ALSACE, GERMANY by D. T. Bourdeau

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 29, 1876

ALSACE, GERMANY.

By D. T. Bourdeau

I REMAINED in Alsace over three weeks. Six decided to obey the truth, and I obtained five subscribers for our French paper. As my time was limited, I confined my labors to those families that had become interested in the truth by reading French tracts sent them by their friends in America.

Though I endeavored to do my work in a prudent and peaceable manner, yet some of the ministers, and not a few “of the baser sort,” were uneasy; and some were determined to frighten me by threats, etc., that I might leave the country.

One day as I was laboring at Hohwald, I was told that three men of Belmont had been sent to the mayor of Hohwald to persuade him to bind me and take me to jail. But I had visited the mayor and had enjoyed sweet seasons of prayer with him, and his good wife was decidedly in favor of our views. Besides, I had documents showing that I had done nothing whereby I had laid myself open to the censure of the government.

One night a mob of sixteen persons came to a house with the full purpose of abusing me. They threw stones at the house, and broke some panes of glass; but I was stopping at another house, and was not harmed. These were church members, Lutherans. How unlike the father of their denomination and those who first followed him in his work of true reform!

As the field in which I have labored is situated in the Vosges Mountains, away from the railroads and omnibus lines, I have been under the necessity of traveling much on foot. Long journeys on foot, and the changes from the air of the valley to that of the mountains, were not favorable to my health, yet I have enjoyed some of the blessing of God in laboring to start the work in Alsace. Several are inquiring after truth while reading our French and German works, and I hope the few who have received the truth will extend the light to others.

As Alsace is still governed in religious matters by the same laws by which it was governed before it fell to Germany, I hope I have learned important lessons, which will be of service to me when I go to France.

The French brother that I referred to in my last report, still writes favorably concerning the work in Southern France, where he has settled. Many call on him and are anxious to hear a preacher. His French tracts are doing a good work, and he says he could dispose of thousands of them if he had them. D. T. BOURDEAU.

Bale, Switzerland, June 7, 1876.