The Scandinavian Meetings by Guy Dail

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Aug 8, 1907

The Scandinavian Meetings

By Guy Dail

GUY DAIL

On this, the last day of the last of the meetings that have been held in our Scandinavian fields since the visit of the American brethren this spring, it gives us pleasure to render a brief report of what we have experienced in these delightful countries of the north, whose long summer days, whose kind and hospitable people, with their interesting customs, and whose varied landscape, attract hither thousands of tourists every year.

Since the Gland meeting, the local conferences of Norway, the Finnish Mission, and Sweden have been held in Christiania (June 4-9), Helsingfors (June 14-18), and Södertelje, near Stockholm (June 19-24).

Without exception these were the largest and the best conferences we have had here. They were practical, and missionary in their tendency. Two great subjects occupied much of the time of the business sessions: the proper education of workers, and the opening of the mission to the Abyssinians under the fostering care of the Scandinavian Union Conference. Advanced steps were also taken to occupy the new Northlands Mission, which sprang into being Jan. 1, 1907. Evidences of progress are noticeable in the publishing department. “Ministry of Healing” and “Daniel and the Revelation” are now out in the Danish-Norwegian; the former book is to be published in the Swedish; the latter book has existed in Finnish for some time, and is just from our Helsingfors press in the Swedish; a neat, thirty-two-page tract, our first publication in the Laplandish language, was finished by our Christiania House while we were there.

In voting upon the proposed union school, the Norwegian delegates raised about one thousand dollars, the Finnish brethren four hundred dollars, and the Swedish over eleven hundred dollars in cash and good pledges. Liberal sums were given toward the Abyssinian Mission. Norway voted to pay a second tithe to the Scandinavian Union, beginning with Jan. 1, 1908.

In Finland attention was also directed by the delegates to a seemingly open field for missionary work among the Swedes in various parts of Russia, and the name of one Swedish settlement was referred to; but at the time, no one present knew exactly where the place in question is. However, at the Sunday afternoon Swedish meeting in Helsingfors (there were two well-attended Swedish, and two fairly well visited Finnish meetings held that day) there sat on the front seat a nurse, who gave the best of attention to all that was said, and whom Elder Conradi, the speaker, met at the close of the service. She stated that she was under appointment to the very place in Russia about which we had desired the information, and furnished us just the knowledge we needed.

But perhaps even more remarkable than this is the coincidence that took place in Stockholm, as our party were en route to Finland. Elder Conradi had been very anxious to meet the officers of the Swedish Missionary Society working around Abyssinia; but he did not know their address; he did not know that they were to have an annual missionary conference right at the time we were passing through the city; he did not know that at this missionary conference there were missionaries who had spent ten to twenty years working among the Abyssinian natives that can be reached in the Italian colony of Etrea and in the valley of the Guba River, British East Africa; he did not know that there he would meet the Abyssinian professor who had been sent by Menelik at the request of the Emperor William to teach in the Oriental Seminary at Berlin, and was at the time assisting other missionaries in a revision of the Amharra Bible; nor did he know that he would be invited to take dinner with the secretary of the society, and secure from him much valuable information, and just the literature he needed to help us in making the right start among the Galla people when we send out our young Scandinavian missionaries this autumn; but such is the providence of God that all these things occurred, Wednesday, June 12, altogether unexpectedly to any of us.

That Elder O. A. Johnson might be freed to give his whole attention to the school work in Norway, Elder C. C. Jensen, whose appointment to Abyssinia had been canceled because it was impossible for him to secure a passport, was unanimously chosen president. He is assisted by three ministers, three licentiates and three Bible workers.

Here, as in other fields, the canvassers also receive conference recognition hereafter. This has seemed but just in view of the importance attaching to the sale of our publications. The Norwegian tithe for 1906 was $5,828, or $850 more than for 1905; gifts, $848, against $659 the previous year. Their membership rose from 847 at the beginning of the year to 917 at its close, but this is now decreased to 824 by the loss that conference sustains through the organization of the Northlands Mission.

Finland's tithe for 1906 was $1,242, having increased from $805 for the previous twelve months; gifts, $365, an increase of $46 over the previous year. Their membership rose from eighty-one at the end of 1905, to one hundred and two at the close of 1906. Two ministers, one licentiate, and two Bible workers are laboring here. Elder Fred Anderson was unanimously chosen superintendent for the coming year.

The tithe of Sweden last year was $5,253, or $1,145 more than in 1905; gifts, $886, a growth of $616 over last year; book sales, $20,370, against $16,750 the previous year. Our numbers increased from 827 to 845 during the year. There are sixteen ministers, one licentiate, and four Bible workers in the field. Elder Svensson, who has been laboring here for a year or more, was unanimously chosen president, and Elder O. Johnson takes charge of the Northlands Mission. Elders Sewaldsen and John Wallenkampf will also assist in the Northlands Mission.

Not alone is Sweden interested in the proposed union school, which is to be located within its borders, but there are also to be erected a food factory, and, in the course of time, a sanitarium, in connection with the union school, a site for all of which must yet be selected and purchased. Preliminary steps toward the realization of this have already been taken, and this is a matter which ought to receive the hearty support of our Scandinavian brethren everywhere; for a good union school should be provided for each of our unions in Europe, answering the needs of each union, as Friedensau

and the Duncombe Hall Training College have answered the needs of their respective fields.

The Bible studies and missionary talks and practical instruction given by Brethren Conradi and Prescott at each of these meetings met with a very hearty response on the part of all the delegates. There were a number of conversions. Thirteen were baptized in Norway, four in Finland, and nine in Sweden.

The courage of the people in each field is good. Their institutions never were in as good a condition as now; and we believe that a bright future is before the work and workers in Scandinavia. To this end may we all work, watch, and pray.

Hamburg, Germany.