In France and Spain by L. R. Conradi

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 6, 1906

In France and Spain

By L. R. Conradi

L. R. CONRADI

After our good sessions of the union conferences at Gland, Switzerland; Friedensau, Germany; and London, England, our European summer gatherings closed with a small camp-meeting at Nîmes, southern France, August 21-26. Nîmes is a city of about eighty-one thousand people; it is the center of French Protestantism. Tent-meetings were held in this place years ago, and a small company was raised up; but in the course of time some moved away, others died, and only a few were left.

It was planned to hold our French meeting here, and in connection with it conduct a course of lectures. The tent was pitched near the edge of town, and about ten minutes' distant from the main railway station. At first the boys disturbed the evening meetings, and the brethren then held the services in the afternoon, securing a good attendance; and by the time our regular camp-meeting was to begin, we could resume the evening sessions unmolested.

I was much pleased to see such a good representation from all parts of southern and central France at this meeting. Our church in Paris, however, sent no delegates, as it is quite a ways north.

The work in France is making good progress, and there are now nearly two hundred believers in that country. We had an excellent meeting at Nîmes. Brother John Vuilleumier assisted in the services, besides the local workers. Sabbath was a good day for the camp; six were baptized, and Brother T. Nussbaum was ordained to the gospel ministry.

Recently quite a number of young people who have attended our schools at Gland or in London have entered the field as workers — either as Bible workers or as canvassers. The accompanying picture shows all the laborers, save Brother U. Augsbourger, who is laboring in Paris. We start out now with three ordained ministers, four licentiates, six Bible workers, and two colporteurs.

GROUP OF BELIEVERS AT THE NIMES (FRANCE) CAMP-MEETING

During the meeting the group of believers at Montpellier was received. Forty-six have been baptized and received in France during the year.

The educational work was given special attention, and the brethren readily subscribed one hundred and sixty dollars toward that branch of the cause. They also gave liberally to their Sabbath-school and First-day offering funds. Elder Dexter was again unanimously chosen director of the field for the coming year.

When we remember that France alone has about forty million people, and only two hundred Sabbath-keepers, with a tithe of about fifteen hundred dollars annually, we surely can see the need of our assisting the brethren there in carrying the light to their countrymen.

A night's run on the train brought me to Barcelona, commercially the leading city of Spain, where I spent several days in counsel with the Brethren Bond. Although our meeting there was held on a week-day, I was pleased to see nearly fifty present at the evening meeting in Barcelona, and about thirty in the meeting held at Sabadell, an adjoining town, the following evening. The Lord has blessed the work of Brethren Bond. Several were recently baptized there, so at present we have nearly twenty Sabbath-keepers in Spain.

During our council it was decided that Brother Walter Bond remain in Barcelona, and follow up the interest in that neighborhood, while Brother Frank Bond go to Valencia (population two hundred and fourteen thousand), a little farther down the coast; this is the third city in Spain. Some of our brethren are moving there with Brother F. Bond, so there will be a small nucleus of believers from the start.

We also gave permission to several brethren to take up the work of circulating our publications. One brother who has been in service as a coachman for the past twenty-one years, lost his position because he accepted the truth. His employer gave him one hundred dollars when he left, because of his faithfulness in service; and as this happened last New-year, and the brother had no other income save the percentage on the small publications he had been able to sell, he had just about spent the little surplus he had had. Seemingly, he had not expected anything from us, and when we told him that we had considered his faithfulness and would allow him fifty dollars for the past, and assist him in the future, tears of gratitude began to roll down his cheeks, and one could easily see that this reward had come altogether unexpectedly. One of his sons is now in Gland; and another hopes to find a place somewhere among our people. The brother had been able to sell about four hundred Bibles, and the few canvassers have sold about twenty thousand of our small tracts. While we have a few books in the Spanish, yet it is impossible to import them without their first being presented at the censor's office, and there stamped. We are now getting out “Glorious Appearing” in Spanish, at Hamburg, and shall try

to secure the necessary stamp, and thus provide our workers in Spain with better facilities.

We are glad that the prospects seem to be brightening, and that we have laborers in two places in Spain, and also that in Portugal there are two laborers, one, Brother Rentfro, in Lisbon, and the other, Elder E. Schwantes, formerly of Brazil, at Oporto. Three have just been baptized in Lisbon, and the first little company in Portugal has been organized.

As the work is thus opening in the Latin Union field, we surely believe that our brethren in the States will be disposed to grant our request for an appropriation of seven thousand five hundred dollars for this field, with its one hundred and ten million people, and that they will assist us in every way they can to develop this field that it may keep step with the work in the other parts of Europe.