p. 187 | SOUTHERN GERMANY by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1900

SOUTHERN GERMANY.

By John Norton Loughborough

LEAVING Friedensau January 10, in company with Brother Conradi and Dr. Hoenes, I came to Halle. We had a three-hours' meeting with fifty of our people there. Of these, five were from Leipsic, about fifteen miles distant. Brother Conradi, Dr. Hoenes, and I each spoke on this occasion.

The next day we came to Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here we had services in the afternoon and evening. About thirty of our people were gathered there. After the evening meeting, we went fifteen miles to Darmstadt, where we stopped overnight with Brother Obländer, who, with other workers, is opening the work in that place. The word “Darmstadt” means a serpent. The place was so named from a small, crooked stream that runs through the town. Darmstadt was the former residence of the wife of the czar of Russia.

Friday, January 12, we went to Stuttgart, in southern Germany. This beautiful place of one hundred and forty thousand inhabitants, is the capital of the German state of Württemberg, and the royal palace of the king is in the heart of the city. Our meetings here continued for three days. With a few who came in from other places, our congregation consisted of seventy-five adult Sabbath-keepers. The meetings were held in a large hall, in which is a pipe organ, run by steam. Because the man owning the hall is friendly to the truth, he lets our people have the use of the hall and organ for two marks, forty-eight cents, for each meeting. The church furnishes fire and light.

Our meetings were full of intense interest to those new Sabbath-keepers. It was expected that two persons would be baptized; but before the meeting closed, seven united with the church. Six of these were baptized. Sabbath afternoon the ordinances of the Lord's house were celebrated, every person taking part.

Present truth was first proclaimed in Stuttgart in 1894, in May. From there it has spread out to other places. In this southern German field there are now three churches, with one hundred and twenty members, and two ordained ministers, Brethren Obländer and Frauchiger, and two Bible workers.

It was of much interest to me to visit Stuttgart, as this is the place where L. H. Kelber received the light on the termination of the twenty-three hundred days of Dan. 8:14. Here he published his books during the first angel's message.

As I now pass on from Germany to Switzerland, I will speak briefly of the European-German field as a whole. It has sixty churches, with a membership of eighteen hundred, and about fifty scattered Sabbath-keepers. Of these we have seen about eight hundred on this trip. The tithe paid in the German field during 1899 was $14,550; the week of prayer offering was $800. Contributions during the year were as follows: To the ship mission, $1,000; to the sanitarium, $750; to the work from the Sabbath-schools, $1,040; the entire amount furnished to the work being $18,140. The sale of books delivered by the canvassers was $20,000; and the other sales of the tract society amounted to $2,200. The largest church in the German Conference is at Hamburg, and has a membership of 253. Their tithe last year was $2,200. To the Lord's name be the praise for the success already apparent. May all these persons be living representatives of Christ, and still greater results will be seen.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.