The Work in Denmark by Guy Dail

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 9, 1909

The Work in Denmark

By Guy Dail

GUY DAIL

A few days preceding the Danish Conference, there was a session of the Scandinavian Union Conference committee at Skodsborg, where valuable help and counsel were rendered to the work in connection with the Skodsborg Sanitarium and the Scandinavian Union Mission School. Elders O. A. Olsen and L. R. Conradi were present.

We were happy to see so many guests at the sanitarium. There were about one hundred seventy in the institution at the time of our visit, and the income of the sanitarium is larger than at any time in the past. Dr. J. C. Ottosen and his associates have their hands full in caring for the patients.

The new union school building is under roof, and its thirty-three rooms will be ready for occupancy this autumn. It will cost ninety-one thousand kroner to erect and furnish this building, and it will be about half paid for by money already raised for this purpose. The earnings of the building, and whatever may be gained by the school, either through the careful management of its finances or by donations and legacies, will be kept sacred to the educational work in Scandinavia. The Danish depository will be able to donate five thousand kroner toward the enterprise this year. The twenty-two thousand kroner that the Christiania House will return to the Hamburg House will be transferred to this school. Norway and Denmark will raise more means for the institution. America has already helped nobly toward this worthy and deserving branch of the third angel's message, for, after all, no investment pays better in accomplishing the work we have before us than the careful training of suitable young men and women as laborers together with God.

The school will begin the first of November, and last until next May. We were glad to learn that a large majority of the students who were enrolled here last year are actively engaged in some department of the cause. Quite a number of them are canvassing, with good success. We believe that ere long this school will make itself strongly felt in the Scandinavian field.

From Skodsborg we went to Randers, where the thirtieth annual session of the Danish Conference was held, July 6-11. A workers' meeting preceded the opening of the business session of the conference. A cordial and brotherly spirit prevailed. Unity of action characterized the work of the conference. Much time and attention were given to a careful consideration of the Sabbath-school and young people's work. In some places there had gradually come in a spirit of indifference to the Sabbath-school's privileges and duties, for many found it more agreeable to be in one class embracing all the adults of the school than to have the school divided into smaller classes, where their lack of acquaintance with the lesson would be too readily detected. Friday forenoon the Scandinavian Union Mission School was under consideration, and in less than half an hour 3,838 kroner was raised in cash and pledges toward this institution, among the eighty-four delegates and the one hundred other brethren and sisters present.

It was a scene calculated to touch one's heart, as these people, many of whom are poor and simple of manner, put their shoulder to the wheel to help lift with all their might. The spirit of sacrifice manifested was a sure precursor of the revival service we were to have Sabbath forenoon, when over fifty came forward to ask for help and prayer, some of them making their first start in the service of God, and when the whole congregation arose, thus signifying their desire to rededicate their powers to his service. The Lord blessed the efforts of the local laborers of Denmark, and also of the visiting brethren — Elders Conradi

Olsen, and J. C. Raft, and Brethren Nels Andersson of Iceland, and Dr. F. W. Vasenius, who arrived here en route to the Abyssinian Mission, and will spend a few weeks in Scandinavia before leaving for Africa.

We were interested to learn that Brother Andersson, who went to Iceland to assist Brother David Ostlund in 1902, has been able to canvass the northern and western part of the island, having finished about half of that small, but wide-extended field. Our Icelandic paper has a subscription list of about three thousand now. When he first visited Standasysla, the people, who very seldom see a stranger, at first thought him to be a robber, and so were afraid of him. At that time he knew only a few words of their language, and yet because of his love for souls, he went forth, and God gave him wonderful success. There being no roads and no bridges, he had to wade or swim the streams. He was away from post-office communication for weeks, and his sample copy of the paper became very soiled and worn, but still he used it, and got subscriptions. He has agents in these country districts, who have clubs of ten or fifteen papers sent to them, and see to the distribution of the single copies and the collection and remittance of the funds. As he told us of the difficulties to be overcome (they did not seem to be very great to him), we thought of the many blessings that our workers in other lands enjoy when compared with those to be had in some of these out-of-the-way places, located, as one might say, almost beyond the boundaries of the world.

Brother C. C. Jensen was re-elected president of the Danish Conference. The tithe for 1908 amounted to $8,784, and the Sabbath-school weekly donations and the annual offerings to $1,680, against $8,122 tithe and $1,595 offerings in 1907. The sales of the depository last year came to $19,547, a gain of $5,884 over 1907. The outlook for the future of the work in Denmark is bright, and we believe God will continue to grant the work here his blessing in ever-increasing abundance.

The Work in Denmark

Hamburg.