Frederick Baedeker: Minister to Russia's Prisoners

[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Dan Jones and This Is History A Dynasty To Die For is back for a brand new season. This time we meet Edward II, a larger than life character who starts out as the party

[00:00:12] boy prince and ends up… well I don't want to give too much away. He's got one thing on his mind, not war, not ambition, but love. And it's a love that will get him in burning hot trouble with his barons, his family and his queen.

[00:00:29] The king's affection for his favorite knight kicks off a wild rollercoaster reign full of love and hate, war and grief, famine and just about all the horsemen of the apocalypse. Along the way we'll meet tiger mums, Scottish legends, murderous cousins, a herd of camels

[00:00:46] and one extremely hot iron poker. Listen to and follow This Is History A Dynasty To Die For, available wherever you get your podcasts. Do you want someone who understands you like no one else?

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[00:02:05] I'm Elise and in every episode I'll bring you a new martyr and or missionary, the cold and the brave. In this episode we're covering the life of Frederick Biedecker, missionary to Russia.

[00:02:37] Before we get into it, I want to say how nice it is to be back in the studio to record this episode. I'm really excited about it. I just finished up summer classes a few weeks ago and I finally had a chance to get this

[00:02:46] episode out to you guys. In the background we've also been working on some studio refurbishments. We set up a new website which is specifically made for podcasts. Troy has been making some short videos that have been going out on all of our socials.

[00:02:59] They're being filmed from our balcony so on a clear day you can see a dormant volcano in the background. If that's motivation for you to go check it out, I'll link our social handles in this episode description. We've also been working on a short video series.

[00:03:11] It's lighthearted but also informative and it does require a bit of costuming. That's all I can say about it right now but I'll keep you in the loop and let you know when it drops which should be in a few weeks or so.

[00:03:22] I also want to read two Apple podcast reviews that have arrived since our last episode. We get a lot on Spotify too, so for the next episode I'll compile a few of those to read. This first one comes from Emotional Captivating which says,

[00:03:35] Very much enjoy the straightforward way you state what happened but include important details and let us know when there are some details you have to leave out for time's sake. Looking forward to more episodes.

[00:03:45] I'd love to hear one about Chiang Kai-shek if you can find information on his conversion. And I do as a matter of fact have plans for an episode on Chiang Kai-shek. Actually others have asked me to do this episode as well and so there's one coming.

[00:03:57] I just don't know when it is but just rest assured that it will be coming at some point in the future. The second one comes from Eden. She says, Hello, my name is Eden.

[00:04:05] I'll be heading overseas to serve in Southeast Europe in March and listening to the show is an amazing source of fuel for the flame as I go through the fundraising journey. I'd love to hear you do an episode on Isabel Kuhn.

[00:04:16] She and her husband John served in China and reading your autobiography when I was 12 is what highlighted the call of missions, the lorded plan for my life. I love hearing things like this and I'm really glad that this show is helping you get through

[00:04:27] your fundraising journey and I will bump Isabel Kuhn further up the top of the future episodes list. So on our new website there's this feature that Troy has worked tirelessly on.

[00:04:37] I'd like to take some credit for it but to be honest I had nothing to do with it. But it's a Google map where he's pinned all the episodes of martyrs and missionaries and

[00:04:44] revived thoughts and you can just click on a pin and it will tell you the person who went there and the episode or episodes we've done on that person. And as I was looking at this map, there is one spot which is blank and that's Russia.

[00:04:57] And I've been planning on doing an in-depth episode on Russia and a little known Russian Great Awakening and Lord Radstock's involvement with that. And you may remember in the Hudson Taylor episode that I asked anyone to send information they might have about Lord Radstock and Russia in general.

[00:05:13] And lo and behold one listener did and he sent me a lot of resources which is really cool. And even before that, one of his relatives had messaged me asking if I would do an episode on Frederick Baedeker.

[00:05:24] And I think that Frederick is the perfect person to whet our appetites for a more expansive Russian episode later on. And I also just think he has an amazing story about a little known period in history.

[00:05:36] And the main book I used to research for this episode is called Dr. Baedeker and his Apostolic Work in Russia by Robert Sloane Latimer. And it was written in 1907, the year after Baedeker died. And it's an incredible time capsule of pre-revolutionary Russia.

[00:05:51] And it also gives us an insight as to how a revolution came to be. So Frederick Baedeker was born in 1823 in northwestern Germany. His father was a well-known orthologist whose collection was later housed at a museum in Berlin.

[00:06:05] And his parents do not appear to have been believers, although they were apparently strict moralists. And when he was 16 years old, he was apprenticed to a business, but there's no information on what sort of business that was.

[00:06:15] And then when he was about 21, he joined the German army for his two years of mandatory service. His regiment was stationed in Cologne and he had the opportunity to see Queen Victoria and Prince Albert when they came to visit the city.

[00:06:28] After his service ended, he went back to his civilian job, but he was once again called up to serve in the reserve during the German revolutions of 1848 to 1849. And it's while he's serving the second stint that his health completely breaks down.

[00:06:41] And his ailments are never detailed, but it seems to be issues which plagued him for the rest of his life. And because he was unable to recover, he was, much to his relief, discharged from the army.

[00:06:52] And then a couple of years later, he gets married, but sadly his new bride died only three months into the marriage. And after her death, Baedeker begins a series of wanderings around various parts of Germany to London, Tasmania.

[00:07:05] And in Tasmania, he works as a tutor in French and German at a private school and then at Christ College, which is the oldest higher education institution in Australia. And it was only a few years old when he taught there.

[00:07:16] And he spent two years in Australia before returning to Europe in 1858. The following year, he goes to England at the behest of some friends who wanted to open a private school there in Weston-Super-Mare, which is on the southwestern coast of England, about 20 miles from Bristol.

[00:07:32] And he moves to England and becomes a British citizen, ending his seven years of wandering. In 1862, when he's about 40 years old, he married the widow of one of his first students. And the family moves to Bristol so that Baedeker could attend lectures on medicine and science.

[00:07:47] And at some point prior to this, it seems that he got his PhD in philosophy from the University of Freiburg in Germany, which is where the doctor handle comes from. About 30 years before Baedeker moves to Bristol, George Muller moved there to work at Bethesda

[00:08:01] Chapel and started his famous orphanage ministry. And he and Frederick met and began a friendship which would last until Muller's death. In 1866, a series of evangelistic meetings were being held by Lord Radstock.

[00:08:14] The book says, through the pleading of a gentleman himself the fruit of the work, of whom he had some acquaintance, Baedeker reluctantly considered to attend one meeting. Interest was sufficiently awakened in him to repeat his visit, but he was careful to

[00:08:26] make his exit before the noble preacher could reach him at the closing of the service. Having attended several meetings, he one evening lingered long enough or got far enough in without the ability to get out faster that Lord Radstock was able to reach him.

[00:08:39] Putting his hand on his shoulder, he said, my man, God has a message through me for you tonight, urging him to enter the other room. In the presence of the crowd he did so, and the two were soon on their knees.

[00:08:49] During those solemn moments a work was done in Dr. Baedeker whereby the accumulated infidelity of years was dissipated forever. God was acknowledged, the Savior trusted, and the joy of salvation soon filled his soul. The experience of that memorable night would be by himself thus tersely expressed.

[00:09:05] I went in, a proud German infidel, and came out a humble, believing disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. His wife, though skeptical at first, followed her husband and became a Christian after seeing the changes wrought in her husband.

[00:09:18] And Baedeker, who had been so frail previously, he apparently could not even take a walk with his wife before taking precautions against heart failure, he decided to trust God for his health and threw away all of his medications and went on for another 40 years without serious illness.

[00:09:32] Now here we have a period of about 7 years after his conversion where we don't really know what he was up to. But in 1874 he was in Berlin and Lord Radstock happened to be there alongside a famous American evangelist who's not named, but D.L.

[00:09:47] Moody was in England at this time, although it doesn't seem that he ever made it over to Berlin. It's possible that it was Charles Hodge, we just don't know. But anyway, Frederick is asked if he would translate, to which he agreed.

[00:10:00] And he interpreted with such spirit and power, the people said, what need have we to send to America for a preacher? For here is a man of our own race and tongue upon whom the Holy Spirit manifestly rests. We'll listen to him.

[00:10:13] And because of the people's receptiveness, he traveled for the next year around Germany, strengthening the evangelistic inroads made by the previous meetings and ventured to new towns with great success. And here it gets a little bit muddled because the sources are not clear as to how he came

[00:10:27] to minister in Russia, but with a little extra digging it seems that Lord Radstock first visited St. Petersburg in 1874 and began preaching and evangelizing among the Russian aristocracy. And then he makes two more visits in the following years, and then a last one in 1878

[00:10:42] before he's thrown out of Russia. However, his efforts are really successful and the Russian Christian aristocracy opened many doors for Frederick and his ministry, as we'll see here in a minute. And it's the year before this in 1877 that Frederick rented his house out for a period

[00:10:58] of three years and moved his wife and adopted daughter Emmy to Russia. Frederick's original intention when moving to Russia was to minister to the Germans who were there. And here it's necessary to understand what the Russian Empire looked like before the

[00:11:11] revolution because it is absolutely essential for understanding his travels. And I was so confused when reading this book because everything is stated so matter-of-factly with no elaboration, and if you're not reading it in 1907, it isn't clear at all.

[00:11:25] So the Russian Empire at its height was only a little bit smaller than the Soviet Union at its height. So the Russian Empire was 8,800,000 square miles and it controlled one-sixth of the world's landmass, claiming the title of third largest empire in history after the British and Mongol Empires.

[00:11:43] They controlled the modern countries of Russia, of course, which includes Siberia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, which had been taken from Sweden and made into a Grand Duchy of Russia, Poland, which was part of the Russian partition of

[00:11:58] Poland, Georgia, Armenia, all of the Stan countries with the exception of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And it also included parts of Turkey and China and Romania. And then an added fun fact just for the context is that Alaska had only been a US territory

[00:12:14] for about a decade, having been sold by Tsar Alexander II after Russia's defeat in the Crimean War purely out of spite to stop Great Britain from getting their hands on it because those two were not friends.

[00:12:26] And this massive amount of land owned by the Russian Empire was not united in the least. It was a hodgepodge of multiple languages, cultures, and religions. And many of these regions were not so keen on being owned by Russia.

[00:12:38] And Russia's answer to this was to wield its rule with an iron undiscerning fist. And Russia also had this massively inflated aristocratic class, which shines through in all the Russian literature from this era. And by the early 1900s, there were 2 million aristocrats out of 138 million population.

[00:12:57] And while there were some good aristocrats, many of them floated about unbothered by anything or anyone while the peasant class suffered and the middle class in Russia obviously was just non-existent. And this created a drive in Russia to become the aristocracy. Latimer puts it well in the book.

[00:13:13] He says, have you heard of the Russian velvet book, the Barataria Kanega? It is an important volume preserved at the heraldic office of the Senate at St. Petersburg and guarded with the most jealous care.

[00:13:24] It is the ancient genealogical register of the Russian nobility, and it is called the velvet book from the fact that it is sumptuously bound in rich crimson velvet. Oh, what efforts have been made in past generations by powerful and wealthy families to get their

[00:13:37] names inserted in the velvet book. It was the highest pinnacle of the ambition of the Russian aristocrat. All the resources of influence and intrigue at court have been employed to this end, and usually employed in vain.

[00:13:52] Russian citizens were even further divided by their geographic regions and also their religion. The Russian Orthodox Church was the accepted church in Russia, but you also had various Protestant branches and Catholics and Muslims. And the Protestant denominations were relatively new addition because Catherine the Great,

[00:14:09] after she deposed her husband Peter III, was looking around her kingdom and noticed that vast regions that were undeveloped were completely abandoned. This was in the late 1700s and serfs were not liberated for another hundred years so there was nobody moving around in these areas.

[00:14:25] And towards the end of the Seven Years War in 1762 Catherine the Great makes this call to Europe to settle. But it's very unspecific and so nobody really answers it. The following year in 1763 she makes a more specific call with the benefits that it would entail.

[00:14:42] So if you were to immigrate to Russia, number one you were exempt from taxes for a period of years. It was more if you immigrated to the country, less if you immigrated to the city. You were allowed to go wherever you wanted to in Russia.

[00:14:55] You could be whatever you wanted to be and you were also able to be exempt from military service. And there were a few other benefits. I think you could get like an interest-free loan if you wanted to do farming equipment, things like that.

[00:15:07] And so this call was answered mostly by Germans and German Pietists or what would later become known as Stuntists. But the call was not all that it appeared to be because once they started going they were not able to go wherever they wanted to go.

[00:15:21] They were actually pushed kind of towards southern Russia next to the Volga River and they were forced into being farmers. And so it was not great and they had a lot of trouble, especially in the beginning because the winters were so much harsher in Russia.

[00:15:37] But they did eventually acclimate. And there's another group of Protestants that originated within Russia and those are the Molokans which are Russian Mennonites. And their name derives from Moloko or milk in Russian. And this is because during the fasting periods in the Russian Orthodox Church you weren't

[00:15:54] allowed to drink milk and in protest the Molokans drank milk. Both of these groups lived in the same region of the Volga River in southern Russia. And this was all well and good until the implementation of the Russification of Russia.

[00:16:08] And this meant the persecution of anything not inherently Russian, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, political persecution was rampant. It was a giant umbrella of suppression. And this process began under Alexander II in the 1860s and became even more extreme after his assassination in 1881 when Alexander III takes over.

[00:16:30] And the policy officially continued until 1905 so this is essentially the entire time that Frederick worked in Russia. In 1891 a decision was passed down by the Orthodox Church about these other Protestant sects. They said that the rapid increase of these sects is a serious danger to the state.

[00:16:48] Let all sectarians be forbidden to leave their own villages. Let all offenders against the faith be tried, not by a jury, but by ecclesiastical judges. Let their passports be marked so that they shall be neither employed nor harbored and residence in Russia shall become impossible for them.

[00:17:04] Let them be held legally incapable of renting, purchasing or holding real property. Let their children be removed from their control and educated in the Orthodox faith. And the punishment for being a heretic or aiding a heretic or otherwise promoting heretical

[00:17:19] views was imprisonment and then banishment to the most remote regions of the empire, usually Siberia or the Caucasus regions in the southernmost areas there. And I'll add some more information as we go on but this gives us enough insight to understand the Russia where Baedeker ministered.

[00:17:37] And the first city he goes to was in central Latvia. He arrives at his hotel and then immediately went to the governor's house asking for a meeting. He said I'm staying in your city for a few days. See here's my passport.

[00:17:49] I'm from England and I'm an evangelist and I would like to hold a meeting here if you will arrange for a meeting in your drawing room. I'm willing to conduct it and deliver an address. And this sounds really forward to us but it actually worked.

[00:18:01] The governor told him he would be delighted and would make sure that he and several of his friends were in attendance. And in other cities he traveled to he would often ask after any other Protestants in the

[00:18:11] area and see if they could assist him with hiring at a hall or gathering a crowd. If there was no one to be found he would use the governor method. One of the hardest challenges that he faced was overcoming the barrier of multiple spoken languages.

[00:18:23] He could speak German, French and English but his Russian was not up to snuff for preaching. He didn't speak any Turkish, Finnish, Latvian or any of the other numerous languages he encountered on his travels.

[00:18:34] So what he would do is he would have to employ multiple interpreters and he would set them up really interestingly because in the middle you would have those who could speak the languages he was speaking like French or German or whatever.

[00:18:45] And then on the sides you would have those who would basically be having it translated two or three times to them. And so you had this entire layout of people just speaking in multiple languages kind of going through the lines which sounds really chaotic but it worked.

[00:18:59] And then also he said he really enjoyed it because it gave him a rest. Baedeker had the unique opportunity to preach and share both the aristocracy but also with the lowest of the low, the prison inmates.

[00:19:11] And his relationship with some of the most powerful people in Russia opened the prisons for him and I'll explain how it happened directly from the book. I formerly had no idea of the large part of the population of many countries that are

[00:19:23] kept as if they were wild beasts behind iron bars and with heavy chains upon them. Learning the facts in Russia my heart's desire was, oh that the prisons may be opened to me.

[00:19:33] I ventured to express my desire to a lady of rank in St. Petersburg and asked her whether it was possible. She shook her head sadly but she did not forget my desire. She was eventually able to procure a permit from the director of prisons when she ran

[00:19:47] into him during a shopping trip in St. Petersburg and he was a Christian himself so he was only too happy to help. And a year or two later Frederick was able to meet with the director of prisons himself and he wrote down the exchange.

[00:19:59] We talked very freely about the defects and needs of the Russian prisons. He is a God-fearing man and he has at heart the welfare of the prisoners. He told me his plans and he said with God's help I mean to effect great changes within two years.

[00:20:12] He encouraged me to go to East Siberia and promised to send the boxes of scriptures to different prisons addressed to me to be kept until I arrived. He also wishes that I should go to Sakhalin as well which was the prison island that was

[00:20:23] for the most notorious prisoners and he also promised to give me full information about the various prisons. Praise God for this open door. And the Bibles that Frederick was using actually were provided by the British and Foreign Bible Society so it was kind of a tandem effort there.

[00:20:39] And you wouldn't think this at the outset but his visits were received warmly and excitedly by both the prison officers and the prisoners alike because nobody ever came out to visit them they were like kind of the outcast society nobody cared about them nobody thought about

[00:20:53] them they were out there at the far-flung regions of the empire. And the book relates an experience while visiting a prison in the Caucasus. It says the poor fellows clamored eagerly around him asking something of him in an unknown

[00:21:05] tongue what is it they're begging for he inquired of his interpreter is it money or tea or what it's only that you will write your name on little slips of paper or in their testaments that they may be more readily able to remember it.

[00:21:17] But why do they want to remember my name he asked they want to keep your name before them in order that they may consistently pray for you for your great love for them. Bedecker loved to tell the ways in which God had protected him throughout the years whether

[00:21:30] this was providing the shelter of a torture camp in the middle of a harsh wilderness that would have otherwise killed him and his companions or keeping himself and another preacher safe from being violently attacked by an angry mob prepared to ambush them.

[00:21:43] However one of his favorite stories to tell was God's protection over his traveling companion friend and interpreter Patwakan Taranjans an Armenian Christian who lived in Baku which is the capital of Azerbaijan with his wife and 10 kids and the exact date on this event

[00:21:58] it was hard to find because apparently there are several similar events that occurred in Baku throughout the years most likely it's within the first five years of 1900. But from an upper window of his dwelling this man looked down upon the turbulent mobs of

[00:22:13] Turks and Kurds and heard their fanatical threatenings as they hurried hither and thither in their work of butchery. The sky was ruddy with the glare of burning buildings the air filled with cries of hatred and screams of agony and terror.

[00:22:25] The savages were slowly but surely approaching his abode. They were taking the dwellings house by house. The residents that in that quarter of town were nearly all Armenians paying no heed to the piteous appeals for mercy they set fire to each house consigning the occupants to a

[00:22:40] horrible death. It was only a question of a few minutes and the turn of himself and his family would come. The poor fellow spent those few minutes in earnest prayer to God. Meanwhile the mob grew nearer. The anxiety was fearful they were now at his door.

[00:22:55] Suddenly the howlings and shoutings in the street below ceased. A stalwart Russian had taken up position in front of his door. This neighbor is not to be interfered with he's a good fellow he's different from all the others now pass along.

[00:23:07] The human tide of fierce fanaticism obeyed the authoritative word it passed along continued its diabolical work at the houses which lay beyond. Of all the houses of the Armenians in that district only one was not a charred ruin entombing

[00:23:20] the remains of the hopeless inhabitants the dwelling of Pakwatan Taranjans. Hi I'm Dan Jones and This is History A Dynasty to Die For is back for a brand new season. This time we meet Edward II a larger than life character who starts out as the party

[00:23:48] boy prince and ends up well I don't want to give too much away. He's got one thing on his mind not war not ambition but love and it's a love that will get him in burning hot trouble with his barons his family and his queen.

[00:24:05] The king's affection for his favorite knight kicks off a wild rollercoaster reign full of love and hate war and grief famine and just about all the horsemen of the apocalypse. Along the way we'll meet tiger mums Scottish legends murderous cousins a herd of camels

[00:24:22] and one extremely hot iron poker. Listen to and follow This is History A Dynasty to Die For available wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:25:10] While prison ministry was the bulk of Frederick's work he also spent time speaking in meeting halls and meeting with persecuted Christians and also in the homes of various Christian aristocracy where he was invited to stay.

[00:25:54] This book covers several amazing stories of the work that some of the aristocracy were doing in Russia and I will briefly highlight at least one of them later on but I wanted to share this humorous story before we talk more about his work among the prisoners.

[00:26:06] There was a man named Count Brubrinsky who served as a high general during the Crimean War and he came down with typhus and he prayed to some entity out there he didn't know who

[00:26:16] it was but he prayed that if he was able to survive that he would serve this entity and for 20 years he continued on praying to this unknown entity until Lord Radstock was able

[00:26:26] to meet with him and open the scriptures to him and he realized that he was praying to God and he became a Christian. And so now he opened his home every Saturday night for two back to back meetings one held

[00:26:37] first for the younger crowd and the later for the more mature believers and after these meetings were finished they drank tea together at 11pm which was apparently the Russian thing to do. And Badecker said what impressed us most about these meetings was that when the address was

[00:26:52] concluded there was a startling scratching sound heard from all parts of the room and a smell of sulfur. It was the ladies striking their matches wherewith to light their cigarettes in preparation to a conversational discussion of the address they had just been listening to.

[00:27:06] It was the custom but Count Brubrinsky felt however that the themes and interests that brought them together were of too sacred a character to be contaminated by tobacco smoke. He therefore begged that his fair guests would impose upon themselves a self-denying ordinance in the matter.

[00:27:20] His view was ultimately adopted by all save one dear countess who plaintively protested that she was too old to sacrifice her little indulgence. She was permitted therefore to scratch and puff to her heart's content.

[00:27:34] Now here I want to shift into talking about Badecker's visits to the prisons in Siberia and the surrounding areas. He made the venture into Siberia twice and it was a journey of 5000 miles each time. He makes the first journey when he's 67 years old.

[00:27:48] And thankfully Bert Kargil of the Precious Seed magazine already did the hard work of detailing this trip so I'll just read what he wrote. He says that his journey began in Berlin in March of 1890 by train to St. Petersburg and

[00:28:00] Moscow and then by steamboat on the river Volga. Another train journey took him across the Ural Mountains into western Siberia then several days on another steamboat to Tomsk. At each stopping place he made it his business to visit the prisons to leave tracts and New

[00:28:15] Testaments which had been shipped ahead for his arrival. The next 1000 miles or so were by road or at least such roads as existed. He traveled by tarantos a simple type of covered primitive wagon pulled by three horses.

[00:28:28] His cases of books were packed first and then luggage on top some food supplies and finally a mattress and pillows for such comfort as could be had over uneven roads mudflats and through rivers.

[00:28:38] His tarantos was ferried across a massive river a little bit north of Mongolia to travel another 1000 miles southeast. He wrote home to say that during this long journey he had preached the gospel to 40,000 prisoners and distributed 12,000 copies of the Word of God.

[00:28:55] The final leg of the journey was 1800 miles by steamer to the coast and then to Sokolin Island before making his way home to England. And one of Frederick's first stops on this journey were the prisons at Tomsk.

[00:29:07] He said the prisons here are simply horrible beyond description or imagination. The number of prisoners here have been increasing for some time. Each week a transport arrives from Europe with 600 or so and about three or four hundred are sent eastward.

[00:29:21] There are three prisons here one where work is done containing about 300 men, the second where the prisoners are confined for a lengthy period containing 1600 to 1700 and then the worst of all containing 3400 who were kept in 16 wooden sheds each crammed with about 200 or more.

[00:29:39] But the worst part he said were the sick houses where they were crammed with every ill person together regardless of their illness so some had typhus or smallpox and they were lying next to others with diarrhea or other minor illnesses.

[00:29:53] And in his other accounts he also talks about how hard it was to watch families with young children go into exile or into the prisons because these entire families would travel together and he knew that many of these small children were never going to survive the harsh

[00:30:05] environments which lay ahead of them. The situations in the prisons were so overwhelming that many of the officials were at their wits end trying to figure out what to do. Frederick wrote, the governor whom we visited yesterday had sent a telegram to St. Petersburg

[00:30:19] to say that the prisons were overcrowded and to stop any further arrivals. But St. Petersburg is far away as the saying goes and it is plain enough that the pulse of Siberia is not felt in St. Petersburg although the government is supposed to govern all of

[00:30:33] Russia both in Asia and in Europe. He shared the story of a young engineer he met who had been exiled to Siberia just for knowing the people who assassinated Tsar Alexander II. He was placed in solitary confinement for 16 months at a St. Petersburg prison and then

[00:30:49] he was marched from St. Petersburg to Irkutsk in Siberia which is a journey of 3,500 miles and his wife chose to follow him there and they spent four years in the prison house

[00:30:59] before being allowed to live in a little hamlet near the prison where they had to farm and scrimp and save for six years to hopefully be permitted by the current Tsar to return home with the money they had saved.

[00:31:11] They were eventually granted permission but they returned home to nothing. Their entire life was in shambles and they had to live under police supervision for the rest of their lives. Another person he spoke with tried to escape the prison, the guards weren't paying close

[00:31:25] attention and the gate was open but he hadn't counted on the vast nothingness that surrounded the prison and also the exposure and so he was brought in with frozen limbs which had to be amputated and so he was forced to crawl pitifully and painfully along the prison floors

[00:31:39] for the rest of his life. I find excellent fishing in the dark waters of the prison, he wrote home. It is a happy service to carry his message from word to word and to put it into the ears that are eager to listen.

[00:31:51] I do not hide anything but openly declare that the gospel of God's grace is for all men. No one dares to stop my mouth. With a few exceptions the officials have offered the greatest facilities, some of them helping me like brothers.

[00:32:04] The expression of loving sympathy breaks down many a stout-hearted hardened criminal. Everyone convicted for the fifth time fainted away when told of God's love to sinful man. It's important to note that there was no concept of redemption in the Russian prison

[00:32:18] system because everyone was required to carry a passport and if you committed a crime no matter how trivial it was stamped on your passport and carried over upon every renewal and there was no place in society for convicts and so it was almost impossible to find work

[00:32:32] and there was no forgiveness of past deeds no matter how long ago they were or even what they were and so oftentimes these convicts could only escape their crimes in death their entire life being ruined. At another prison Frederick met a young man who was sentenced for arson.

[00:32:48] He had burned down his home for the insurance money and he was truly remorseful and considered himself to be a Christian. He assured Frederick that when he got out he would do so much better and he was from a family of minor nobility.

[00:33:00] He felt sure of his prospects after release but Frederick saw the young man three years later at a different prison in eastern Siberia and he had become hardened and tried to hide himself from Frederick's view but he approached the man anyway and asked him what had happened

[00:33:15] and after his release this young man went back to his family but they turned their back on him and refused to help him or even acknowledge his existence and he was unable to find work

[00:33:24] because of the mark on his passport so he found himself starving on the streets and he was forced to commit a crime just to go back to prison where at least he had a place to sleep and food to eat.

[00:33:35] If I had many lives Bedecker said in an address in England I could not wish to spend them otherwise than I have spent this one in carrying the good tidings of great joy to those thousands

[00:33:44] upon thousands of hapless hopeless men who sit in darkness in the shadows of death all their days. For those prisoners who couldn't read a wordless book was provided which was color coded with the meaning explained to them so they can understand and sometimes there were

[00:34:00] prisoners for whom there was no translation on hand and so other prisoners would actually offer to translate their translations for the other prisoners. These prisoners were so forgotten and so destitute they were just happy to have somebody come and spend time with them and show that they cared.

[00:34:16] In addition to the New Testaments Frederick would often provide reading glasses for those who needed them this and tea were the most common requests of the prisoners. On another occasion he was traveling through Romania and he heard the story of a persecuted studentist family.

[00:34:31] After their conversion from the Orthodox faith the wife destroyed all of their icons which had previously adorned their home and when their neighbors and relatives heard of it they stormed into their home and beat the couple unconscious.

[00:34:42] His brother being the village elder and of great authority seized his possessions livestock and even clothing. The windows and doors of his dwelling were broken his freehold land was taken and let out to a tenant the rent being payable to the coffers of the church.

[00:34:56] When he went to a higher authority the stigmatary told him to go and take the cholera. After a few months of this with starvation threatening his family he appeared before the village council to beg them to grant him a passport that he might leave the district.

[00:35:09] For answer he was seized bound hand and foot and tied from a ceiling beam then they tortured him with needles and hot irons until his screams caused them to cut the ropes.

[00:35:18] When he fell heavily to the floor on his head the outrage brought on an illness which is a wonder that he even survived. When he'd recovered so malicious and persistent were his neighbors that on Sundays and festival

[00:35:28] days he was obliged to leave the village early and spend the day hiding behind the hedges to avoid them. Then there came a visit from three priests to examine him the visit not being satisfactory although he said as little as possible he was put into a local prison.

[00:35:42] The next day two officers came and by the direction of his brother the elder he was taken to the blacksmith's forge. He was there ordered to curse his faith and when he refused his hand was put into the vice which had been screwed up tightly.

[00:35:54] And with a heated iron his hand was burned there with twelve scars upon it. Silently in his agony he looked into his brother's face. His brother said the devil is in you but I will drive him out.

[00:36:04] Then they proceeded to apply the hot iron to different parts of his body and when they were tired of torturing him he was taken back to prison. While he was there he was informed that he had been condemned to be sent to Siberia.

[00:36:15] He decided to make a desperate attempt to escape. In the dead of night he broke a window of his prison and succeeded in getting free. Heading swiftly to his home he awakened his wife and taking the youngest child they fled.

[00:36:26] Hiding by day and tramping in the darkness they came by the goodness of God to Elisabethgrad where they knew some brethren in Christ. These helped them and passed them on to other friends until they arrived at Odessa whence they escaped to Romania into comparative safety.

[00:36:41] There are many more stories from his travels that are detailed in the book and so I encourage you to read it because there really are a lot of really good and interesting tidbits I want to move us ahead to his time in Finland and Sweden.

[00:36:54] At this time Finland which had been part of Sweden until it was taken by Russia in 1909 was now a grand duchy which meant that it retained some amount of sovereignty but it was still under Russian rule.

[00:37:05] However Finland was also subject to the Russification measures of Alexander III and the man they put in charge of this process was brutal and unrelenting seeking to erase any shred of Finnish identity and this would later lead to his assassination which is an interesting historical

[00:37:20] tidbit but it gets us away from the story at hand so look it up it is interesting. But the reason that Frederick went to visit the Finnish prisons was at the request of Baroness Matilda von Ried who was a Christian woman who had dedicated her life to evangelizing

[00:37:34] and reforming the Finnish prison system. On Frederick's first visit through the prison he was attended by a university professor who served as his translator in the Baroness's absence and the prisoners were listening and

[00:37:46] attentive but their faces were really stony and he just didn't feel like he was getting through to them at all. But on his second visit with the Baroness they were visibly moved and some of them were even

[00:37:57] crying so he pulled aside one of the officers and asked him why the change was so vast. The officer said the difference sir was in the translation when you said my beloved friends or my brothers the translation of your clever professor was invariably men or prisoners

[00:38:13] but the young lady translated it into Finnish as you expressed it in German my beloved friends and my brothers the key that opened their hearts was human compassion and affection they're not used to it.

[00:38:25] One of my favorite stories from his time in this region comes not from the prisons but from a random train ride encounter he was one day traveling in Sweden and opposite to

[00:38:34] him in the railway carriage sat a young Swedish lady he invited her to accept a tract she did so and thanked him pleasantly telling him at the same time that I had no interest for

[00:38:44] her for her why not he asked to be frank I'm an unbeliever and agnostic I'm sorry to hear that he said I trust however you will read the little booklet and think about it it may be that God and his great mercy will open your eyes.

[00:38:57] I'm not at all optimistic as to my conversion she replied there are many questions I should require answers to first. Will you make me a promise he pleaded what is it she asked that when God does convince

[00:39:07] you of sin and lead you to Jesus you will write to me and let me know. Of course I will promise that if you would like me to but it won't be for a while yet

[00:39:15] to whom and where shall I send it here's my card and I shall pray for you until that letter arrives. That letter took eight years in coming but it came and was duly delivered at his home

[00:39:24] in Weston-Super-Mare the lady was in more recent years the guest of Dr. and Mrs. Badeker She has been for years past an earnest and prominent worker among young women in Sweden the one bitter regret of her heart being that in her past life she had been so terribly

[00:39:38] zealous in the dissemination of her baneful skeptical ideas. In speaking of the dissemination of baneful skeptical ideas both Lord Radstock and Frederick Badeker had the pleasure I guess kind of the displeasure of being featured in some of the works of Count Leo Tolstoy.

[00:39:56] Lord Radstock was portrayed as the character of Sir John in Anna Karenina and Frederick was portrayed in the novel Resurrection as Kiesevetter and the Englishman and Kiesevetter is a foreign preacher who for about eight years had been discoursing on redemption in

[00:40:11] the stately ballrooms and drawing rooms of the nobility in St. Petersburg. Tolstoy describes him as the German although his address was delivered in English which is a significant coincidence. The other character the Englishman is an erratic traveler who distributes New Testaments

[00:40:27] and evangelizes in the loathsome cells of the Siberian prisons. All of these characters are portrayed in a negative light and Frederick actually had the opportunity to meet with Tolstoy at least once in Tolstoy's home and the ensuing conversation was well known at the time.

[00:40:43] The two men sat and chatted together about England and the contemporary Russian affairs. What is your errand to Russia inquired the count to preach the gospel of Christ in the Russian prisons he replied.

[00:40:54] There ought not to be any prisons exclaimed the novelist so long as there is sin in the world there will be prisons. Well there ought not to be sin in the world. What do you mean?

[00:41:01] I mean that if people were properly taught sin would not be said Tolstoy with fiery emphasis. For answer Bedecker quoted Luke 21 and 22 when a strong man armed keeps his palace his goods are at peace but when a stronger one than he shall come upon him and overcome him

[00:41:17] he takes from him all his armor wherein he trusted and divides his spoils. That is a parable of the soul of man and the devil's mastery over it said Bedecker that accounts for sin. Where is that inquired the count in the holy scripture he replied.

[00:41:31] There is one stronger than we the evil one against whom our natural armor of resolution and immoral codes is useless. My message to the prisoners of Russia and to all sinners everywhere is there is still

[00:41:42] a stronger one who is able to deliver the captives and slaves of Satan and to transform them into the holy and beloved children of the eternal and holy God. In reading through his later years it seems this was something that Tolstoy never quite grasped.

[00:41:57] Latimer says that Frederick's home call came when he was attending a conference at Clifton in Bristol on October 9th 1906 at the age of 83 a chill developed into pneumonia and he passed away after a few days illness in joy and triumph.

[00:42:11] During these few days the one sentence continually on his lips was I'm going in to see the king and his beauty. The only wreath that Mrs. Bedecker allowed on the casket was from his friends in Russia which arrived at the very last minute just before the services.

[00:42:25] And it appears that Lord Radistock himself was the one who gave the eulogy. And he actually wrote an introduction for Latimer's biography. He says in common with thousands of others I thank the Lord for his grace as seen in Dr. Bedecker.

[00:42:40] From the day when he came to the Lord in 1866 to the day of his home call he was a lovely witness for Christ. As soon as the glorious news came to him he began to make it known to others and when

[00:42:50] his own professional work was done despite being a very feeble health he visited the neighboring villages to spread the glad tidings though so feeble that he himself even fainted on the way he pushed on faint yet pursuing.

[00:43:03] His first Christmas holidays he spent in London serving his Lord among the poorest. His labors and far off journeys especially crossing Siberia often in galloping and carts without springs with a weak heart and delicate spine and lungs were an example of the faith that worketh by love.

[00:43:18] And he did not trust in vain starting on long and arduous journeys which to the natural eye seemed utterly beyond his strength. It was true of him this one thing I do I press forward towards the mark.

[00:43:29] Many hundreds of suffering stuntists and tens of thousands of others in Russia, Germany, Switzerland and other lands will call him blessed for he trusted and glorified the blessed one. As always, thank you for listening to Mars and Missionaries, I'm Elise.