Christiana, Norway by John Gottlieb Matteson

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 6, 1879

Christiana, Norway.

By John Gottlieb Matteson

OUR tract society in this city sells about six dollars' worth of tracts each week. Brn. Jasperson and Roseqvist are in Skien. They will soon get a hall for meetings. Meanwhile, they have visited people and sold tracts. They had sold about eight dollars' worth of tracts when they last wrote. Our brethren in Denmark have formed a tract society, and are at work. The consequence is that our tracts from America are all gone except two kinds and some pamphlets. Our brethren in Sweden need books and tracts. In Sweden very little can be done without tracts. Preachers who are not of the State church are not permitted to preach there, except in their own meetinghouses. But books can be sold freely, and the people like to read. Bro. Olsen, who has been with us about five months, will soon leave this place and try to labor in Sweden. It seems that the time may not be far distant when there will be a demand for Swedish tracts large enough to get them printed here.

The attendance and interest is increasing in our meetings since the tract society commenced to work. The house was crowded Sunday evening. The people listen with marked attention. The truth is gaining ground. Immediately after the close of the service, two of us hand out tracts for the members of the tract society, and receive the money which each one has received for tracts during the week. This takes about an hour There is always a surplus of money in the treasury of the tract society. Then the tracts go out to different parts of the country as well as in the city.

Our quarterly meeting was well attended. Seven persons were baptized on the previous evening. Sabbath morning we felt a good degree of the presence of God. In the afternoon seventy-two brethren and sisters took part in the ordinances. This was the first time the washing of feet was introduced among them. All except two took part in this solemn ordinance. We have now in all seventy-five members in good standing.

Bro. Brorsen has labored some time in the southern part of Jutland, and some souls have embraced the truth. The fields are white for the harvest in Northern Europe. The time is short, and it is a great work to be prepared to meet our God. But this is the great aim of our lives, and we desire to win as many souls with us as possible, before the Lord shall come.

J. G. MATTESON.