best in him, especially the prayers of those little children. And in his great need he himself resorted to prayer. Many an earnest petition for light and guidance and strength did he offer in the lonely woods. And the answer came in abiding peace and the forming of a new life purpose.

Some weeks after he had taken his stand, the young man, having finished the work assigned him on the adjoining farm, found work at a place about fifteen miles from Afton; but regularly every Sabbath he attended the Adventist services in that town, covering the thirty miles sometimes on foot and sometimes on horseback. In July he attended the State campmeeting, and was baptized. He now gave himself to close study in order that he might be able intelligently to present to others the truth which had become precious to him. Engaged in hard labor for the entire day, he would rise at two o'clock in the morning, in order to have time for Bible study and prayer before the work of the day had to be taken up. He also began holding Bible readings with interested persons in the neighborhood, and for a time taught a class in Sunday school.

In the autumn S. N. Haskell and Maria L. Huntley were holding an institute in Oskaloosa. They learned of the young German through his applying for some German tracts, and telegraphed him to come to the institute. The outcome of the acquaintance thus made was that he attended Battle Creek College the following winter, the Afton church contributing $25 toward his expenses.

Once in college, he applied himself so earnestly to his studies. as seriously to undermine his health, meanwhile boarding himself to save money. When his slender resources did not hold out even for the meager fare he allowed himself, and he was confronted with the necessity of leaving school, the way opened for him to enter the employment of the publishing house. Thus he was able to complete the literary course in the spring of 1880, after which he remained in the printing office about a year.

In the spring of 1881 he began to labor for his countrymen in Iowa, first devoting himself to securing subscriptions to the German paper, and later assisting James Sawyer in a tent effort at Sac City. Autumn found him laboring among the RussianGerman Mennonites of Brotherfield and Childstown, S. Dak. He spent about three months in faithful labor on behalf of these people, holding meetings in schoolhouses and private homes, and visiting from house to house. The seed was taking root in good ground, but the harvest was yet a little way off. Mean

while he was called to Milltown in a neighboring county, where there was a company of Sabbath-keeping Germans who were split into factions. After faithful labor extending over some months, things were put right, and it was possible on April 9 to organize the first German Seventh-day Adventist church, with a membership of nineteen.

By this time the situation at Brotherfield had become very favorable. The young licentiate accordingly returned to resume his labors, with the result that a church of thirty members was organized in that place in September, 1881. Then he went on to Immanuel Creek, and there too it was possible, before the close of the year, to raise up a company of German Seventhday Adventists.

At the Dakota camp-meeting, held in the summer of 1882, L. R. Conradi, the licentiate who had been instrumental in thus making a substantial beginning among the Germans of this country, was ordained to the ministry. In the following summer he joined H. Shultz, who had left the presidency of the Nebraska Conference in order to devote himself to work among his countrymen, in the carrying on of the first tent effort among the Germans of the United States, at Sutton, Nebr.

A year later he conducted a tent effort in Fleetwood, Pa.; and in 1885, assisted by J. S. Shrock, he held meetings in Allentown, Pa., where the attendance at times rose to 1,000 persons. A church of thirty members was organized in the latter place.

The German work in America had its most rapid growth, however, in western Kansas. As early as the spring of 1884 a beginning had been made by L. R. Conradi and J. S. Shrock, and in the course of the following winter a church was established in Hillsboro, which by May, 1885, had attained a membership of 123. Further additions continued to be made to this church, and other companies were gradually raised up in other parts of Kansas, as well as in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Oregon.

In January, 1886, Elder Conradi, by action of the General Conference, sailed for Europe to answer the call for a German preacher. Shortly after his arrival, he and J. Erzenberger began a series of meetings for the German-Swiss in Lausanne, as a result of which twenty-two persons were baptized in Lake Geneva, and organized into an Adventist church the ensuing spring. In the latter part of June Elder Conradi visited German Sabbath keepers in the Crimea, as recorded in another chapter. The following year he accompanied Mrs. E. G. White and her son, W. C. White, on a visit to the Sabbath keepers in

Rhenish Prussia. In April, 1888, E. E. Frauchiger, one of the converts of the Lausanne tent-meeting, and G. Perk, of Russia, began to do colporteur work in Rhenish Prussia, and Brother Frauchiger began to sell our publications in Würtemberg.

At the General Conference held in the autumn of 1888, it was decided to begin aggressive evangelistic work in Germany.

E. E. FRAUCHIGER

L. R. Conradi, who attended the Conference, was accordingly accompanied on his return to the old country by J. T. Boettcher, J. Klein, and others. Hamburg, the third largest seaport in the world, was chosen as a center. A mission was opened here the following April, at 41 Sophienstrasse, in connection with which regular preaching services were held, supplemented by the holding of Bible readings and canvassing from house to house. The effort thus put forth resulted in the organizing of a church of twenty-five members the following autumn.

In connection with the mission there was held in the course of the summer the first training school for workers in Germany, the pupils numbering eight. At the close of the school in September, 1889, J. Klein, one of the student workers, was ordained to the gospel ministry and sent to Russia to labor.

The first general meeting of Germans in Europe was held at Altona, a suburb of Hamburg, Jan. 28 to Feb. 1, 1891. The meeting was attended by H. P. Holser, then superintendent of the Central European Mission, with headquarters at Basel; and by L. R. Conradi, J. Erzenberger, and other laborers, as well as by representatives from various parts of Germany. At this meeting it was decided to separate Germany and Russia from the Central European Conference, of which they had been a part, and organize them as separate mission fields under the superintendency of L. R. Conradi. At the same time a German tract and missionary society and a Sabbath School Association were organized.

In the course of the winter and spring of 1891 the second session of the training school for workers was conducted at the mission in Hamburg, with an attendance of twelve students. At the camp-meeting held near Basel that summer, J. T. Boettcher was ordained to the ministry, and soon afterward began a series of meetings in Barmen, Rhenish Prussia, which resulted in the raising up of a church of nineteen members.

At the next general meeting, held in Hamburg in January, 1892, the chief question under consideration was the acquire

ment of a suitable property in Hamburg for the permanent establishment of the work. Offerings were received for this purpose from the members in Germany, to which was added the sum of $15,000, voted by the General Conference in 1893. At the third general meeting for the Germans held at 15a Grindelberg, Hamburg, it was decided to purchase that property for the permanent headquarters of the German work. The mission training school in that year enrolled thirty-two students, six of whom came from Russia, two from Holland, one from Hungary, one from Denmark, one from Switzerland, and the rest from Germany.

When the brethren held their fourth general gathering, in the summer of 1894, it was in a tent pitched in the rear of the mission property on Grindelberg. They then voted to erect a

two-story chapel, 35 x 67 feet, alongside the mission building. The ground floor of the chapel was in due time equipped as a printing office, and about the middle of the year 1895 the German paper, Harold der Wahrheit, began to be issued biweekly from this office instead of from Basel. Books and tracts in many different languages were also put out in large numbers, the office undergoing enlargement from time to time to accommodate the rapidly increasing business till it had taken on large proportions.

To meet the growing educational needs, H. F. Schuberth came over from America in the autumn of 1894, and took charge of the training school. A further advanced step was taken in the development of the educational work when it was voted, at a meeting held in Magdeburg in July, 1896, to secure permanent quarters for the school. After looking about in various places, the brethren finally fixed upon the "Klappermuehle" estate, lying in the heart of Germany, near the village of Burg, not far from the city of Magdeburg. The property includes some ninety acres of tilled field, meadow land, and forest, through which runs the Ihle, a small stream furnishing water power for running the gristmill from which the estate takes its name.

In November of the same year the school opened its doors, with one teacher, Otto Luepke, and seven pupils. Later more pupils came in, and there was an addition to the staff of instructors in Dr. A. J. Hoenes, who taught in the nurses' department. The small schoolroom had only twenty-four seats, and it served also as meeting hall and business office. Dormitory accommodations were very meager to begin with, the young men sleeping in the large loft over the mill. This arrangement was, however, only temporary.

In 1900 two provisional buildings were put up and occupied for school purposes, to be used afterward as workshops; and after July of that year there was a two-room schoolhouse, which would accommodate about forty pupils, the attendance by that time running from thirty to forty.

The permanent plan for the school, which came to be known as the Friedensau Missionary Seminary, began to be revealed in the erection in 1902 of the south wing of the present school building. On the first floor of this there was a large assembly room that would accommodate fifty pupils. On the second floor were living rooms for the young women, and on the third floor the young men were accommodated.

In 1904 the school building at Friedensau was completed, including four spacious classrooms, forty-nine living-rooms for