A Remarkable Change by William A. Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 6, 1906

A Remarkable Change

By William A. Spicer

TWENTY years ago the vast territory of the German Union Conference was practically a region beyond to us. Here at Friedensau I see now a thousand believers gathered in general meeting. They come from different parts of Prussia, from the Rhineland, from Bavaria, Saxony, and other German States, from Austria, Hungary, Holland, Rumania, and from North Russia and central and south Russia.

They represent a body of believers growing at the rate of over a thousand a year, swelling the cry of the message in many languages and tongues. Two years ago I saw them, and my heart was stirred. To-day I can see that they have grown much in this message in the two years. They are genuine old-fashioned Seventh-day Adventists; clear-eyed to see the way before us, and determined

and courageous to press forward to the finishing of the work.

Would that all the believers in America whose gifts and prayers helped to start the work in Europe could see this army of fellow believers. But the meeting will come, around the throne of God, a little from now. The way in which the message is going to-day can mean nothing else than that God has set his hand to finish the work. The believers here see it. And they are making a businesslike and faithful effort to put away all sin and to get ready for the final work of witnessing.

Last year 1,167 were baptized in this Union. But in the six months of this year 954 have been baptized. It is the same story of ever-increasing blessings in the work. The tithe of the Union last year was $56,200. But for the first six months of this year the tithe is $41,000. There are now 7,604 members in this Union.

Stirring stories indeed do we hear, of meetings in secret, of baptisms by night, or under cover, of faithfulness of believers amid persecution, of the saving power of God revealed on the right hand and on the left.

It stirs one's heart to hear of believers or churches in such places as Augsburg, Eisenach, Worms, Erfurt, and other names familiar in the Reformation story. The last message of reform is rising and spreading in the land of the Reformation.

A few years ago, how few cities in Europe did we know of in which our work was moving forward. The Union committee has just made out its list of general meetings for the coming winter. Here is the list. Notice how these general meetings are spread through central Europe: Budapest, Görlitz, Harburg, Bonn, Ulm (on the Danube), Erfurt, Elbing, Stettin, Berlin; and Riga, Bender, and Sartof, Russia. Other Russian meetings will be decided later, according to the conditions prevailing in that troubled land.

And these are not small general meetings, but are used to proclaim the truth to the public. In the last general meeting at Breslau, for instance, one of the best halls was engaged, and six hundred persons heard the message from night to night.

Again and again these believers have asked that their greetings be sent to the brethren in America. This is a grand work. The truth is gathering out the Lord's family on earth, and soon will come the glad reunion of the whole family of God, both which are in heaven and in earth.

The body of workers is now a large one, one hundred and sixty-two, and it is growing. Two brethren were ordained, one to labor in Rumania, the other to labor among the Lettonians of Baltic Russia.

The Friedensau school, out of debt, proclaimed its jubilee, and it is evident that it is doing a grand work in preparing young people for service.

Thank God for his good hand over the work in the German Union territory. Laborers and people respond to the call of God to stand now in line, for the finishing of the work. W. A. S.

Friedensau.