p. 17 | Organization of a French Church by LOUIS ZECCHETTO

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 27, 1908

Organization of a French Church

By LOUIS ZECCHETTO

IN answer to a call from the president of the Southern New England Conference for a laborer among the French, I visited Woonsocket, R. I., last fall, where I found one brother who had been observing the Sabbath for years. After spending a few days at that place, I returned to New York City, and presented the needs of that field to the Greater New York Conference, which voted that I should return, and establish a French church. I continued a series of lectures for about four weeks, and left a small company of Sabbath-keepers in that place. From the very start the opposition was bitter and unrelenting. This came not only from the Catholics, who control about the whole town, but also from the First-day Adventists, the Baptists, and a sect known as the Holiness Band. The latter, perhaps, were the most unreasonable and bitter of all. They professed complete holiness, and yet antagonized the sanctity of God's holy law.

For various reasons it was thought

best not to organize a church at that time, and thus I left the little flock under the watchful eye of Brother Basquin, who had stood so nobly for several years alone.

On the eleventh of July this year I returned and baptized eleven willing souls. In company with Brother D. B. Parmelee, vice-president of the Southern New England Conference, a French Seventh-day Adventist church was organized. The eleven just baptized, and two who were accepted on profession of faith, composed a church of thirteen members.

I feel very grateful to our dear Heavenly Father that not only has one more church been added to God's people, but also that this is the starting of the work in a new tongue in this country. If I am not mistaken, this is the first French church to be organized in the United States.

It might be interesting to state that the preacher of the Holiness people, who had opposed the truth so bitterly in the beginning, met me at the station as I was leaving the city, and said, “Don't forget to mention me in your prayers, that I may have grace to obey the Sabbath truth, and courage to preach it to my people.” Thus this man was left under condemnation, and we ask you, dear reader, to remember him at the throne of grace, that he may obey the truth, and thus become a power in proclaiming the third angel's message.

LOUIS ZECCHETTO.