The German Union Conference by Guy Dail

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 12, 1907

The German Union Conference

By Guy Dail

GUY DAIL

We have just closed the largest meeting our people ever held in Europe—the seventh annual session of the German Union Conference, held on the Friedensau camp-grounds, July 18-28. There were one hundred and twenty-six tents pitched, and about twelve hundred of our own people were on the grounds, to say nothing of the hundreds of strangers who visited us, especially Sundays. Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, German-Switzerland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Holland, and Flemish Belgium were represented by one hundred and seven delegates. God met with us. He blessed us by sending conviction of sin and his converting power into our hearts to an unusual degree in the Sabbath meetings. Over sixty were baptized.

There are signs of growth in the field, and in our institutions. At the beginning of 1906 we had a membership of 7,000; now it is 9,058, and during the first six months of 1907 there have been 1,145 accessions, while the tithe for the same time was 162,319 marks. There are 200 regular gospel workers in the field. We have now been granted full religious rights as a private church society in Bavaria. We have the same privileges accorded to us in Russia as are enjoyed by the Baptists. The military and school questions are being brought more and more prominently before the German people by carefully written articles about us in the large papers of the country, and thus the principles of the third angel’s message are being taught even by the secular press. During the first part of 1907 we have been able to enter Turkestan and organize a church there, at Taschkent; we have opened operations in Siberia, and established our first church in that field; we have secured a foothold in Brussels, where we now have an unorganized company, and a good interest; for the first time can we report that we have a believer in Servia. A native Servian, of Belgrade, was visiting friends in Hungary, learned of the truth, and was baptized before returning to his home.

We are pleased that we have been able to dedicate, free of debt, the almost finished Old People’s Home here at Friedensau. At our meeting last year it was voted to erect the building. It will accommodate seventy-five inmates.

Other encouraging features are noticeable about the work here at Friedensau. The sanitarium has sixty-five patients; seventy-two medical missionaries are now carrying forward this department of the third angel’s message, forty of whom are engaged in the field, outside of the sanitarium. Dr. A. Meyer is medical superintendent, in the place of Dr. A. J. Hoenes, who accepted a call to the Madison (Wis.) Sanitarium. Dr. A. W. Peterson is assistant physician, giving special help in the field work. The Friedensau Industrial School has just been able to send out into the conferences and missions of the union seventeen young people who have finished their school work, and fifteen nurses who will take their practical course in the sanitarium. The new applicants accepted for admission to the fall term of school will bring its enrolment up to one hundred and forty-two, in September.

The Hamburg House has finished its best year, its net sales amounting to 335,000 marks for the last twelve months, or 20,000 marks more than the previous year. In 1905 we had 183 colporteurs; now there are 248. The last year we have published in eleven languages, 43,465,170 pages issuing from our House. The Herold der Wahrheit has had an average edition of 50,000 bimonthly, against 35,000 copies the previous year.

In view of the rapid growth in the German Union, it has been recommended that, if no unforeseen circumstances hinder, there be organized, in time to become operative Jan. 1, 1908, a Russian Union, a Baltic, a South Russian, a Saxon, and a Hungarian Conference. It is proposed to open a new mission on Victoria Nyanza Lake, German East Africa, next year. Thus far our missionary operations in that colony have been conducted wholly in the Pare Mountain district,—the opposite side of the country from the lake. It was voted to enlarge our Hamburg House still more, by the erection of a commodious packing and stock room, and to purchase another, a third, large cylinder press; to open a branch of the Hamburg House in Russia, as soon as the conditions of the country admit; to begin the publication of a Rumanian paper; to enlarge the German Good Health, and increase the price somewhat, that it may be better adapted to the use of the colporteur; to continue our efforts in behalf of the material fund for “Ministry of Healing” in German, and not to slacken our efforts to circulate that book, as well as our other good literature in these various languages (about 4,500 marks were raised toward the material fund at this meeting); to seek for corporation rights, as a German Union; to pay the tithe of the tithe of the union, as well as all our Sabbath-school, annual, and weekly offerings, to the European division of the General Conference, beginning with Jan. 1, 1908, in harmony with the recommendation to that effect made by the conference at Gland, instead of having these funds remain in the German Union treasury as heretofore.

The German and the German-Swiss Conference presidents were quite well changed about, not because there was dissatisfaction in any field, but because Brother J. T. Boettcher must be freed for Russia, and a general readjustment could easily be effected. Brother G. Hetze, of Russia, was ordained to the ministry the second Sabbath afternoon—a day of special blessing.

A vote of thanks was rendered the American brethren for their financial help to the Russian field during the late famine in certain parts. All were grateful for the timely help of Brethren Prescott and Haffner. It is intended, also, to prepare a vote of thanks for the Prince Regent of Bavaria, for the freedom he has recently granted our people. It was recommended that our people, in view of the privileges granted us in Russia and Bavaria, cease not to pray for the same rights in those countries where we yet are denied them, of which there are several in our field.

The nominating committee’s report was unanimously adopted, as follows: President, L. R. Conradi; Vice-president, H. F. Schuberth; Vice-president for Russia, J. T. Boettcher; Secretary, W. Ising; Treasurer, B. Severin; Assistant Treasurer, N. Schlatterer; Treasurer for Russia, E. Creeper; Sabbath-school and Missionary Secretary, W. Ising.

All leave the camp here in the best of courage, prepared better than ever for the conflicts that are before them. Let us remember the work and the workers here.

Friedensau, Germany.