A few were colporteurs (full-time preachers). Among them was Carl Lüttichau, who in the summer of 1899 traveled several weeks throughout Sjælland, placing book after book in several towns, including Roskilde and Holbæk.

Lüttichau had just returned from South Africa, where he had an accident and sustained a serious injury. Determined that if he survived, he would use his life in God’s service, he stuck to his promise and soon began working with Sophus Winter. Starting in 1900, they jointly published Zion’s Watch Tower under the Danish name Zions Vagt-Taarn.

However, Sophus Winter began drifting from the truth. He ceased publishing Zions Vagt-Taarn in the fall of 1901, and in the course of 1902-3, he fell into the darkness of false religion.

So in 1903, Carl Lüttichau took the lead. He had been born in Jutland at Vingegaard, which belonged to the estate of Tjele owned by his father, who had been minister of finance in the Danish government for some years. He completed school with top grades, graduated in philosophy, and went on to study at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, until he left for South Africa in 1896. With this background and his cultured manner, he was well liked and was qualified for the work that lay ahead.

The first major event that took place after he took charge of the work was the visit of Charles Taze Russell in April 1903. During this visit several meetings were held, the largest with an attendance of 200. In October, Carl took the initiative to publish the Watch Tower in Danish again, and from July 1904 it was issued regularly each month.

A Sign Painter Finds the Truth

In Copenhagen, meetings were attended by a group of five or six people, including two poor seamstresses. But the group was soon to become stronger.

Brønshøj, located in the north end of Copenhagen, was home to a Norwegian sign painter, John Reinseth. He and his wife, Augusta, earnestly tried to bring up their children according to the Word of God. John would often read the Bible to his family and tried to explain it so that even the children could understand. Although attending various religious meetings, they received no satisfaction. Then one evening they knelt down while the father prayed sincerely to God to open their eyes to the truth. The next morning a colporteur was standing on their doorstep with Volume I of Millennial Dawn! Who was this preacher? Anna Hansen, one of the two poor seamstresses.

Carl Lüttichau followed through and called on this family to teach them the Bible. After some long discussions, John began attending meetings at Ole Suhrs Gade, the Society’s Danish headquarters office. After every meeting he would rush home and tell his wife about the wonderful things he had heard. Although bedridden for several years, as soon as her strength came back, she eagerly hobbled on crutches to the meetings.

The family simply seized the truth. Every minute John could spare, he preached from door to door. Often he got up as early as 4:30 in the morning to prepare for the meetings. Later in the day, when he tired, he would settle into a comfortable chair for a nap, habitually holding his key ring loosely in his hand. When he dozed off and dropped the keys, he would wake up, aroused by his self-devised alarm clock. Refreshed, he was ready to get going again in service.

His wife, despite her frail health, desired to spread the truth around Hellebæk in northern Sjælland, where she was born. So she packed a large wicker trunk with books and shipped it by train to Elsinore. Since she could only carry just a couple of books in her handbag, she had a special belt sewn for her waist, with large, flat pockets. Thus equipped, with handbag in one hand, a cane in the other, and a number of books in the belt hidden by a loose-fitting coat, stouthearted Augusta would walk and preach from villa to villa along the northern coast. Before she died in 1925, her last words were: “There is so much to be done up there in northern Sjælland, and I wanted so much to do it.”

Three of their children also became zealous publishers of the good news, and their son Poul had the privilege of serving as branch overseer for a time.

The “Wednesday Brethren” in Ålborg

In 1910 a small group of people in Ålborg, in northern Jutland, had withdrawn from various churches because they found no spiritual food there. Each Wednesday they gathered in a private home to read and discuss the Bible on their own. Among them was a married couple, Peter and Johanne Jensen. Their son Arthur occasionally attended these meetings as well, although he was a freethinker.

When Anna Hansen​—the seamstress who had visited the Reinseth family—​came and offered Volume I of Millennial Dawn, Johanne Jensen obtained the book. Arthur read it with an insatiable hunger during the night. Nevertheless, he had to wait to satisfy his spiritual hunger further. Before he could pursue his interest, he had to travel to Copenhagen, but while there he was suddenly struck with typhoid fever. The resulting hospital stay gave him the time for spiritual feeding. He sent word to the office at Ole Suhrs Gade. He wanted every publication of the Society that was available. After he left the hospital, he attended all the meetings. But that did not satisfy his spiritual hunger either. After the meetings, he would often accompany Poul Reinseth to his home, and then Poul would accompany Arthur back to his lodging. Often they would spend a whole night walking back and forth between each other’s places, excitedly discussing the truth. They became friends for life.

Arthur then began a lively correspondence with his mother in Ålborg, and he rejoiced at the thought of telling the “Wednesday Brethren” of the Bible truths he had found. When he went to his parents’ home for Christmas, Poul joined him. There, Arthur was asked to conduct a Wednesday meeting, which evoked much discussion when he drew attention to the year 1914 as the end of the Gentile Times. Not all the “Wednesday Brethren” continued in Arthur’s discussion group. But a faithful core stuck to the truth, and a congregation was formed in Ålborg in 1912. A young woman in the group, Thyra Larsen, became a colporteur, and her two sisters, Johanne and Dagmar, were among those who remained as faithful supporters of the congregation.

[Picture on page 74]

Thyra Larsen from Ålborg served as a colporteur in 1915