Letters from Heaven. Derived from Jesus' Sabbath Letter.
Circulated in the mail. US, 1926 #1
Whosoever hath a copy of this letter from my mouth and keepeth it without
publishing it to others, shall not prosper, but he that publisheth it to
others shall be blessed.
Published. The Ogden Standard-Examiner
(Ogden, Utah), 9 May, 1926. Title: "Chain Letters Appear Again." by Millard
Ferguson. Entered by DWV, Dec. 1, 2013. See 1926#2 for another Himmelsbrief
from the same article. Together they contain the entire text of the article.
"A strange series of chain letters, purporting to
reproduce a message which the writers believe was uttered by Christ, but
which is not included in the Bible, is being circulated throughout the south.
The men and women who indite these letters do so because they believe
they will win eternal blessings by giving as wide circulation as possible
to this message which they think came originally from the lips of Christ
Himself.
CONTAINS THREAT
The message is several hundred words long and is concerned largely with
the admonition that no one shall work on Sunday and that all shall attend
church. In the course of the message occurs this paragraph:" [above
sentence follows]
"The legend that has grown up around the letter is
that it was found in the early days of the Christian religion by a child
and that later it passed into the hands of a Christian convert, who kept
it as a holy relic. but failed to obey the injunction that the message be
spread throughout the world. For, generation after generation, runs
the legend, the letter remained in the hands of descendants of the convert.
In all, they possessed it for a thousand years, neglecting to give it the
publication that had been enjoined and during all that period the family
suffered from unrelenting misfortune. The original possessor of the letter
lived in Palestine but years later children of his children moved to America
and settled in Virginia.
There the last of her line is said to have given the letter on her death
bed to a neighbor, who immediately had it published and thereafter prospered
amazingly, though before that, she had suffered from poverty and misfortune."
he1926-05-09p1_Jesus-sab_1
The Paper Chain
Letter Archive - contents Chain Letter Evolution