The whole city was upside down because color film was a new invention​—and the showing was free! The guests received cards on which they could write their names and addresses if they wanted more information, and two colporteurs remained in town for a while to care for those interested persons.”

A Determined Teacher

In 1915 another event aroused attention. During the previous year, the truth had reached the fishing village of Skagen, at the northern tip of the country. An art dealer and his wife had accepted the truth. A schoolteacher, Marie Due, was interested as well. Dagmar Larsen, who had just been baptized, arrived in Skagen as a child’s nurse. She met Marie Due and spoke a great deal with her about Biblical subjects.

That same fall Marie Due withdrew membership from the church and refused to teach any more classes on religion. Newspapers throughout the country carried this story. Finally, she was dismissed on a pension at the age of 45, and out she went in the full-time ministry, happy as can be, with the pension covering her expenses. She worked faithfully for many years in Denmark, Norway, and Finland. She was simply indomitable, a fine example of endurance right down to her death.

World War Followed by Renewed Activity

The July 1919 issue of the Danish Watch Tower announced that the long-awaited Finished Mystery (Volume VII of Studies in the Scriptures) would now be published in Dano-Norwegian. The brothers expected a great preaching campaign to start. To instruct the brothers on how to visit people, a colporteur course had already been conducted in Copenhagen. This was also the first time that noncolporteurs were encouraged to witness from door to door with books.

During the years that followed, a handful of untiring, steadfast colporteurs did a tremendous work by planting the Kingdom seed and cultivating new soil. Niels Ebbesen Dal was one zealous example. In 1918 this Danish-American returned to the land of his birth, the island of Mors in northern Jutland. In the United States, he had learned the truth through the book The Divine Plan of the Ages, which he had found in a hotel room. Upon his return to Denmark, he immediately began to do colporteur work and preach to his relatives and all others on Mors.

This caused quite a stir. The Dal family were prominent Grundtvigians and were highly respected on the island. But now this Dal came along and was preaching new ideas. His older brother Frode became interested at once, and also Frode’s son Kristian, a newly graduated schoolteacher. Kristian started as a colporteur in 1920 and was joined later by his brother Knud.

A New and Gripping Message

In the United States, the Watch Tower Society’s second president had already given his popular talk “Millions Now Living Will Never Die.” Now it was Europe’s turn to hear it. On August 12, 1920, Joseph F. Rutherford and some of his fellow workers sailed to England, and while he continued down through part of Europe, the same talk was given in Denmark by A. H. Macmillan.

Brother Macmillan disembarked in Esbjerg on Thursday, October 21, 1920, and that same evening he spoke at the Palace Hotel. Next, the discourse was given in Odense. In Copenhagen the talk was to be given at the Odd Fellows Hall. An hour before the talk was scheduled to begin, people had already gathered outside the hall, and when the doors were flung open, it was filled in just a matter of minutes! Many with cheerful faces lost their smiles when they had to be turned away. The audience, though, was most attentive, and after the meeting about 300 copies of the Millions booklet were distributed.

Response to Macmillan’s Talk

Clearly, there was great interest in this “new” message. Brother Macmillan’s public meetings had attracted more than 5,000 listeners! Some of these became Bible Students and zealous publishers of God’s Word. Thus, sitting in the audience in Esbjerg, were a young couple, Johannes and Thora Dam, members of the Methodist Church. The husband was the church warden, so their living quarters were in the church building. After the talk, they ordered the Millions booklet, and some three months later, a colporteur called on them.

The colporteur stayed with them for some time to instruct them so that they could become well-grounded in their newfound faith. This, of course, did not please the Methodist minister. One day he met the colporteur outside the church and asked: “Who in the world gave you permission to fish in my fish baskets?” The brother quickly replied: “Who gave you permission to put the fish into baskets?”

Johannes Dam had found the true church! A total of 18 Methodists withdrew, and that is how the congregation in Esbjerg got started.