face death in many forms; but he went on with his work till the last.

Henry Erzberger, of Switzerland, had charge of our work in Constantinople during the war. Even in those troublous times the Constantinople church grew in members. Miss D. Keanides, the secretary-treasurer of the mission, was summoned before one of the local courts to answer for her correspondence. After being kept some time in prison, where she labored on behalf of the depraved women who were her associates, she was brought before the tribunal, who allowed her to explain at length our denominational teachings. She was listened to with respect, and then politely dismissed, so impressed were these hardened men with the sincerity and truthfulness of the prisoner.

About the same time A. Buzugherian was marvelously delivered from massacre, he and his wife journeying by camel. over deserts for thirteen days to Egypt and safety. As soon as the war was over, this brother was back in his field of labor.

Syria and Palestine

H. P. Holser visited Palestine early in 1898, and on his return made a call at a general meeting in Hamburg for volunteers to open work in that country. Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Krum responded. They began by doing colporteur work among the German colonists at Jaffa (the Joppa of the Bible). In 1900, F. Hoerner, from the Basel Sanitarium, opened a medical mission in Jaffa. Later Mr. Krum established such a mission in Jerusalem, which he operated himself for a while, being in course of time relieved by Mr. and Mrs. J. Jespersson, trained nurses from Basel. J. G. Teschner, a German nurse, sent to Jerusalem to assist Mr. Jespersson, died of fever a few months later.

In 1905 W. H. Wakeham, who served as superintendent of the Levant, visited Syria and Palestine, and held the first institute for Armenian workers at Aintab, six young men being in attendance. A brother from Iconium, who was baptized at this institute, reported five others in that city who were observing the Sabbath. Sabbath keepers were also reported from Beirut, Cyprus, Alexandretta, Tarsus, and Adana. In 1908 Elder and Mrs. W. C. Ising settled at Beirut. Two years later Elder Ising baptized two converts in the brook Cherith. In the following year a tent-meeting was held on Mt. Carmel, in the midst of a German colony. In 1913 Elder Ising visited believers in Bagdad and Mosul, near the site of ancient Nineveh, who had been for some time sending tithes to the mission. Elder H. Erzberger was appointed director of Syria in 1913, and the fol

lowing year visited the regions east of the Jordan, where an interest had been awakened among the Arabs as a result of colporteur work. He was interned during the war and for some time thereafter on the island of Malta.

Greece and Albania

Prof. W. E. Howell with his family entered Greece in May, 1907, following the council at Gland. They settled in a suburb of Athens, and began the study of modern Greek. Professor Howell was recalled to America in 1909 to resume educational work. Before leaving Greece he visited Albania, where an interest had developed. He also translated some tracts into modern Greek. In the same year R. S. Greaves baptized the first believers in Albania, who had learned of the truth through one of Frofessor Howell's tracts. F. Scior began work in Salonica in 1909. During the Balkan War, Loxandra Keanides, a nurse, worked in the hospitals of that city. Workers were withdrawn during the World War. Not till 1921 did R. S. Greaves return to resume his work, which is progressing slowly, but steadily.

The Persian Mission

F. F. Oster, of Walla Walla College, Wash., entered Persia in 1911, working among the German-speaking residents about Urumiah, and at the same time studying the Persian language. He was joined later by O. Staubert and his wife. Mr. Oster settled at Maragha, twenty-five miles south of Tabriz, where he began to work among the Turks and Persian-speaking Syrians. Shortly before the outbreak of the Great War he journeyed through Turkestan on horseback, and did evangelistic work, going over some of the ground covered by Joseph Wolff when he was preaching the advent message in connection with the movement of 1844. Maragha was exposed to the Kurdish raiders, who began to ravage Persia as soon as Turkey entered the war. The inhabitants, accordingly, had to flee. Elder Oster and his wife and four-months-old baby were in the stream of refugees. The first day Mrs. Oster was in the saddle fourteen hours. They reached Tabriz, the city of refuge, in safety. The headquarters of the mission is at Tabriz, Persia, F. F. Oster being director.

A Great General Meeting

In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to give a very brief summary of the advancement of the work in various parts of Europe and the Near East. A few closing words

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may be said concerning the work as a whole. The General Conference Council held at Friedensau in the summer of 1911, was a practical demonstration of the remarkable growth and development of the work in Europe during the previous twenty years. There were gathered together on this occasion people from practically all the important countries of Europe and from many parts of Asia and Africa, to the number of over 3,000. This

large company was accommodated partly in a great encampment of tents and partly in public buildings on the estate. The huge canvas tabernacle was crowded to its fullest capacity. While reports were being made and sermons preached, there were two interpreters, one standing on either side of the rostrum, other interpreters doing the same thing for little groups of listeners gathered in various parts of the tent. However, while representing all these different nations, the meeting was marked by perfect oneness of feeling, and seemed to form a remarkable fulfilment, in part, of the beautiful scripture which says that they shall come from the east and the west, and the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God.

IN order to appreciate the full significance of such a meeting as the General Conference of 1901, it will be necessary to go back somewhat in the narrative, and consider certain developments in the history of the organized work of the denomination, which naturally led up to the situation that confronted the delegates to this historic conference, and led them to take the action they did. When James White passed away, in 1881, at the age of sixty, after guiding the destinies of the denomination for more than thirty years, the denominational organization may be said to have existed in germ, but there was to be growth and expansion in many directions to keep pace with a rapidly growing work.

The General Conference at Minneapolis in the autumn of 1888 marked a crisis in the spiritual development of the denomination. The issues seemed on the surface to center about certain men and their theological views, but it was really a conflict of fundamental principles. The work of the previous years had been aggressive and thoroughly successful, viewed from every standpoint. George I. Butler, succeeding James White, had

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