist movement into the region as they sought out former Millerites to whom they could present their beliefs.They argued that Jesus had entered the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary on October 22,1844, to begin his fmal work of judgment, and that the seventh-day Sabbath was still binding on Christians and was the great test of the last days that would bring the true followers of God out of the Babylon of error and disbelief.With visits from Joseph Bates in 1848, from James and EUen White in 1850, and Bates and John N. Andrews in 1851, small pockets of sabbatarian Adventists developed in the Eastern Townships in the early 1850s.The conversion of two Baptist brothers, Augustin and Daniel Bourdeau, in the mid-1 850s brought greater dynamism to the sabbatarian movement in the region.Fortin writes that "the Bourdeau brothers' preaching efforts were relatively successful and, by the end of the 1 8 5 0 ~~ Sabbatarian Adventist believers were found in most villages along the border [with Vermont]" (68).Between 1862 and 1865 several churches organized, including Troy-Potton, Richford-Sutton, Westbury-Eaton, and Sutton-Dunham.With the organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church between 1861 and 1863, the Eastern Townships of Quebec came under the umbrella of the Vermont Conference.Unfortunately, this conference largely neglected Quebec into the mid-1870~~ while the General Conference transferred the Bourdeau brothers to Iowa for several months in 1866, a decision that slowed the growth of the denomination in both Vermont and

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