Germany by Louis Richard Conradi

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jun 9, 1904

Germany

By Louis Richard Conradi

FRIEDENSAU.—Our meetings in Hagen (West German Conference), Heilbronn (South German), and Dresden, which is in the East German Conference, were well attended, and the best we ever had here. As the South German Conference has promised to pay a second tithe to the union conference during 1904, all our German Conferences now pay a second tithe for missionary purposes. This gives us a good, steady income each year from that source. The West German Conference gave three thousand marks of its surplus tithe to German East Africa, and the East German voted twenty-five hundred marks of its surplus to the same enterprise, so we now have five thousand dollars for that purpose.

On my way through Bavaria, I stopped one night at Nuremberg, where a fine was imposed upon our people for attending meetings. This fine was six dollars for each person. About forty gathered secretly, and the Lord kept us. We now have an attorney working upon a petition to the Bavarian government, for the purpose of securing the right of meeting. The same difficulty is now being experienced in Austria. But we shall do the best we can, even under these difficulties. God has given us a great victory in Saxony. A few years ago our meetings were scarcely tolerated, but now we have just held the general meeting of the East German Conference in the very capital, and the secret-service officer came to me time and again, and thanked me for what he had been permitted to see and hear. He was present at each session. Sunday afternoon my talk on East Africa seemed especially to please him.

Here at Friedensau the presidents of the German Conferences, and Brother Boettcher, of Switzerland, as well as Brethren Erzenberger and Hartkop, and the brethren here, were present. Dr. Ottosen and Brother C. C. Hansen came the last day, to become better acquainted with our work here.

In 1902 our tithe was about $26,000, and in 1903 it was about $35,000—a gain of $9,000. Our donations are also growing. Prosperity has attended our institutional work. Friedensau had a material gain last year, after deducting liberally on the inventory. We decided to put up a chapel and another dormitory this summer. We have seven thousand more copies of “Christ’s Object Lessons” to sell.

Our total income was about $42,000. We baptized 1,015 persons, and received 303 by vote. Our present membership is 5,156. I never saw greater unity among our workers than exists now. L. R. CONRADI.