THE EUROPEAN DIVISION EXTENDING ITS WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD
—THEIR PUBLISHING HOUSE PRINTING IN NINETEEN LANGUAGES—EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES AMONG HEATHEN TRIBES BRING FAVORABLE CONSIDERATION FROM THE NATIONS
THE manager of our book department, H. H. Hall, gives herewith a report of the splendid progress our work is making in the European Division. In previous issues he has told of the progress he has found in England and the Scandinavian countries. Next week he will tell us what he has found while visiting our publishing headquarters in Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
HERE in Hamburg is located the headquarters of what is known, in the Seventh-day Adventist plan of organization, as the "European Division Conference." This conference bears the same relation to this country and certain mission fields, that the North American Conference, with headquarters in Washington, D. C., bears to North America.
THE KAVIRONDO,—MISSION BOAT, VICTORIA NYANZA, EAST AFRICA
The territory in which it directs soul-winning work is 8,000 miles from east to west, and 6,000 miles from north to south, and includes all of Europe, the northern and western portions of Asia, and most of Africa.
GAINED ONE FOURTH IN A YEAR
Its membership is almost 30,000, of which 5,464 were won last year. Its work is in the hands of 680 ministers and gospel workers, assisted by the treasurers and office employees in its ninety-four local conference organizations, the doctors and nurses in its seven sanitariums and treatment rooms, the 200 workers in its publishing houses, and nearly a thousand colporteurs.
Its tithes and offerings for 1912 were more than four hundred thousand dollars, and its various institutions and missions show an investment of $1,836,197.94. Its mission work is attracting governmental attention, and its mission schools are so highly regarded that the entire school system among the 25,000 Wapares of Africa has been placed in its hands. But of this we will speak more specifically later.
Not far from the old university of Wittenberg, where Luther and Melanchthon taught nearly four hundred years ago, is their leading school, Friedensau. Beginning in a small way in 1899, it has steadily developed until it now has 250 students enrolled. It was my good fortune to be present at their graduation exercises, the other evening, and to catch a glimpse, through Brother Dail's translation of the various speeches and recitations, of the spirit of both faculty and students.
FRONT VIEW OF HAMBURG PUBLISHING HOUSE
EARNEST MEN AND WOMEN FROM MANY LANDS
The graduation class of fifty was not made up of boys and girls, but of serious-faced, mature men and women, who had learned that "he that winneth souls is wise"; for between ninety-five and one hundred per cent of the students enter gospel work as soon as they leave school.
There I met and conversed, through signs and interpreters, with young men from Russia, Poland, Finland, Turkey, and Switzerland, all of whom seemed anxious to complete their preparatory work and return to their home land to assist in spreading the gospel message.
MISSION STATION, GERMAN VICTORIA NYANZA
Yes, the cradle of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, of which Reformation the third angel's message is but the continuation and development, was at Wittenberg. The educational institution that kindles the enthusiasm and sharpens the weapons of the young soldier in this last reformation has its European headquarters in quiet, secluded Friedensau, only a few miles away. Appropriate, isn't it?
PLAYMATES IN FRIEDENSTAL, PARE MISSION, GERMAN EAST AFRICA
A mute testimony to the faith and good sense of the founders of this school is borne by the old barracks in which the students lived and carried on their work while the school was in its infancy. Buildings have been added from time to time as they were needed and the money was forthcoming for the purpose. With the large new building recently completed, the investment stands at $75,000, and the institution is nearly free from debt.
A food factory doing a business of $30,000 a year is operated in connection with the school. A sanitarium capable of caring for sixty patients, and an old people's home in which forty-five inmates are now cared for, are located on the school campus.
PUBLISHING ACTIVITIES
Reference has been made, in previous articles, to the publishing plants at Watford, England, and Christiania, Norway; but the International Tract Society of Hamburg is the largest of all, having an investment of13
OLD PEOPLE'S HOME AT FRIEDENSAU
NEWEST SCHOOL BUILDING AT FRIEDENSAU
MAIN SCHOOL BUILDING AT FRIEDENSAU
$190,000. It stands close to the Pacific Press and the Review and Herald in the value of publications issued, its sales last year being more than a quarter of a million dollars.
As I went through its shipping departments — foreign and domestic — in which eighteen men are constantly employed, and saw the shelves upon shelves of books, in nineteen languages, issuing from the Hamburg publishing house, I said, “Surely this gospel of the kingdom is going to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people; for all these represent but one fourth of the tongues in which our publications are heralding the coming King.”
On the opposite page is shown the front of their office, in which the salesrooms and a portion of the editorial rooms are located. On this page is shown the new four-story concrete factory building, about fifty by ninety feet, but which has already been outgrown. Land has been purchased on which a bindery will be installed, together with such printing machinery as may be found necessary to keep up with the rapidly increasing demand for books and periodicals that give the only true solution of present-day problems.
LONG HOURS OF BUSY WORK
Brother Hartkop and his 118 associates were working long hours of overtime during the three weeks I was out and in at the office, and in fact they had just obtained permission from the government to work six days a week before the holiday season — ordinarily they are not allowed to work on Sunday. On my inquiry of one of the young men as to when he usually went home at night, he replied, in his broken English — and how I wished I could speak German half as well as he could speak English — “No regular time we have. We stop when the work done is.” That answer unconsciously spelled the spirit of the institution, and the reason for its success.
A THOUSAND COLPORTEURS DO FAITHFUL SERVICE
In the European Division as a whole there are nearly a thousand colporteurs, and their sales last year amounted to $424,000. The first copy of a tract in the Tigre language, entitled “The End of All Things,” was received from one of their missionaries in Abyssinia, while I was at the office. He had no press, and had therefore traced the peculiar looking characters with pen on a wax stencil, and neostyled, folded, and neatly bound the sheets. May it, like it predecessors, be blessed of God in bearing the gospel to those who know it not.
MISSIONS IN AFRICA
As has been stated, the European Division Conference conducts large and successful mission enterprises in Africa, in which they are combining gospel instruction with regular school and industrial work. Sister A. Kussner, their treasurer, placed in my hands the following facts relative to their progress and standing:
Field
Schools
Teachers (Wh. Ntv.)
Students
Value of Buildings
Pare — German East Africa
23
7 26
2,132
$ 5,272.44
Victoria Nyanza — German East Africa
24
10 18
2,334
6,799.19
British East Africa
5
7 30
833
3,317.31
Abyssinia
1
30
2,873.58
Total
53
24 74
5,329
$18,262.52
NEW ADDITION TO HAMBURG PUBLISHING HOUSE
They also own two boats, which ply between their different missions on Lake Nyanza, and several tents, which bring up the total valuation of their mission property in East Africa alone to $19,169.57.
ATTITUDE OF THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT
An interesting commentary on the attitude of the German government and mission societies in general to our mission work is afforded by the following incident: Last summer a special collection was taken up throughout Germany, called the “Kaiser’s Jubilee Collection,” in honor of the twenty-fifth year of the emperor’s reign. The money so raised was to be presented to the emperor, to be used by him for mission purposes.
Our people were not included among the mission societies who launched this enterprise, but decided that they would take up a collection at the same time for our African missions. The general committee of the other societies, hearing of this, invited us to send it in to them if we expected to be considered in the division of the large collection. The invitation was accepted, and the money, amounting to $6,250, was sent, our brethren not knowing what the division of the committee might be.
Imagine their surprise, therefore, when they were awarded $12,000 instead of the $6,250 they had raised. So instead of building five new Jubilee stations in Africa, as they had expected, they will now build ten. Verily “he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.”
Shall we not both pray and expect that this experience may be an earnest of proportionate reapings from the liberal sowings in which the European Division Conference is engaged?
