It is evening after the Sabbath, August 28, on the camp-ground at Vergeze, in southern France, where a joint meeting of the Latin Union and French conferences has been in session since the previous Tuesday, and will close tomorrow night.
This afternoon, during the ordination of Brother Paul Steiner to the ministry, and in the social meeting following, we could realize the presence of God. The solemn manner in which the charge was given, and the simplicity of the service, made a good impression upon both our own brethren and the strangers who were in attendance from the neighboring villages. It has been refreshing to hear the experiences of our workers and the testimonies of the native brethren who came with them from Italy, Roman-Switzerland, Spain, and France. It has done us good to listen to the reports of our laborers from Algeria, Portugal, and Walloon, or French, Belgium. Brotherly love and unity of sentiment have characterized ministers and people in their relations to one another and in the transaction of conference business. It was cheering to see the uniquely clad mountaineer peasant brethren of the district of Tarn as they entered the camp before breakfast the other morning, and, with tears of joy, began to salute those of our people who had arrived on the grounds before them.
It did our souls good to witness the rededication of the whole congregation, the half of whom remained to seek God for a new experience after this forenoon’s revival service. Seven offered themselves for baptism.
The timely instruction from Elder J. N. Loughborough on the rise and progress of the third angel’s message; the teaching of Elder L. R. Conradi and his counsel in the open business sessions as well as in the committee and workers’ meetings; the mutual help rendered by the workers from all parts of the Latin Union Conference; the discussion of the various resolutions offered; the attendance at the open lectures each evening (a tent was pitched here several weeks ago, and about two hundred strangers were on the grounds, attending either the French lecture in the pavilion or the Spanish meeting in the dining-tent); the animated Sabbath-school; the simple yet amply sufficient provision made by Elder T. Nussbaum and his assistants for boarding the campers at a cost of about fifteen cents a day; and the pleasant weather, as the atmosphere had been cooled by copious rains before the camp-meeting began,—these are among the things that make us wish it had been possible for the readers of the REVIEW to meet with us here, in the famous and historic valley of the Rhone, with its wine-producing vineyards, its orchards of fig and olive and orange, its fields of maize and melons, and its mulberry-trees and world-renowned silk-culture.
There is great wealth in France. Her silks, her finely woven woolens, her delicate laces, as well as her olive-oil and white and red wines, are known in all the great marts of the world. “In articles that require taste, power of design, and clever workmanship, she surpasses every other country on the face of the globe.”
As we walked up from the station to the camp, Elder L. P. Tieche remarked to us that if these stones and hills and valleys were suddenly endowed with the power of language, they would reveal a wonderful tale of the past. Not only was it in the territory of the Northern France Mission, which includes Paris, and has a population of about twenty-two million nine hundred thousand, but it was especially within the confines of the French Conference (that is, in southern France, where we find almost sixteen million seven hundred thousand inhabitants) that “heretic” and “orthodox,” Monarchist and Republican, have fallen in great numbers.
Lefevre began the work of reform in the Paris University before Luther had posted his famous theses upon the door of the Wittenberg church. Persecution drove the disciples of the new movement into other parts of France, and in the south of France, where the Albigenses and many of the Vaudois had lived, the Huguenot cause became strongest, making remarkable progress among the nobility. But the wavering course of Francis I, and the formal rejection of the Protestant faith by the nation under his leadership, as he uttered the words: “Let Lutheranism be totally exterminated;” the consequent barbarism which deprived France of hundreds of thousands of her best and most industrious citizens, who were killed by the dungeon, by the scaffold, or by some other of the numerous methods invented by the Inquisition, or who were driven from the country by the intolerance accorded them; the final retribution visited upon the land in the French Revolution; and the end of the struggle for religious liberty,—all these make chapters of history that should be carefully considered by our people, as they are simply foreshadowings of what is yet to come. The believers who took refuge in the caves, in the secret places of the earth, and who called themselves “the church in the desert,” have left us an example of fortitude and faith worthy of our respect and emulation.13
Now, the great and the all-important problem considered at this conference has been the proper development of the native resources of the Latin Union Conference that it may carry on triumphantly the task of bringing the last reform message to the attention of the hundred ten million people within its territory, and also aid in the development and sending forth of carefully tried men, who may become missionaries to lands where the French language or influence predominates. It is claimed that the French colonies contain two thousand times as much land as the mother country, and about nine million more inhabitants; so that our French-speaking brethren have a wonderful field before them in the Asiatic colonies of Cochin China, Tonquin, and Cambodia; in Madagascar, the French Kongo, the French Sudan, Tunis, and Algeria in Africa; and in the islands of the sea which are governed by France. We believe our French-speaking young men and women will make noble soul winners, and that they will become such a strong factor in the evangelization of her colonies as will enable them to enhance the reputation of France for skilful workmanship.
Beginning with Jan. 1, 1909, France was separated into the two fields already referred to, the Northern France Mission being directly under the Latin Union Conference management, while the French Conference will still be presided over by Elder H. H. Dexter. During the year ending June 30, forty-six were received into membership in the republic, its tithe was $3,145, and its offerings amounted to $668, against twenty-two received, $2,518 tithe, and $585 offerings for the previous twelve months. The French Conference has fourteen workers, and two hundred twenty-seven members, while in all France there are two hundred seventy-one members, and seventeen workers. It is planned to open work in Lille, northern France, and that our laborers in Paris shall be re-enforced.
There were fourteen changes of laborers suggested. New help is to be furnished Italy, and Elders L. Zecchetto and P. A. Fant are hopeful because of the outlook there. Twelve new members are reported during the past year, and there are forty-nine believers in that field. We have been much pleased to meet the laborers from Italy, and to hear them speak in their beautiful mother tongue. There is no lack of work among the thirty-three and one-half millions in Italy, where civil and religious liberty is granted us by the laws, so that we may preach the truth there with more freedom than in some Protestant countries.
Brethren Walter and Frank Bond, with a good delegation from Spain, reported encouragingly of their experiences in that land. We have thirty-six members there now, but that is only a beginning among the nineteen and one-half millions of people of this once powerful Castilian kingdom. We are pleased to learn that none of our brethren have been hurt by the revolution in Spain, although much shooting and rioting went on in their immediate neighborhood, and hundreds were killed near by. The Spanish press are reporting terrible things that are said to be coming to light, as the doings of the Jesuits are being exposed, and there has been a strong movement on foot to drive from the country these followers of Loyola. It is of great importance that our literature and our message be brought before the people of this land just now. We have six canvassers and two Bible workers, native Spaniards, who are helping the Elders Bond in scattering the truth.
Of our nineteen members in Portugal, only Brother C. E. Rentfro was present. They have recently had a good baptism, and there is an increasing interest to hear. The circulation of the Earthquake special, in the Portuguese, comes in timely after the recent earthquake experiences of that land. Seeing it was the Lisbon earthquake that ushered in the sixth seal, this small kingdom of Portugal, with its nearly five and one-half million inhabitants, has a special interest to the student of prophecy,—to say nothing of the great navigators, Vasco da Gama and Magellan, whose dauntless spirit commanded the admiration of their day, and should inspire us courageously to launch out and fearlessly to proclaim our message in unentered fields.
Brother G. Roth, in charge of the Walloon Belgian Mission, is also to receive further assistance, as is also Brother Augsbourger, who is at work in Algeria. Both of these brethren had good reports to render of the past year’s work, and of an encouraging outlook for the future. It must not be forgotten that in our work Belgium is divided into two parts, and that the Flemish-speaking district belongs to the Holland division of the German Union Conference, while the French-speaking, or Walloon, division is under the management of the Latin Union Conference. In Walloon Belgium, or that section of the country toward the more hilly and rugged south and southeast, there are fifty-three believers, scattered among the three million six hundred thousand inhabitants. Algeria has nine members. It is a country nearly as large as France, and contains over five million people, of whom perhaps a quarter of a million are Frenchmen. Tunis also belongs to the Algerian Mission. In Belgium, with her Kongo district, and in Algeria and the neighboring Barbary states, there are vast and undeveloped fields into which the triumphs of the third angel’s message must be carried within the next few years.
The Lake Geneva Sanitarium at Gland is so well patronized that it has been voted to enlarge it. Brother J. Robert and the local committee will look after the details in the erection of the new building. This is one of the most important steps taken in Europe during the summer. We are glad that the blessing of the Lord is with the faithful helpers and physician in charge, so that this institution is an important factor in building the cause of health reform, and disseminating the message of truth.
The Latin Union School, of which Elder J. Vuilleumier is principal, will be much benefited by having its own quarters in the future, as the chalet is to be fully taken for school purposes. This institution has a worthy ambition before it—providing trained workers for the great fields we have been considering. It is the young people that we need, and such youth as were sent forth by the Waldensians and the persecuted church of God in the wilderness to carry the word of truth amid the greatest of dangers and the most bitter opposition.
During the year that closed June 30, the Latin Union Conference received 152 new members, $10,506 tithe, $2,619 offerings. For the twelve months ending June 30, 1908, the tithe had been $9,387, the offerings $2,246, and the number received into church membership, seventy-three. The membership June 30, 1907, was 849, and at the close of the second quarter of 1909, it was 1001. Two years ago we had thirty-four workers, and now there are forty-five workers in this union.
The canvassing work has not been so encouraging; for the sales of 1907 amounted to over $7,000, while last year they were only $6,660. More must be done to circulate our French books and papers. We trust our friends in other parts of the world who read this, and who have French-speaking neighbors, will try to get acquainted with them, and in whatever way the Lord may direct, put them in touch with our French literature, which can be secured from the New York branch of the Review and Herald Publishing Association.
The workers and people already feel grateful to the American brethren and to others who have been giving for the Latin Union Conference work. They have expressed their gratitude. Nor would we forget such of our young people as have assisted in the educational work in this union conference by sending donations through the Mission Board.
As we leave this place, we can not but wish for Elder Tieche, who has been re-elected president of the Latin Union Conference, and for all of his fellow workers, the rich blessing of the Lord, that the development of the field may be more marked than ever, and that the good omens before them may be realized in an abundant harvest of souls the coming year; for after all it is the souls saved that will cause joy in heaven among the angels, as well as on earth in the assembly of his saints.
