p. 460 | D. T. BOURDEAU by Daniel T. Bourdeau

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 17, 1900

D. T. BOURDEAU

By Daniel T. Bourdeau

FROM THE FRENCH CANADIAN TENT.

June 4 and 5, accompanied by Mrs. Bourdeau and Brother Oswald Bourbeau, my tent worker, I came to Namur, Labelle Co., Quebec. Here, June 6, aided by others, I pitched a tent, which I had purchased at reasonable figures of W. H. Griffin, manager of the Montreal Tent, Awning, and Tarpaulin Company, whom I most heartily recommend as one who will deal honorably with any wishing to secure tents to be used in the Dominion of Canada.

After pitching and arranging our tent I thought of resting a few days, in view of heavy work we had done to prepare us a lodging and to furnish an inviting place for meetings. But even the first Sunday, and before we had invited the people to hear us, there came to our tent several persons of French and English nationalities, and asked us to speak to them. I responded; and since then I have spoken two Sundays in both French and English, visited much, held cottage meetings, and by request given Bible readings on the reasons why we observe God’s holy day.

Notwithstanding efforts made to keep the people from attending our meetings, we have some deeply interested hearers. A few are powerfully wrought upon by the truth and Spirit of God, and already feel as if they ought to keep the holy Sabbath. Last Sabbath morning a France French woman, upon arising, said to her husband, “You ought not to go to work to-day. It seems to me that it is the day on which we should rest.” He replied, “Take the lead,” and attended our Sabbath-school with his children. We had given a Bible reading on the Sabbath question the night before, at the beginning of the Sabbath.

We are now starting a small French and English school to accommodate children who are several miles from a public school. Brother Oswald Bourbeau will teach every forenoon for five days each week, except when he has to be absent to do other missionary work, in which case his school will be taught by Mrs. Bourdeau or by Sister Peatment, an experienced English teacher who has recently moved here from Montreal, with her husband and four children.

Mrs. Bourdeau and myself find the work taxing for persons of our age. The contrast between the heat of the day and the cool, damp, and sometimes frosty, air of night at this latitude, and the care of the tent, in rain and storm, are somewhat taxing, to say nothing of the mosquito and black-fly pest; but the peace and blessing of God more than counterbalance all the inconveniences we have to meet. Upon the whole, we can say that our camp life, at the respective ages of nearly fifty-nine and sixty-five, is beneficial to us physically and spiritually, and we rejoice in Him who adds to our strength.