Ellen G. White in Europe 1885-1887

Evangelistic Team in Basel

While the financial status of the publishing work was discouraging, on the evangelistic front prospects were encouraging. Conradi and Erzberger had been holding meetings among the German-speaking Swiss for some time, and Ellen White was elated by their success: “Brethren Conradi and Erzberger are two good workmen,” she testified late in December. “They have been laboring here in Basel for the last two months. The hall they have hired is filled, and some evenings a small room adjoining the hall is filled. Brother Erzberger told me last evening that sixteen had decided to keep the Sabbath. This is very encouraging to us all.”—Letter 60, 1886. EGWE 249.4

Meanwhile, William Ings had discovered a new approach in the use of our literature. Accompanied by Oscar Roth, he began to canvass the better hotels, attempting to leave neatly bound copies of Adventist papers in the lobbies. To their surprise, there was hardly a hotel that refused to accept the journals. Plans were quickly laid to implement the idea in hotels all over Europe—wherever there were trusted church members who could be sure the papers were kept up to date and in good condition. EGWE 249.5