the Western Continent
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of A. H. Francke (_Frontispiece_)
Bartholomew Ziegenbalg
Christian Frederick Schwartz (Preface)
Louis Harms
Hermannsburg Parsonage
John Evangelist Gossner
Men’s Bathing Ghat at Purulia
Stall High School for Girls, Guntur, India
Faculty of Watts Memorial College for Men, Guntur
Hospital for Women and Children, Guntur
Hospital for Women and Children, Rajahmundry
Central Girl’s School, Rajahmundry
Chapel of Leper Asylum, Kodur, India, (Joint Synod of Ohio)
Inmates of Leper Asylum
All India Lutheran Conference in 1914, Delegates from Eight Missions
A Malagasy Witch Doctor
Native Lutheran Ministers in Madagascar
Main Station at Muhlenberg, Liberia, Africa
Girls of Emma V. Day School, Muhlenberg, Africa
Carrying Water and Sewing in Garden
Central China Lutheran Theological Seminary, Shekow, Hupeh, China
Chapel and Mission Homes, Chikungshan, China, (United Norwegian)
Administration Building and Class Rooms, Kyushu, Gakuin, Kumamoto,
Japan
Pastor’s Residence, Chapel, and Student Dormitory, Tokyo. American
Missionaries, Native Pastors and Workers with Wives and Children
First Graduating Class from Kindergarten at Ogi, Japan
Group of Theological Students, Kumamoto
Lutheran Church in Borneo
Lutheran Church in Java
Officers and Teachers of Lutheran Sunday School, New Amsterdam,
British Guiana
Ituni School in School Room Which is Also the Church
Some Indian Members of Ituni Congregation
Lutheran Chapel, Monacillo, Porto Rico, with Two Missionaries and
Two Native Workers
Porto Rican Hut with Miss Mellander and Three Members of Church at
Palo Seco
Immanuel Colored Lutheran College, Greensboro, North Carolina
Bethany Indian Mission Band, Wittenberg, Wisconsin (Norwegian Synod)
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PREFACE
The author acknowledges her indebtedness to the many persons who have
furnished data for _The Story of Lutheran Missions_, and to those who
have read the manuscript. The authorities consulted have been chiefly
_The History of Protestant Missions_ by Gustav Warneck, D.D., _The
History of Christian Missions_ by C. H. Robinson, D.D., _The History of
Lutheran Missions_ by the Rev. Preston A. Laury, _Geschichte der
evangelischen Heidenmission_ by R. Gareis, _The Lutheran Encyclopedia_
and _the Encyclopedia of Missions_, beside numerous magazine articles
and reports. Only enough statistics have been included to indicate the
size of each mission. With the book should be used such admirable books
and pamphlets as _Missionary Heroes of the Lutheran Church_, _Our First
Decade in China_, _The United Norwegian Mission Field in China_, _Our
Colored Mission_, _Our India Story_, and the many interesting
illustrated mission reports. _Above all, maps should be constantly
referred to._
If the study of _The Story of Lutheran Missions_ gives to the reader, as
its preparation has given to the author, a sense of the essential unity
of the Lutheran Church and a renewed love for her and her history, it
will achieve its purpose.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: BARTHOLOMEW ZIEGENBALG.]
[Illustration: CHRISTIAN FREDERICK SCHWARTZ.]
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CHAPTER I.
The Beginnings
THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK.
THE MISSIONARY IMPULSE.
THE BENEFITS OF MISSIONARY STUDY.
THE PLAN OF SALVATION.
Salvation Intended for the Whole World.
Israel’s Conception of God’s Purpose.
The Jew as a Missionary.
The Septuagint.
The Roman Empire.
The Supreme Missionary.
The Sending of the Disciples.
Paul.
The Early Church.
Its Extent.
A Change in Method.
Early Missionaries.
The Church and State.
Boniface.
The Church of Germany.
Martin Luther.
“What must I do to be saved?”
An Answer Found.
A New Evangel.
A Pure and Living Stream.
The Bible Translated.
Luther and Missions.
THE BEGINNINGS OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS.
In Europe and Asia.
In Africa.
In North America.
In South America.
Justinian von Welz.
His Appeal Ridiculed.
A Martyr.
A Hero.
The Spring at Hand.
Philip Spener.
A. H. Francke.
The School at Halle.
The First Missionary Hymn.
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CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNINGS
[Sidenote: Purpose of the Book.] It is the object of this book to give a
general survey of the missionary labors of the Lutheran Church in all
lands. A knowledge of the work of our own Church is of first importance,
both that we may be well informed concerning those enterprises which we
support and that we may through them become interested in the
achievements of other churches.
This account of Lutheran missions cannot be exhaustive. Volumes have
been written upon the history of many Lutheran missions. Many names
which deserve record must be omitted and those heroes who have been
selected for mention are no more devoted, no more noble than many others
whose names are lost to human recollection.
[Sidenote: The Missionary Impulse.] Even if the specific commands of our
Lord were lacking, we believe that every good Christian would find in
his own heart a missionary impulse which could not be denied. There is
no good news which we do not hasten to tell; the man who would withhold
from his neighbors that which would benefit them is rightly condemned.
Would it not be strange if we told all good news but the greatest? The
Christian has found peace and life and hope in the Gospel, surely it is
his duty and it should be his chief joy to tell the good news to others.
[Sidenote: The Benefits of Missionary Study.] The study of missions is a
fascinating pursuit. Its subject matter is the noblest in the world--the
history of the evangelizing and Christianizing of mankind. The
characters are heroes and heroines. The effect of such study is not only
inspiring but improving. The student will gain through diligent
attention to the courses offered by mission boards a mass of general
information which could be gained so easily in no other way. He will
visit all the countries of the world; he will hear something of their
history, their geography, their flora and fauna. He will see Eliot and
Campanius preaching to the American Indians, he will see Hans Egede
laboring among the Greenlanders, he will hear of the wise colonial
policy of England, of the amazing devotion and great learning of the
Germans, he will observe the daily life of the mission stations where
the sick are healed, where lepers are cared for, where to everyone the
Gospel is preached. The opening of windows into the wide world is not
the least of the rewards for a study of missions.
Before beginning the actual history of Lutheran missions we will review
briefly Christian missions before the establishment of the Protestant
Church, so that the student may connect the present with the past.
[Sidenote: Salvation Intended for the Whole World.] Christ did not
present to the Jews the first intimation of salvation for the whole
world. Just as all spiritual truths which He elaborated and fulfilled
were shadowed forth in the Old Testament, so was the missionary idea.
Here we find the hidden seeds, the promises and prophecies which were to
mature and to be fulfilled in the New Testament. God is revealed as the
Creator of the whole world. It was all mankind which sinned in Adam, the
mankind which God had made “of one blood”. Saint Paul makes clear to the
Ephesians the fact that the Gentiles are “fellow heirs and fellow
members of the body”. God said to Abraham that in him should “all the
families of the earth be blessed.”
[Sidenote: Israel’s Conception of God’s Purpose.] Gradually in the
nation of Israel there developed the idea of a new covenant of grace.
With the growth of this it became more and more clear to Israel’s
prophets and seers that Israel was the center of a great kingdom which
God should gather from all nations. Many testimonies may be found to
this new consciousness. “For the earth shall be filled with the
knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” “For
from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name
shall be great among the Gentiles.” In the Prophet Jonah we have an Old
Testament missionary, proud and unwilling, but a witness, nevertheless,
to the fact that God’s mercy extended not alone to Israel but to all His
works.
[Sidenote: The Jew as a Missionary.] Unconsciously to themselves the
Jews were engaged in missionary work. Trained in seclusion, then carried
into captivity or trading in all known quarters of the world, they
continued to worship the living God. They worshipped Him in private and
in public, their synagogues rising plain and austere among the impure
temples of the heathen deities. Long-suffering, devout, faithful, they
did God’s great task.
[Sidenote: The Septuagint.] About two hundred years before the birth of
Christ the Jews accomplished an important missionary work. They were now
no longer in Judea alone, but lived all over the Roman Empire. For this
scattered host the rabbis translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek,
the common speech. The translation is called the Septuagint because it
was made by seventy men. Here is the first great spreading of the Living
Word. The Septuagint was read not only by the Jews but by many learned
Greeks, who, while they did not accept its teachings, yet admired its
eloquence. One of the greatest factors in the success of the early
Christian Church was this acquaintance of the Greeks with the Hebrew
Scriptures.
[Sidenote: The Roman Empire.] For the fulfillment of Old Testament
prophecies the world was preparing in other ways. The Roman Empire was
at the height of its power, its roads led everywhere, it had pushed back
the boundaries of the world, it was adding to itself great barbarian
nations, little dreaming that all its pride was to serve the will of the
Hebrew’s God!
[Sidenote: The Supreme Missionary.] When the time was ripe, God sent His
Son into the world, the Supreme Missionary. To convince a doubter of the
divine authority for missions, one need go no farther than to point to
Christ’s earthly life.
[Sidenote: The Disciples Sent Abroad.] Just as God had sent His Son into
the world, so Christ sent abroad His disciples. Their appointment was
made directly by Him. The command is positive. “All authority hath been
given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost.” “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved
Christ to suffer ... that repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem.” “As my
Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” “Ye shall receive power, after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me,
both in Jerusalem and all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost
parts of the earth.”
[Sidenote: The Record of Their Missionary Work.] We have in the _Acts of
the Apostles_ a record of the work of the first missionaries appointed
by Christ. It describes the disciples gathered together waiting for the
promise of the Father. It describes the pentecostal visitation with its
mighty wind, its tongues of fire, its strange speech, Parthians and
Medes and Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans and Cappadocians, Asians,
Egyptians, Cretans and Arabians speaking each in his own tongue “the
mighty works of God”. It tells the history of the Church, of its early
work in Jerusalem, of its miracles and persecutions, of the death of its
first martyr. It tells of the missionary work of Peter among the Jews,
the beginning of work among the Gentiles. It tells of the conversion of
one Saul, a Jew, who had been laying waste the new Church.
[Sidenote: Saint Paul.] In the crises of history, great characters seem
to be almost a special creation. Such a man was Lincoln, such a man was
Luther, such a man was the apostle Paul. Paul was a Jew of the straitest
sect of the Pharisees who had kept the most minute provision of the law
and who had felt that the law was unable to solve the problem of sin. He
was acquainted also with the wisdom of the Greeks. To him it became
clear after his conversion that in Christ lay the fulfillment of the
Jewish law and the way of salvation for mankind.
To those outside the law Paul became the first missionary. Through his
teaching Christianity was made a universal religion, by his personal
work he evangelized a large part of Asia Minor and the chief cities of
Greece. His accomplished task was but a small part of that which he
planned. His longing eyes turned toward the West, toward the “utmost
ramparts of the world”. When the sword of the executioner ended his life
in Rome, only a small part of his dreams had been realized.
[Illustration: LOUIS HARMS.]
[Illustration: HERMANNSBURG PARSONAGE.]
[Sidenote: The Early Church.] Not only the apostles but the whole of the
early Christian Church was filled with the missionary spirit. To that
early period our eyes turn with longing desire to penetrate farther into
the story of devotion, of passion for the things of Christ, of
persecution, of martyrdom and of eventual triumph. To us glorious and
pathetic relics remain in tradition, in a few written accounts and in
inscriptions on tombs and funeral urns. In Thessalonica (now Saloniki),
that city in which Paul and Barnabas were said to have “turned the world
upside down,” were found two funeral urns of this period. Upon one was
the inscription “No hope”; on the other, “Christ my life.” What a mighty
hope had been born in the hearts of men!
[Sidenote: Its Extent.] It is impossible to know exactly the size and
extent of the Christian Church at any of the early periods of its
history. It is estimated by the conservative that at the end of the
First Century there were in the Roman Empire two hundred thousand
Christians, and at the end of the Second perhaps eight millions, which
was about one fifteenth of the population. By the time of the Emperor
Constantine, Christianity had become so vast in its extent and so
tremendous in influence that he made it in 313 A.D. the State Church of
the Empire.
[Sidenote: A Change in Method.] As we study the history of the Christian
Church during the next centuries, we observe a new method of
Christianizing. The apostles had built up small churches, had watched
and nourished them, had chidden the backsliders, had permitted no
sacrifice of the cardinal Christian principles. Now there were added to
the Empire barbarian countries upon whose people the Christian religion
was imposed, whether or not they were truly converted, whether or not,
indeed, they were willing to receive it. There were not lacking, of
course, many individual conversions, there were not lacking hundreds of
Christians who labored with apostolic diligence and devotion and who
doubtless deplored the growing union of their religion with the corrupt
politics of a great empire.
[Sidenote: Early Missionaries.] Among the famous missionaries of this
period were Gregory, the Illuminator, a missionary to the Armenians
about the year 300; Ulfilas, who invented a Gothic alphabet so that he
might translate the Scriptures into Gothic; Chrysostom, who founded in
Constantinople a missionary institution, and Saint Patrick, who
converted Ireland. From the secluded churches of Ireland and the
Scottish Highlands there went forth to Iceland, to the Faroe Islands,
and far into the barbarian sections of the Empire a new band, Columba,
Aidan, Columbanus and Trudpert. From the young English Church went
Wilfrid to Friesland, Willibrord to the neighborhood of Utrecht, and
Boniface to Germany. Further to the east the Gospel was proclaimed under
fearful difficulties. At one time it seemed that Christianity might
become one of the religions of old China.
[Sidenote: Church and State.] Gradually the alliance of the Church and
State came to its inevitable conclusion. The Church began to share the
ambitions of the State. Christianity armed itself with the sword and
strove to wrest from the Moslem the sepulcher of the Prince of Peace. A
measure of the true spirit of the Nazarene remained in such as Raymond
Lull, who protested against extending God’s kingdom by the sword and
testified to his convictions by giving up his life. The great missionary
societies of the Church, the Jesuit, the Dominican, the Capuchin,
accepted in the main the Church’s theory of conquest, a theory made
enormously advantageous by the discovery of new continents. The
missionary enterprises of Spain and Portugal were marked by hideous
oppression of those who would not accept the offered religion.
Upon the ministers of the Church the alliance with the State wrought its
evil effect. The ambitions of a bishop of Rome led him in 442 to ask the
weak Emperor that he be made the head of western Christendom. Henceforth
the See of Rome grew more and more powerful. The Church lost entirely
the democratic quality of its early life. Pope Gregory claimed toward
the end of the Eleventh Century that he had power not only over the
souls of men but over all rulers. The lives of great prelates grew evil,
the administration of ecclesiastical affairs venal, the pure Gospel was
obscured. A mistaken emphasis was put upon good works as a means of
winning that forgiveness of sin which God had promised for Christ’s
sake. Before the missionary stream could flow for the blessing and
healing of mankind, a clear passage must be opened to its Source.
[Sidenote: Boniface.] Among the missionaries who had set out full of
zeal from the English Church in the Eighth Century was Boniface, a man
of extraordinary energy and power. Among the fields in which he worked
was that of Thuringia in Germany. Here, among the dark forests,
encouraged and supported by the Pope and by the ruler, Charles Martel,
he preached the Gospel, converting thousands and binding them to Rome.
With the Gospel he gave them a new sort of superstition, an idolatrous
reverence for Rome and a deep awe of the sacred relics which he brought
with him. He established monasteries, synods, schools, and required not
only faith but knowledge of the forms of the Church, such as the Lord’s
Prayer and the Creed. When an old man, he went to visit the country of
Friesland which had rejected his early preaching and there with his
companions was murdered.
[Sidenote: The Church of Germany.] His Church, however, continued.
Closely bound to the great Roman See, it reproduced all the evils of
that powerful organization. Here were the great celibate orders, here
collections of relics, here a constant demand for money to build
magnificent churches and to support an idle and ignorant priesthood.
Here, especially, was a tremendous traffic in indulgences by which in
exchange for money the sinner could secure not only release from penance
on earth and pain in purgatory, but, to the minds of the ignorant,
actual pardon for sin. The essential truths of Christ’s teaching were
forgotten while men busied themselves with a thousand non-essentials and
found no peace for their souls.
Now, as in other times of dire need God provided a man should point to
the true way of salvation.
[Sidenote: Martin Luther.] In Germany, as well as in all other parts of
the Church, there were many simple, devout Christians whose superstition
was underlaid by a deep and childlike faith. To two such pious souls,
Hans and Margaret Luther, there was born in 1483, seven hundred years
after Boniface had died, a son, Martin. Hans Luther was a poor miner who
had moved before Martin’s birth from Möhra to the village of Eisleben.
For this son Hans and Margaret were ambitious. They wished him to
possess first of all a good character and to that end trained him
strictly. His mother taught him simple prayers and hymns and that God
for Christ’s sake forgives sin. They wished in the second place that the
lad should rise above their humble estate and for that reason sent him
to school, first to Mansfield and Magdeburg, then to Eisenach.
[Sidenote: University Days.] When he was eighteen years old Martin
entered the University of Erfurt. His father had become more prosperous
and continued in his determination that the boy should have every
possible opportunity.
Luther was popular among his mates. He won his bachelor’s then his
master’s degree and began the study of the law for which his father
intended him. Suddenly with crushing disappointment to that ambitious
father and to the amazed disapproval of his friends, he abandoned
together the study of the law and the world itself and entered a
monastery.
[Sidenote: “What Must I Do to be Saved?”] It had not been his studies
alone which had occupied the young man during his university course, but
meditation upon the needs of his own despairing soul. We have every
evidence that he led a pure and godly life, yet the weight of that sin
to which all mankind is heir lay heavily upon him. To a man of his time
there was but one way of escape--the monastery, in which he might work
out his salvation. Vowed to celibacy, to poverty, to obedience, devoting
himself to prayer and fasting, he might hope to be saved.
If “Brother Augustine,” as he was called, had any fault as a monk, he
erred upon the side of too strict obedience. He followed all the rules
of the order, he fasted, he scourged himself cruelly. But still he found
no peace. God appeared to him an implacable judge, whose laws it was
impossible to keep. He wearied his fellow-priests with confessions and
inquiries, but his heart was not at rest.
[Sidenote: The Answer.] Finally, however, he found an answer to his
question. Partly by the help of his superiors, chiefly by the aid of the
Scriptures, which, contrary to the custom of the time, he studied
diligently, he saw a new light. God was a kind Father who required only
that his children should throw themselves in faith upon His grace,
accepting Christ’s sacrifice for them. Good works were simply the
natural expression of a soul already reconciled with God and could have
in themselves no merit. If one simply believed, one was justified by his
faith. That this doctrine was not that of the Church, Martin did not
realize.
But he was soon to learn that his discovery was not acceptable to his
superiors. There came into the neighborhood a monk, Tetzel by name,
selling those indulgences which had become a menace to spiritual life.
Against him and his traffic Luther protested, first in a sermon and then
in a series of ninety-five theses which he nailed to the door of the
Castle Church.
[Sidenote: A New Evangel.] The sale of indulgences began promptly to
decline, and the money, intended partly for the building of St. Peter’s
Church at Rome, ceased to flow into the treasury. The local clergy took
alarm, the alarm reached to Rome. Threatened, cajoled, greatly
disturbed, but steadfast, Luther clung to his conviction. “The Christian
man who has true repentance has already received pardon from God
altogether apart from an indulgence and does not need one; Christ
demands true repentance from every one,” said Luther. At once came a
stern reply. It was the Pope and not Luther who had the right to decide
this and all other questions. Thus reproved, Luther began to investigate
the claims of the Pope upon the lives and fortunes of men.
Excommunicated, threatened, with the fate of the martyr Huss in store
for him, but gathering courage each day, he persisted until he had
separated essentials from non-essentials and, thrusting aside the
judgments and traditions of men, had founded his theology upon the Word
of God. _Tearing out the weeds of false doctrine and false practice, he
cleared the stream of the Gospel to its clear and living Spring._
[Sidenote: The Bible Translated.] Luther not only opened the stream, but
provided for its continued freedom. To his German people he gave their
Bible. His was not the first German translation, but it was the first
which was at once readable and true to the original. With the most
painstaking care and with the aid of his friends, Luther prepared his
version, drawn from the original languages, true to the German idiom, a
joy to laity and scholars alike.
[Sidenote: Luther and Missions.] The interest of Luther in missions has
been the subject of much unnecessary discussion. There are fervent
admirers who claim for him a missionary enthusiasm which he did not
possess. There are others who deny for him all interest in this vital
question. The truth lies midway.
Missionary enterprise was not one of the first activities of the new
Church, nor was it to be expected that it should be. The turmoil and
difficulties connected with the establishment of the evangelical
religion occupied fully the minds of the reformers. Germany was
practically an inland nation and a divided nation. It had no ships, no
foreign possessions, no communication with the heathen world. There were
not for the early Protestants as for the early Christians great Roman
roads leading the imagination afar, there were no large cities where men
of many nations touched elbows. The newly discovered lands were the
possession of Catholic countries in whose domain the new Gospel, which
was really the old Gospel, would have had no hearing.
Not only Luther but other reformers in other lands were concerned
chiefly with the heathenized Church about them. For it they labored and
prayed. The business of laying a sound foundation absorbed them. That
the foundation was well laid, the missions of later centuries will show.
In the words of Doctor Gustav Warneck: “_The Reformation not only
restored the true substance of missionary preaching by its earnest
proclamation of the Gospel, but also brought back the whole work of
missions to Apostolic lines._”
[Sidenote: The Beginnings.] There is always a difference of opinion
about the actual beginnings of a great work. Modern missions offer no
exception to this rule. General historians are unwilling to find any
indication that even in the Seventeenth Century the Church of the
Reformation felt an obligation to heathen nations. Lutheran historians,
searching the matter more thoroughly and with a less prejudiced spirit,
have discovered various individuals to whom missions were a matter of
deep concern.
[Sidenote: In Europe and Asia.] As early as 1557, _Primus Truber_
translated into the language of the Croats and Wends to the east of
Germany the Gospel, Luther’s Catechism and a book of spiritual songs. In
1559, Gustavus Vasa, King of Sweden, and later Gustavus Adolphus,
endeavored to bring into the Lutheran Church the Lapps, who, though
nominally Roman Catholic, had been in reality heathen, but the effort
was not successful. Denmark, which had acquired possessions in India,
provided for a minister to the colony, whose chief concern should be the
spiritual needs of the natives. The creditable undertaking was brought
to naught by the wickedness of the appointed ministers. In 1658, _Eric
Bredal_, a Norwegian bishop, began preaching to the Lapps. Some of his
assistants were killed; he died and his work came to no earthly
fruitage. But the missionary spirit was none the less clearly exhibited.
[Sidenote: In Africa.] In 1634 _Peter Heiling_ of Lübeck journeyed to
Abyssinia to try to rouse once more the churches of the East whose
spiritual life had almost ceased. There, after translating the New
Testament into Amharic, he died a martyr.
[Sidenote: In North America.] In 1638 the Swedes established “New
Sweden” on the banks of the Delaware River in America. That there
existed in their minds an interest in the spiritual welfare of the
Indians surrounding them is recorded in one of the resolutions for the
government of the colony. “The wild nations bordering upon all other
sides, the Governor shall understand how to treat with all humanity and
respect, that no violence or wrong be done to them ... but he shall
rather, at every opportunity exert himself that the same wild people may
gradually be instructed in the truths and worship of the Christian
religion, and in other ways be brought to civilization and good
government, and in this manner properly guided.” Among the Swedish
Lutheran pastors who obeyed this injunction was _John Campanius_ who
translated in 1648 Luther’s Small Catechism into the language of the
Virginia Indians, a work which antedated by thirteen years the
publication of John Eliot’s translation of the New Testament for the
Indians of Massachusetts. The work among the Indians lasted for over a
hundred years.
[Sidenote: In South America. Justinian von Welz.] The most important
name of the Seventeenth Century in our study of Lutheran missions is
that of _Justinian von Welz_, a German nobleman. To him there came
clearly the true vision of the indissoluble relation of living
Christianity and Christian missions. In 1664 he issued two pamphlets,
one bearing the title, “_An invitation for a society of Jesus to promote
Christianity and the conversion of heathendom_,” the other “_A Christian
and true-hearted exhortation to all right-believing Christians of the
Augsburg Confession respecting a special association by means of which,
with God’s help, our evangelical religion might be extended_.” In the
latter pamphlet there were such questions as these: “Is it right that we
evangelical Christians hold the Gospel for ourselves alone?” “Is it
right that in all places we have so many theological students, and do
not induce them to labor elsewhere in the garden of the Lord?” “Is it
right that we evangelical Christians expend so much on all sorts of
dress, delicacies in eating and drinking, etc., but have hitherto
thought of no means for the spread of the Gospel?”
[Sidenote: His Appeal Ridiculed.] When this appeal was met with
opposition and ridicule, von Welz issued a still stronger manifesto. He
called upon the court preachers, the learned professors and others in
authority to establish a missionary school where oriental languages, the
lives of the early missionaries, geography and kindred missionary
subjects might be studied. Alas! von Welz was considered now more
fanatical and insane than before. When he suggested the sending out of
artisans and laymen to tell the Gospel story, since the learned and
influential leaders would not go, he was thought to be quite mad.
[Sidenote: A Martyr.] Forsaking his noble rank, this eager soul turned
away from his own country to Holland, where he found a minister to
ordain him as “an apostle to the Gentiles”. Arranging his affairs so
that all his wealth might be applied to his great endeavor, he set sail
as a missionary to Dutch Guiana in South America. There in a few months
he found a lonely grave.
[Sidenote: A Hero.] In Justinian von Welz the Church of the Reformation
possesses one of her worthiest and least known heroes. It was not until
1786, more than a century later, that the Baptist William Carey,
considered the first standard bearer of modern missions, lifted up his
admonishing voice. Of von Welz, Doctor Warneck, the greatest of all
missionary historians, speaks thus: “The indubitable sincerity of his
purposes, the noble enthusiasm of his heart, the sacrifice of his
position, his fortune, his life for the yet unrecognized duty of the
Church to missions, insure for him an abiding place of honor in
missionary history.” To him another German missionary historian pays
this tribute: “Sometimes in a mild December a snow drop lifts its head,
yet is spring far away. Frost and snow will hold field and garden in
chains for many months. But have patience. Only a little while and
Spring will be here!”
[Sidenote: The Spring at Hand.] Von Welz’s labors and prayers were to
bear fruit. His teaching sank into the hearts of some of those who read.
In a period of dreary rationalism which followed there began to spring
up the seeds which he had sowed. Missions became more and more a subject
of discussion among learned men. Among those who gave the theories of
von Welz his earnest attention was the German scientist Leibnitz who
urged the sending of missionaries to China through Russia. When men
began not only to think and to discuss but to pray, the Spring was
really at hand.
[Sidenote: Philip Spener.] To two Lutherans above all other men the
world owes the impulse to modern Protestant missions. If Philip Jacob
Spener and August Herman Francke had not lived, the preaching of the
pure Gospel to the heathen, already long delayed, would have had a still
later Spring.
_Philip Spener_ was born in 1635 and died in 1705. He was a man of deep
piety and great learning. Occupying many important positions, among them
that of court preacher at Dresden, he preached and taught constantly
that pure living must be added to pure doctrine, urging that the “rigid
and externalized” orthodoxy of the Church be transmuted into practical
piety which should include Bible study and all sorts of Christian work.
He held in his own house meetings for the study of the Bible and the
exchanging of personal religious experiences. From the name of these
meetings, _collegia pietatis_, the name of Pietists was given in
ridicule to him and his followers.
Among the practical manifestations of a true Christian spirit which
Spener urged was the sending of missionaries to the heathen. On the
Feast of the Ascension he preached as follows:
“We are thus reminded that although every preacher is not bound to go
everywhere and preach, since God has knit each of us to his
congregation, yet the obligation rests on the whole Church to have care
as to how the Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, and that to
this end no diligence, labor, or cost be spared in behalf of the poor
heathen and unbelievers. That almost no thought has been given to this,
and that great potentates, as the earthly heads of the Church, do so
very little therein, is not to be excused, but is evidence how little
the honor of Christ and of humanity concerns us; yea, I fear that in
that day unbelievers will cry for vengeance upon Christians who have
been so utterly without care for their salvation.”
[Sidenote: A. H. Francke.] Most famous among the followers and admirers
of Spener was _August Herman Francke_, who was born in 1663 and died in
1727. He showed as a child extraordinary powers of mind, being prepared
to enter the university at the age of fourteen. In 1685 he graduated
from the University of Leipsic after having studied there and at Erfurt
and Kiel. In 1688 he spent two months with Spener at Dresden and became
deeply impressed with pietistic theories. In 1691 he was appointed
professor of Greek and Oriental languages in the University of Halle,
then recently founded. Here he became pastor of a church in a
neighboring village, an undertaking which was to have world-wide
importance.
The villagers in this town of Glaucha were degraded, poor, untaught.
Moved by their need, Francke opened a school for the children in one
room. He had little money but he trusted God. In a short while it was
necessary to add another room, then two. He next established a home for
orphans, then he added homes for the destitute and fallen. As fast as
his enterprises increased, so rapidly came the necessary support.
[Sidenote: The School at Halle.] It is not possible to tell here the
amazing history of the Halle institutions which sheltered even before
the death of Francke more than a thousand souls, much less of the
enormous Inner Mission institutions in other parts of Germany which had
here their inspiration. That activity of this remarkable man with which
we are chiefly concerned is his missionary labors. In the words of
Doctor Warneck: “He knew himself to be a debtor to both, Christians and
non-Christians. In him there personified that connection of rescue work
at home with missions to the heathen--a type of the fact that they who
do the one do not leave the other undone. Home and foreign missions have
from the beginning been sisters who work reciprocally into each other’s
hands.”
[Illustration: OHN EVANGELIST GOSSNER.]
[Illustration: MEN’S BATHING GHAT AT PURULIA.]
Francke’s institution became a training school for Christian workers.
There was no specific instruction for such undertakings, but “in those
that came in near contact with him he stirred a spirit of absolute
devotion to divine service, such as he himself possessed in highest
measure, and which made them ready to go wherever there was need of
them.” There came into the school later, as a lad, the Moravian
Zinzendorf, afterwards a zealous missionary, who describes thus the
effect of the surroundings upon him: “The daily opportunity in Professor
Francke’s house of hearing edifying tidings of the kingdom of Christ, of
speaking with witnesses from all lands, of making acquaintance with
missionaries, of seeing men who had been banished and imprisoned, as
also the institutions then in their bloom, and the cheerfulness of the
pious man himself in the work of the Lord ... mightily strengthened
within me zeal for the things of the Lord.”
From Halle there went forth during the following century about sixty
missionaries, among them Ziegenbalg, Fabricius, Jaenicke, Gericke and
Schwartz, whose careers we shall study. Here also was trained
Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America, who
intended first to go as a missionary to India. Here were published in
1710 the earliest missionary reports in a little periodical which was
continued under different titles until 1880, one hundred and seventy
years. Among those for whom the heart of Francke yearned were the Jews,
in whose interest he founded the Institua Judiaca. From Halle there
spread an influence not only through Germany but through the world which
is difficult to estimate but almost impossible to exaggerate. By no
means the least of the missionary activities which had there their
inspiration was that of the Moravian Church, the most ardent in
missionary work of all Churches.
The missionary influence did not have any means free course. The
opposition shown to the theories of Justinian von Welz continued.
Francke was considered no less of a fanatic. This contrary spirit may be
shown by the expression of a deeply pious clergyman who concluded an
Ascension sermon with the following couplet:
“‘Go into all the world,’ the Lord of old did say;
But now ‘Where God has placed thee, there He would have thee stay.’”
[Sidenote: The First Missionary Hymn.] But even in poetic form
missionary activity was soon to find an expression. In Halle a Lutheran
_Karl Heinrich von Bogatsky_ wrote in 1750 the first Protestant
missionary hymn.
“Awake, Thou Spirit, who didst fire
The watchmen of the Church’s youth,
Who faced the foe’s envenomed ire,
Who witnessed day and night Thy truth,
Whose voices loud are ringing still,
And bringing hosts to know Thy will.
“And let Thy Word have speedy course,
Through every land be glorified,
Till all the heathen know its force,
And fill Thy churches far and wide;
Wake Israel from her sleep, O Lord,
And spread the conquests of Thy Word!”
Before this time, however, the first call for missionary workers had
come to Halle from outside Germany.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
Pioneers and Methods
PIONEERS.
_Bartholomew Ziegenbalg_
Henry Plütschau
John Ernst Gründler
Benjamin Schultze
John Philip Fabricius
Christian William Gericke
_Christian Frederick Schwartz_
Karl Ewald Rhenius
Thomas von Westen
Per Fjellström
_Hans Egede_
John Jaenicke
METHODS.
German Societies
The Basel Society
The Berlin Society
The Rhenish Society
The North German or Bremen Society
The Leipsic Society
The Hermannsburg Society
The Gossner Society
The Breklum or Schleswig-Holstein Society
The Neukirchen Society
The Neuendettelsau Society
The Hanover Society
The Bielefeld Society
Scandinavian Societies
The Danish Missionary Society
The Norwegian Missionary Society
The Norwegian Church Mission (Schreuder)
The Norwegian Lutheran China Mission
The Swedish National Society
The Swedish Church Mission
The Swedish Mission in China
The Swedish Mongol Mission
The Jerusalem Association
The Home Mission to the Santals
Finnish, Polish and other societies.
American Societies
Nine Norwegian Societies
General Synod
General Council
United Synod South
Synodical Conference
Joint Ohio Synod
Danish Society
Iowa Synod
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
PIONEERS AND METHODS
PIONEERS.
[Sidenote: A Danish Colony.] In 1526, nine years after Luther had nailed
his theses to the church door at Wittenberg, the King of Denmark
accepted the Evangelical faith. Subsequently the Lutheran Church was
made the State Church. About a hundred years later Denmark acquired by
purchase an Indian fishing village, Tranquebar, on the east coast of
southern India. There a Danish colony was established, there a Lutheran
church called Zion Church was built, and thither two preachers were sent
to minister to the Danes. Eighty years later the heart of a pious King,
Frederick IV, became concerned for the spiritual welfare of the heathen
in this colony. His court chaplain, Doctor Lütken, who was also deeply
interested, set about securing men who would be willing to undertake the
work. Failing to meet with a response in Denmark, he applied to friends
in Berlin. They recommended a young German _Bartholomew Ziegenbalg_.
[Sidenote: The Son of a Pious Mother.] Young Ziegenbalg had been
influenced, as most candidates for the ministry are influenced, by a
pious mother. Both his mother and father had died so early that he could
remember very little about them. One recollection, however, was clear in
his mind. Dying, his mother had called her children to her bedside and
had commended to them her Bible, with the words: “Dear children, I am
leaving to you a treasure, a very great treasure.” Earnest and pious,
anxious for communion with God, the young man, who was brought up by a
sister, prepared himself for the ministry. He studied at Berlin and
afterwards at Halle. There his poor health was a cause of deep
discouragement, but Francke reminded him that though he might not be
able to work in Germany he might seek a field in some foreign country
with a more equable climate.
[Sidenote: Called to the Mission Field.] When his health failed,
Ziegenbalg left Halle and took up the work of a private tutor. He
continued his devotional studies, however, and held such meetings as
Spener had begun. He formed a friendship at this time with Henry
Plütschau, another Halle student. Together the two covenanted “never to
seek anything but the glory of God, the spread of His kingdom and the
salvation of mankind, and constantly to strive after personal holiness,
no matter where they might be or what crosses they might have to bear.”
In 1705, Ziegenbalg accepted a call to a congregation near Berlin. It
was here that he was found by the inquiry of the Danish court chaplain
Lütken. He accepted at once, declaring that if his going brought about
the conversion of but one heathen he would consider it worth while. His
friend Plütschau was anxious to go also, and, ordained by the Danish
Church, the two sailed from Copenhagen on the ship “Sophia Hedwig”
November 29, 1705, for Tranquebar.
[Sidenote: A Long Journey.] The journey round the Cape of Good Hope
consumed seven months, during which time each of the young missionaries
wrote a book. On July 9, 1706, they arrived at their destination. There,
owing to a difficulty with the captain who had resented their
admonitions, they could not land for two days. It was well that they did
not know that he had been instructed by the trading company under which
he sailed to hinder their work in all possible ways. Unwillingly
received by the Danish governor, they settled in a little house near the
city wall.
Beside the Danish of the traders, two languages were spoken in
Tranquebar: the Portugese of the first foreign settlers and the native
Tamil language. Leaving the easier task to his companion who was the
older, Ziegenbalg set to work to learn the native tongue. His progress
was rapid; in a year he had completed a translation of the Catechism and
in a few months over a year had preached his first sermon. By this time
he had baptized fourteen souls.
[Sidenote: Busy Days.] The record of his busy days seems almost
incredible when we remember that he was a man of delicate health.
“After morning prayers I begin my work. From six to seven I explain
Luther’s Catechism to the people in Tamil. From seven to eight I review
the Tamil words and phrases which I have learned. From eight to twelve I
read nothing but Tamil books, new to me, under the guidance of a teacher
who must explain things to me with a writer present, who writes down all
words and phrases which I have not had before. From twelve to one I eat,
and have the Bible read to me while doing so. From one till two I rest
for the heat is very oppressive then. From two to three I have a
catechisation in my house. From three to five I again read Tamil books.
From five to six we have our prayer-meeting. From six to seven we have a
conference together about the day’s happenings. From seven to eight I
have a Tamil writer read to me, as I dare not read much by lamplight.
From eight to nine I eat, and while doing so have the Bible read to me.
After that I examine the children and converse with them.”
When the two missionaries felt that it was necessary to build a church,
each gave for that purpose half of the two hundred dollars which was his
salary. The church was dedicated on August 4, 1707, and by the end of
the year it had thirty-five members. Now Ziegenbalg began to work in the
villages of the Danish possessions outside Tranquebar and established a
school for the education of Christian children in the city.
[Illustration: STALL HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, GUNTUR, INDIA.]
[Illustration: FACULTY OF WATTS MEMORIAL COLLEGE FOR MEN, GUNTUR.]
[Sidenote: Early Trials.] The work was not without its hard trials. When
the first financial help arrived, two years after the missionaries had
landed, the drunken captain upset in the harbor the chest of treasure
and it was lost. The work of the missionaries was opposed by the Danish
chaplains and by the Roman Catholics. On account of his defense of a
poor widow who had been cheated, Ziegenbalg was cast into prison for
four months.
That the faith of these pioneers was unfailing may be shown by a prayer,
written by one of them on the fly leaf of a mission church-book in 1707.
“O Thou exalted and majestic Savior, Lord Jesus Christ! Thou Redeemer of
the whole human race! Thou who through Thy holy apostles hast
everywhere, throughout the whole world, gathered a holy congregation out
of all peoples for Thy possession, and hast defended and maintained the
same even until now against all the might of hell, and moreover assurest
Thy servants that Thou wilt uphold them even to the end of the world,
and in the very last times wilt multiply them by calling many of the
heathen to the faith! For such goodness may Thy name be eternally
praised, especially also because Thou, through Thy unworthy servants in
this place, dost communicate to Thy Holy Word among the heathen Thy
blessing, and hast begun to deliver some souls out of destructive
blindness, and to incorporate them with the communion of Thy holy
Church. Behold, it is Thy Word, do Thou support it with divine power, so
that by Thy power many thousand souls may be born to Thee in these
mission stations, which bear the names of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, souls
which afterwards may be admitted out of this earthly Jerusalem into Thy
heavenly Jerusalem with everlasting and exultant joy. Do this, O Jesus,
for the sake of Thy gracious promise and Thy holy merit. Amen.”
[Sidenote: Literary Work.] Ziegenbalg prepared an order of service and a
hymnal and translated the New Testament into Tamil--the first
translation of the New Testament into an East Indian tongue. An English
missionary society, hearing of his labors, sent him a printing press. By
1712 he had composed or had translated thirty-eight books or pamphlets.
Among his original works was an account of the native religions. The
value of this treatise has become more appreciated as men have realized
the importance of a thorough knowledge of those religious principles
which unchristianized peoples already possess. To such knowledge was due
much of Saint Paul’s success among the Greeks.
[Sidenote: Travels.] Ziegenbalg travelled as far as Madras. On this
journey he talked with native rulers and British governors and preached
to all who would hear about the only true God.
[Sidenote: Reinforcements.] In 1709 three missionaries were sent to his
aid. Of the three _John Ernst Gründler_ proved most able. When in 1711
it seemed best for one of the missionaries to return to Europe to
present the needs of the mission, Plütschau was selected to go. There he
accepted a pastorate. The testimony of Ziegenbalg to his faithful work
accompanied him.
In 1714 Ziegenbalg visited Denmark, leaving the mission in charge of
Gründler. Upon his return in 1716 he brought with him a plan for the
regular government of the mission, the assurance of ample financial
support and a helpmate, Maria Dorothea Saltzmann, who was the first
woman ever sent to a foreign field.
[Sidenote: The New Jerusalem Church.] In February 1717, Ziegenbalg had
the satisfaction of dedicating a large native church, the New Jerusalem
Church, which is used to this day. He preached the sermon and the newly
appointed governor laid the corner stone. He continued to establish
village schools, he opened a seminary for the training of native
preachers and he provided work by which the poorest of his converts
could earn a living. Except for medical work his mission settlement
included all the activities of the most complete missionary enterprises
at the present time.
For two more years Ziegenbalg labored, growing meanwhile aware that his
life was drawing to a close. The record of his service leads us to
expect that when his death took place in February 1719 we should find
him an old man. It is with a shock that we realize that he was only
thirty-six. He was buried in the New Jerusalem Church.
[Sidenote: A Crowded Life.] The extraordinary accomplishment of
Ziegenbalg has been far less well known than it deserves to be. Even if
we do not take into account his frail health, the extent of his labors
is little short of marvelous. His literary work alone would seem to have
been enough to fill to the full the thirteen years of his missionary
activity. In addition, he preached constantly; he made long journeys; he
gave constant thought and effort to his schools; he looked after the
poor; he established a theological seminary. From home came many
criticisms. It was said that he made concessions to the caste system on
the one hand; on the other he was criticised for not gathering in
converts as rapidly as did the Roman Catholic missionaries who allowed
their converts to keep all their old customs. He was reproached because
he paid so much attention to the schools. The criticisms, however, which
caused him anxiety and grief serve to-day but to call attention to his
splendid common sense and excellent judgment, which later missionary
experience has tested. The community of two hundred Christians which he
left was not only converted--it was instructed and established in the
faith.
[Sidenote: A Second Grave.] The death of Ziegenbalg left his friend,
_John Ernst Gründler_, in charge of the mission. He had been a teacher
at Halle and partook of the devotion of all connected with that great
institution. For a short time he labored in Tranquebar alone. Soon after
the arrival of three new missionaries he died and was buried in 1720
beside his beloved friend in the new church.
Of the three new missionaries, _Benjamin Schultze_ assumed the
management of the mission. He resembled Ziegenbalg in the variety of his
talents. Like Ziegenbalg he felt the necessity for a careful instruction
of the natives. He continued the work of translation, completing the
Tamil Old Testament and translating a part of the Bible into Telugu and
the whole into Hindustani. After doing faithful work, Schultze, being
unwilling to accept the rulings of the mission which had sent him to
India, entered the service of an English mission. After sixteen years in
India he returned to Halle.
[Sidenote: The Mission Grows.] During the service of Schultze a mission
station was established at Cuddalore in Madras. In 1733 the first native
preacher who had been baptized by Ziegenbalg was ordained to the
ministry. Schools were enlarged and another church was erected.
Presently work was begun in Madura to the southeast of Tranquebar. By
1740, thirty-four years after Ziegenbalg had begun his work, the mission
counted five thousand six hundred Christians.
In 1741 _John Philip Fabricius_ arrived in India. He came from a godly
family in Hesse and like Luther had given up the study of the law for
the study of theology. For theology he had gone to Halle and there had
heard the call of missions. On Good Friday in 1742 he preached his first
Tamil sermon and on Christmas in that year he was assigned to the
station established by Schultze in Madras where he remained till his
death in 1791. Like his predecessors he became a thorough student in the
native tongues.
[Sidenote: A Scholar.] He revised the translations of Ziegenbalg and
Schultze in a form which remains unchanged to this day. To his
translations the adjective “golden” has been applied. He translated also
many hymns for the use of his congregation.
Together with a childlike simplicity and amiability Fabricius possessed
great courage. He shared the hardships and dangers of his people during
the “Thirty Years’ War in South India”, defending his congregation upon
one occasion at the risk of his life.
Another _Fabricius_ whose name should be recorded was that of
_Sebastian_, the brother of John Philip, who was for many years the
missionary secretary in Halle and the devoted friend of all
missionaries.
_Christian William Gericke_, “a great and gifted man”, arrived in India
in 1767, coming like his predecessors from Halle. His first field of
labor was Cuddalore where he preached until war made necessary the
abandonment of the mission. Gericke remained throughout the conflict,
still preaching and exhorting and supporting his children in the faith.
He saw his converts suffering cruelly and was compelled to watch the
soldiers changing his church into a powder magazine.
In Madras whither he was invited he took over the work of Fabricius, who
was now old and infirm. From there he was able to visit occasionally the
scattered members of his Cuddalore flock.
[Sidenote: An Evangelist.] The number of his converts amounted in a
short time to three thousand. It was said that whole villages followed
him when he conducted mission tours, which were likened to triumphal
processions. In some villages temples were stripped of their idols and
converted into houses of worship. When he approached a village the
entire population frequently awaited him. It is related that the heathen
never came to their temples as they came to this man of God. Worn out,
he died in 1803 at the age of sixty-one.
[Sidenote: Another Pious Mother.] As in the case of Bartholomew
Ziegenbalg so in the case of _Christian Frederick Schwartz_, the impulse
to the Christian ministry came from a godly mother. She died when the
lad was but five years old, but she had made her husband promise that
her boy should be prepared for the ministry.
Like Ziegenbalg and Luther and many other religious heroes, Schwartz
suffered in his youth from the weight of sin and the fear of God’s
judgment. Like them also he came, after study of God’s Word and earnest
prayer, to rest his soul upon the almighty promises. At Halle he met
Benjamin Schultze who called upon him to aid in his revision of the
Tamil Bible. Urged by his teachers to consider a call to the mission
field, he felt himself at first to be unworthy. Finally, however, he
agreed to go. When he informed his father of his intention he met with
dismay and refusal. The elder Schwartz had three children, of these one
son had just died, a daughter was about to be married and now the third
proposed to go to distant India! Finally the father was won over and,
giving his son his blessing, charged him to win many souls for Christ.
How many times in missionary history has this drama of unwillingness,
persuasion and final yielding been enacted!
[Sidenote: A Father’s Sacrifice.] May all fathers and mothers who give
their children to the great cause have reason for gratitude as did the
elder Schwartz!
In January, 1750, Schwartz and two companions sailed, only to return on
account of fearful storms. In March they set out once more and reached
Tranquebar at the end of July.
[Sidenote: A Diligent Student.] The first work assigned to the young man
was the teaching of the children in the schools. He longed to go into
the wilderness of heathendom outside the city and there do pioneer work,
and in preparation for the day when he should be allowed to go, he
applied himself to a study of the people, their language and their
religion. As a result of his thorough comprehension of their nature and
their needs he was to have a deep and lasting influence upon them. For
twelve years he worked in Tranquebar and the outlying villages.
In 1755, by the persuasion of the wife of a German officer, Schwartz and
his companions were allowed to pay a short visit to Tanjore, the city
which was the seat of the native government and which had hitherto been
closed to missionaries.
[Illustration: HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, GUNTUR.]
[Sidenote: Opening Doors.] In 1762 they went on a similar visit to a
little company of native Christians who had settled in Trichinopoli, for
which England and France had contended for many years. The city was a
center for idolatrous worship and contained great temples to the
elephant god Genesa, to Siva and to Vishnu. Here also there was a
popular Mohammedan shrine. Well might the visitors feel that all the
evil of heathendom was gathered to greet them.
At that time the English had control of the city and to the joy of the
visitors they besought them to stay, promising that they would build
them a church. It was decided that Schwartz should remain.
[Sidenote: A True Lutheran.] In making this change an important question
had to be solved by Schwartz. In order to take up the work which seemed
offered by Providence, he would have to sever connection with the Danish
Lutheran society whose missionary he had hitherto been and become a
missionary of the Church of England. In the end he decided that he would
accept English support but he stipulated that he would remain a true
Lutheran, preaching the doctrines of his own faith. He was the first of
many efficient German Lutherans who laid the foundations for the work of
other churches, and who thus furnished an example of true brotherliness
which has often been forgotten or overlooked.
[Sidenote: At Trichinopoli.] Schwartz had always been diligent, but now
it seemed that his labors became superhuman. He had prayed for
opportunity--here was unlimited opportunity! He had studied
diligently--here were men of many tongues to whom he might preach. With
true wisdom he began his work. With the methods of the Apostles as his
model he trained the best of his converts to become missionaries to
their own people. Each morning he sent them out, two by two, and each
evening he listened to an account of their work. He added Hindustani and
Persian to the languages which he already knew so that he might reach
the Mohammedans and the court, and studied to improve his broken English
so that he might preach to the English soldiers at the garrison. His
ministrations to them after a serious explosion and a battle brought him
gifts from the government and the soldiers. Presently he built at the
foot of the mighty rock upon which stood a heathen temple a Christian
church.
[Sidenote: At Tanjore.] Schwartz was now fifty-two years old. He had
accomplished large tasks, yet the chief labors of his life were still
before him. He learned to his amazement that the spirit at Tanjore had
changed and he was urged to return, not for a short visit as before but
to remain. The new Rajah of Tanjore sought his advice about the
settlement of certain political differences, and finding a divine call
in this summons, Schwartz left his work at Trichinopoli in the hands of
others and took up his abode in Tanjore in a house presented by the
rajah. Here, supported by the rajah, who, however, could not bring
himself quite to the point of becoming a Christian, Schwartz lived for
twelve years.
Here the English garrison was transformed as the garrison at
Trichinopoli had been. Two churches were founded, one for the European
residents, the other for native Christians. School houses were built in
which English and Tamil were taught and where the Christian religion was
openly proclaimed. These schools became the models for the great school
system of the English government. A tribe of professional robbers
forsook their evil lives as the result of Schwartz’s preaching, sent
their children to the schools and settled down to the cultivation of the
soil and to silk culture. With the city as a center Schwartz travelled
in all directions encouraging, advising, aiding. He established a
congregation at Tinnevelli, to the south, of which we shall hear later.
[Sidenote: The Missionary Statesman.] In the history of India Schwartz
is described as the missionary statesman. Such without any will of his
own, but on account of circumstances and his remarkable character, he
became. Foreseeing war with a neighboring ruler in which Tanjore was
likely to be besieged, he stored away quantities of rice upon which the
people fed and which saved multitudes from death. When the rajah grew
old the governor of the Madras presidency made Schwartz the head of a
commission which was to rule in his stead, and when the rajah died he
himself made Schwartz regent during the minority of his son. Schwartz
tried to avoid this heavy responsibility, until the rajah’s brother
proved cruel and incapable of governing. Then the mission house became
the capitol of the province and for two years the “king-priest” reigned.
After the heir had come to the throne, he consulted Schwartz on all
important questions.
The character of this missionary hero is beautifully described by his
biographer, Dr. Charles E. Hay.[1]
Footnote 1:
_In Missionary Heroes of the Lutheran Church._ Philadelphia: Lutheran
Publication Society.
“In undertaking all the secular duties thus imposed upon him, the
missionary was never lost in the statesman. He still gathered his
children and catechumens about him daily, preached whenever a little
company of people could be assembled and superintended the labors of the
increasing number of missionaries sent by various European societies to
India. These all recognized him as their real leader, and it was
universally felt that the first preparatory step for successful
missionary labor in southern India was to catch the inspiration and
receive the counsel of the untitled missionary bishop at Tanjore. Around
his residence building after building was erected--chapels,
schoolhouses, seminaries, missionary homes, etc.--all set in a beautiful
garden, filled with rare tropical plants. What a refuge for the wearied
and perhaps discouraged catechist! What a scene of beauty and peace to
allure the steps of the hopeless devotee of a heartless idolatry! But
the center of attraction for all alike was the radiant countenance of
the grand old man upon whom his seventy years rested never so
lightly--never too tired to entertain the humblest visitor, always ready
to help by word or deed in any perplexity.”
[Sidenote: Illness and Death.] In October, 1797, the old man fell ill.
Thinking that his end was at hand he sent for the young rajah whose
guardian he had been and urged him once more to hear the heavenly
invitation. Would that we could record that this young man answered,
like so many of his humble subjects, “I believe”! Improving somewhat,
Schwartz summoned his pupils once more and went on with his work. The
end came at last in February, 1798. With his grieving mission family
gathered about him, he fell asleep, his last words being, “Into Thy
hands I commend my spirit. Thou has redeemed me, Thou faithful God.”
[Sidenote: A Noble Tribute.] Claiming him for their own, those for whom
he had labored provided for his burial. The rajah who followed the bier
as chief mourner built a handsome monument on which he is represented as
kissing the hand of his dying friend. The East India Company placed a
memorial in the church at Madras with the inscription, “Sacred to the
Memory of Christian Frederick Schwartz whose life was one continued
effort to imitate the example of his blessed Master. He, during a period
of fifty years, ‘went about doing good.’ In him religion appeared not
with a gloomy aspect or forbidding mien, but with a graceful form and
placid dignity. Beloved and honored by Europeans, he was, if possible,
held in still deeper reverence by the natives of this country of every
degree and sect. The poor and injured looked up to him as an unfailing
friend and advocate. The great and powerful concurred in yielding him
the highest homage ever paid in this quarter of the globe to European
virtue.”
Thus died this godly man. To those whose aim is heavenly peace we
commend such a life as his. To those whose ambition includes a desire
for earthly honor we commend him also. The young rajah added to his
handsome memorial another tribute composed by him and engraved on the
stone which covers his body.
“Firm wast thou, humble and wise,
Honest, pure, free from disguise;
Father of orphans, the widow’s support,
Comfort in sorrows of every sort:
To the benighted, dispenser of light,
Doing and pointing to that which is right.
Blessing to princes, to people, to me,
May I, my father, be worthy of thee.”
[Sidenote: Work for Another Church.] Aiding and succeeding Christian
Frederick Schwartz in the English mission was his adopted son, the _Rev.
J. B. Kohlhoff_, who arrived at Tranquebar in 1737 and worked among the
Tamils for fifty-three years. His son, John Caspar, was ordained by
Schwartz. Together Schwartz and the two Kohlhoffs worked in India for an
aggregate period of one hundred and fifty-six years. Still another
Lutheran in the English service was _W. T. Ringeltaube_, who was trained
at Halle. Upon the foundation which he laid the London Missionary
Society has built nobly and has now after a hundred years a Christian
community of seventy thousand.
[Sidenote: A Period of Neglect.] It is estimated that at the end of the
Eighteenth Century the Danish-Halle mission in India numbered fifteen
thousand Christians. Then a period of rationalism in Europe brought
about indifference and neglect of the mission fields. From England came
the first wave of mounting missionary zeal and into English hands passed
a large part of the work of the Danish-Halle missionaries. While we
acknowledge that they have continued the work with zeal and with marked
success, yet we cannot but regret that so much that was ours, so much
that was won by the devotion of Ziegenbalg and Schwartz, no longer bears
the Lutheran name.
[Sidenote: Another Steadfast Lutheran.] In the service of the English
mission was _Karl Ewald Rhenius_, a German Lutheran who was sent soon
after the opening of the new century to that field which had passed
partly from Danish-Halle to English hands. He went first to Tranquebar
and thence to Madras, where for five years he preached and studied. At
the end of this time he was transferred to Palmacotta, the chief city of
the Tinnevelli district. Here he began an original work, the founding of
Christian villages. As soon as sufficient natives were converted, land
was bought and they were settled upon it so that they might be removed
from former associations and temptations. Presently a native
organization was formed the object of which was the aid of new Christian
settlements.
In 1832 Mr. Rhenius withdrew from service as a missionary of the English
society, the chief ground of difficulty being the demand of the society
that he be ordained by the English Church, and for four years he
conducted an independent mission. In character and capacity for work
Rhenius was not unlike Christian Frederick Schwartz. Beside a great
amount of translating he had time to prepare a valuable essay on the
“Principles of Translating the Holy Scriptures”. He is notable also as
one of the earliest missionaries to take a decided stand against the
observance of caste.
The appeal of Rhenius for his independent Lutheran mission in India was
one of the influences in the first missionary activity of the American
Lutheran Church. Upon his death his followers returned to the English
Mission. In Tinnevelli where Christian Frederick Schwartz laid the
foundation and Rhenius helped to build upon it, there are now over one
hundred thousand Christians belonging to the Church of England.
[Sidenote: In the Far North.] It was in 1704 that the Danish King
Frederick IV. turned his thoughts to the Christianizing of his East
India possessions. Soon after this time his attention was drawn to a
need nearer at hand. Among the Lapps who lived in the arctic lands to
the north there was great destitution, both spiritual and material. Here
idolatry and sacrifices to the evil spirits were common and the official
transferral of the country from the Roman to the Evangelical Church had
had no effect, since both before and after the natives were at heart
heathen. Those who were most devout in spirit had worshipped both the
heathen and the Christian gods, feeling that thus were they safe.
A commission was appointed by the King of Denmark-Norway in 1714 to
inquire into the state of these northern people. To Finland was sent in
1716 _Thomas von Westen_, who had himself presented vividly the misery
of these poor Esquimaux. Among them he found _Isak Olsen_, a devoted
school master who had been engaged for fourteen years in missionary
work, and who now offered his services for von Westen’s undertaking.
Concerning this Isak Olsen, it is related in Stockfleth’s _Diary_
(_Dagbog_) that he had labored “with apostolic fervor and faithfulness;
in poverty and self-denial; in perils at sea, and in perils on land. The
Finns hated him because he discovered their idolatry and their places of
sacrifice; almost as a pauper, and frequently half clothed, he travelled
about among them. When, as it frequently happened, he was compelled to
journey across the mountains, they gave him the most refractory
reindeer, in order that he might perish on the journey. By all kinds of
maltreatment, they sought to shorten his life, and to weary him out. In
this purpose, however, they were not successful; for God was with Isak,
and labored with him, so that his toil prospered.” He not only
instructed the Finns in Christianity, but he taught a number of Finnish
youths to write, an art which very few Norsemen had acquired at that
time. In 1716, von Westen took him to Throndhjem, Norway, where he
translated the Catechism and the Athanasian Creed into the language of
the Lapps.
Travelling from place to place, von Westen won the affection of the
benighted people whom he loved. He exposed before them the foolishness
of the sorcerers, built churches, educated the children and sent young
men to Throndhjem to prepare themselves to be ministers to their people.
The hardships of three missionary journeys undertaken and carried out in
a few years so wore upon him that he was added at the age of forty-five
to those who have gone to their reward.
To Swedish Lapland went _Per Fjellström_ (died 1764) who did not only
valuable missionary work himself, but who laid the foundation for all
future work by his translations of the New Testament, the Catechism and
many of the Psalms. Through him and his associates the whole of Swedish
Lapland heard the pure Gospel.
In 1739, a royal directorate was appointed to guide and supervise the
Church and school system of Swedish Lapland. It designated Per Holmbom
and Per Högström, as missionaries to that district. Högström, who died
in 1784, is the best known of Per Fjellström’s associates. He gained
great renown among the Lapps. He has described his mission labors among
them, and his _Question Book_ in the Lapp language, is a catechetical
work of merit.
To the west of the Scandinavian countries lies Iceland, which needed no
missionaries. Visiting Europe in the Sixteenth Century, Icelanders
carried back to their country the story of the Reformation. They
introduced at once the Danish Lutheran liturgy and translated and
printed the Bible. After some opposition, the work of the Reformation
became complete.
[Sidenote: A Zealous Soul.] Beyond Iceland lies Greenland with its snowy
fields, its great glaciers, its long dark night and its bitter cold. In
the Ninth Century a colony of Norwegians settled there, but in the
course of time perished from cold or starvation or by the hand of
enemies. Their fate was unknown and they were forgotten when _Hans
Egede_, a Lutheran pastor at Vaagen in Norway, read of their settlement
and became possessed of a desire to preach to them that Gospel which had
proved so great a blessing to his own land. In 1710 he wrote to the King
and to several bishops urging that he be allowed to go as a missionary
to these distant folk.
The King was in sympathy with his desire, but not so his people. The
plan was thought to be impractical, if not insane. Egede’s own family
bitterly opposed him.
But Egede was at once gentle and persistent. Supported by the devotion
of his wife he continued to urge his cause. He visited the King, but the
interview had a contrary result from that which he hoped. The King asked
those who opposed the project to send in the reasons for their objection
to the court, and so promptly and fully did they respond that Egede
became an object of even greater derision.
[Sidenote: The Ship “Hope”.] Finally Egede persuaded a few men to
subscribe two hundred dollars apiece; he gave from his scanty store six
hundred, and all together ten thousand dollars was gathered. In a vessel
which he called “The Hope” he set out May, 1721, accompanied by his wife
and little children and some colonists, in all about forty souls. After
a perilous voyage partly among masses of ice floating in a stormy sea
they landed in Greenland in July. The situation which they met was
uncomfortable and depressing. “As many as twenty natives occupied one
tent, their bodies unwashed, their hair uncombed and both their persons
and their clothing dripping with rancid oil. The tents were filled and
surrounded with seal flesh in all stages of decomposition and the only
scavengers were the dogs. Few had any thought beyond the routine of
their daily life. No article that could be carried off was safe within
their reach, and lying was open and shameless. Skillful in derision and
mimicry, and despising men, who, so they said, spent their time in
looking at a paper or scratching it with a feather, they did not study
gentle modes of giving expression to their feelings. They wanted nothing
but plenty of seals, and as for the fire of hell, that would be a
pleasant contrast to their terrible cold. When the missionary asked them
to deal truly with God, they asked when he had seen Him last.
“The cold as winter drew near was terrific. The eiderdown pillows
stiffened with frost, the hoarfrost extended to the mouth of the stove
and alcohol froze upon the table. The sun was invisible for two months.
There was no change in the dreary night.”[2]
Footnote 2:
Hans Egede: the Rev. Thomas Laurie, _Missionary Review of the World_,
December, 1889.
[Sidenote: The Reward of Faith.] The devotion of Egede to these degraded
people was not shared by the colonists and traders who had come with
him. When the expected ship failed to appear in the spring they
announced that they would return. They had already begun to tear down
the buildings preparatory to their departure when the faith of Egede was
rewarded. A ship arrived and with it the welcome news that the mission
would be supported.
During the summer, Egede, in his exploration of the various bays which
indent the coast, discovered the ruins of one of the settlements which
he had read about and which had seemed to beckon him to Greenland. There
were only ruins remaining, but it seemed to this devoted soul that he
could hear the echoes of Norwegian hymns and Norwegian prayers. The next
year in a journey along the coast he found many other ruins, among them
those of a church fifty by twenty feet with walls six feet thick. Nearby
in the churchyard rested the bones of pastor and people.
[Sidenote: A Devoted Wife.] Preaching, translating, trying to establish
better methods of agriculture, now receiving aid from home, now
apparently forgotten, Egede labored for fifteen years. Beside the
heavenly assurance of ultimate victory his chief solace was the devotion
of his wife. “She was confined to the monotony of their humble home,
while he was called here and there by the duties of his office; but
though its comforts were very scanty, she saw the ships from Norway come
and go, and heard tidings from her native land without any desire to
desert her work. Amid all his troubles her husband ever found her face
serene and her spirit rejoicing in God. His greatest trial was the want
of success in his work. Though many pretended to believe, he could find
little change in heart or life, for those who affected to hear the Word
with joy, among their own people still spoke of his instructions and
prayers with derision.”[3]
Footnote 3:
_Ibid._
Presently a fort was established to protect the colony and the island
from other nations, but the presence of armed men drove the islanders
farther away. After the death of Frederick IV., the colonists were
commanded to return to Denmark. Egede declined to go. In 1733 hope was
once more kindled by the announcement that trade would be renewed and
the mission be supported.
[Sidenote: A Sad Heart.] But greater misfortunes were at hand. A fearful
epidemic of smallpox ravaged the country. “In their despair some stabbed
themselves, others plunged into the sea. In one hut an only son died and
the father enticed his wife’s sister in and murdered her, as having
bewitched his son and so caused his death. In this great trial Egede and
his son went everywhere, nursing the sick, comforting the bereaved and
burying the dead. Often they found only empty houses and unburied
corpses. On one island they found only one girl with her three little
brothers. After burying the rest of the people, the father lay down in
the grave he had prepared for himself and his infant child, both sick
with the plague and bade the girl cover them with skins and stones to
protect their bodies from wild beasts. Egede sent the survivors to the
colony, lodged as many as his house would hold and nursed them with
care. Many were touched by such kindness, and one who had often mocked
the good man, said to him now, ‘You have done for us more than we do for
our own people; you have buried our dead and have told us of a better
life.’” Finally the missionary’s wife fell also a victim to the plague.
Dying she blessed him and his work.
In 1736, broken in health, Egede returned to Denmark, invited by the
King. There by pen and tongue he continued to work for Greenland until
his death.
[Sidenote: The Church of Greenland.] Upon the foundation laid by Egede
missionaries of a closely-related Church built a noble superstructure.
Appealing to the heart rather than to the intellect, the heroic
Moravians won the country for Christ. Soon spring dawned in that wintry
land. When a Moravian missionary dwelt upon the love of God and the
agony of Christ, an Esquimaux stepped forward asking eagerly, “How was
that? Tell me that again, for I also would be saved.”
The mission to Greenland offers not only records of noble devotion and
sacrifice but a touching and remarkable conclusion. In 1899 the
Moravians handed back to the Danish Lutheran Church the work which the
Lutherans had begun. The missionary task was complete; with no selfish
desire to hold for themselves in ease what they had won in great
difficulty, the Moravians turned their labors into other fields among
the many which they have so diligently harvested. The Lutheran Church
which has sent so many laborers into other mission fields has here had a
brotherly return.
[Sidenote: A Malady.] The latter part of the Eighteenth Century offers a
less happy missionary spectacle than the earlier part. Upon religious
life, not only in Lutheran countries but in other Protestant countries
fell the blight of indifference and of rationalism. When men do not
believe the doctrines of the Scriptures, when a future life becomes a
matter of doubt and personal salvation the subject of amusement, they
cease to feel an obligation to those who are less favorably situated,
and the carrying of the Gospel message becomes a useless or worse than
useless undertaking.
[Illustration: HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, RAJAHMUNDRY.]
This malady of unbelief affected the Church, however, for only a short
time. By the beginning of the Nineteenth Century men were already
returning to the hope which they had rejected. With the return came once
more that sense of obligation to the heathen world which had been so
clearly seen by von Welz, Francke, Ziegenbalg and Schwartz.
[Sidenote: A Missionary School.] The new light shone out in the opening
year of the new century. Then _John Jaenicke_, who was called “Father”
Jaenicke, established in Berlin a missionary school, the first
Protestant institution whose object was primarily the direct training of
missionaries. For many years Jaenicke had been the only believing
preacher of the Gospel in Berlin. In spite of a disease which threatened
constantly a fatal hemorrhage, he labored with a humorous disregard of
his physical disability--and lived to be eighty years old! His church in
Berlin was composed partly of Bohemians, and to these he preached in the
morning in Bohemian, his native tongue. In the afternoon he preached in
German and on Monday evening he gave a powerful review of his Sunday
sermons, dwelling constantly on two cardinal points, human sin and
divine grace, and crying earnestly to his people. “You are sinners, you
need a Savior, here in the Scriptures Christ offers Himself to you!”
Visiting the sick, giving alms to the needy, comforting the desolate,
and alas! constantly laughed at and mocked, this godly man pursued the
course which he had set for himself. As in the case of Francke, so in
the case of Jaenicke an abounding charity concerned itself not only with
those at hand but with those afar off. From his missionary school, he
sent out in twenty-seven years about eighty missionaries. Before his
death the beauty of his character and the softening heart of his country
enabled men to see him as he was.
The Jaenicke school exists no more as such, but in the impulse given to
missions and in a successor, the Berlin Missionary Society, it still
lives.
METHODS.
[Sidenote: A Method of Work.] For those who are acquainted only with the
missionary methods of the American Lutheran Church, in which missionary
work is done officially by the various branches of the Church, it is
necessary to explain briefly the different procedure of Germany and
other foreign countries. Where the Lutheran Church is the State Church,
it cares officially only for those within the State. All other varieties
of Christian work are carried on by societies which have been organized
either by groups of zealous men and women or else by a single person.
The circumstances connected with the foundation and the history of these
organizations are often intensely interesting. It is to be regretted
that we can give only a short space to each one.
GERMAN SOCIETIES.
[Sidenote: A Century of Service.] No missionary society has had a more
interesting beginning than the _Basel Society_. There was encamped on
one side of the Swiss city of Basel in 1815 a Hungarian army, on the
other side a Russian army. Destruction seemed certain, and when it was
averted the pious folk determined in gratitude to establish a mission
seminary to train preachers for the heathen. While this undertaking is
partly Reformed, its intimate connection with the Lutheran Church makes
it proper for us to include its work in a history of Lutheran missions.
Many of its directors and a large proportion of its workers have been
Lutherans and a great deal of its support has come from Lutheran
sources.
At first the men trained in the Basel school went into the employ of
English missionary societies, but in 1822, after eighty-eight
missionaries had served the English Church Missionary Society alone, the
society sent its men to its own fields. Between 1815 and 1882 the
society trained eleven hundred and twelve candidates.
The Basel society has certain distinct and peculiar characteristics. It
combines with its evangelical work industrial work which is managed by a
missionary trading society. It was the first of the German societies to
combine medical with evangelical work. It trains surgeons, farmers,
weavers, shoemakers, bakers, workers in wood and iron, tailors, printers
and mechanics as well as teachers and ministers.
In 1915, surrounded once more by cannon, but still in peace, the Basel
society celebrated its centennial, in rejoicing yet in sadness. It has
now stations in India, China and Africa. Its last accessible report gave
its income in 1913 as $586,000.
[Sidenote: Royal Approval.] By 1823 the attitude of the Church toward
missions had so changed and improved that ten distinguished men,
theologians, jurists and officials of the government issued “An Appeal
for Charitable Contributions in aid of Evangelical Missions”. The
organization which they formed received the royal sanction and was
called the _Berlin Society_. In 1834 the first missionaries were sent to
South Africa. At present the society works in Africa and China. Its last
income was $291,000.
[Sidenote: Another Large Society.] As in the case of the Basel Society,
so in the case of the _Rhenish Society_ there are two elements, Lutheran
and Reformed, who work together in all its enterprises. Its school and
headquarters are in Barmen, Westphalia; its first missionaries were sent
to South Africa in 1829. Its fields lie in Africa, the Dutch East Indies
and China. Its income was in 1913 $328,000.
In the north of Germany is located the _North German_ or _Bremen
Society_ whose workers are trained at Basel and whose field is West
Africa where it has offered an amazing sacrifice. Its income was in
1913, $71,000.
[Sidenote: An “Aristocrat Among Missions”.] The _Leipsic Society_, which
was organized in 1836, received its strongest impress from its director
Doctor _Karl Graul_, a thoroughly trained theologian and a devoted
supporter of missions. He endeavored to make this society the center of
the missionary work of the whole Lutheran Church. He not only organized,
advised and managed from the home base but spent four years in India.
The society works in India and Africa. On account of the thoroughness
and solidity of its work it has been called “the aristocrat among
missions”. Its income was in 1913, $179,000.
[Sidenote: The First Missionary Ship.] The _Hermannsburg Mission_ was
begun in 1849. Its genius was _Louis Harms_, the pastor of the Lutheran
church in the village of Hermannsburg. Though he was brought up under
rationalistic influences he remained true to the principles of the
Gospel. He believed that missionary work could be best accomplished by
the sending out of colonies of missionaries who should be a source of
support and encouragement to one another and who should furnish to the
natives an example of Christian behavior in all the walks of life. His
enthusiasm imparted itself to his congregation which was willing to make
any sacrifice in order that his plans might be carried out. His first
missionary party numbered twenty, twelve missionaries and eight
colonists who sailed on the ship “Candace” for East Africa. Beside its
African field the Hermannsburg Society has stations in India and Persia.
Its income in 1913 was $139,000.
[Sidenote: The Work of One Man.] Like the Hermannsburg Mission, the
_Gossner Mission_ owes its existence to the faith and piety of a single
man. This remarkable person, _John Evangelist Gossner_, was originally a
Roman Catholic priest who was banished from Bavaria because his
preaching and his writing tended constantly away from orthodox Romanism.
Persecuted, he declared his intention of entering the Lutheran Church,
and was put through a severe examination. Proving that he held the pure
faith, he was ordained about 1827. He was subsequently pastor of large
congregations, among them that of which “Father” Jaenicke had been
pastor. His labors knew almost no limit and included home missions,
foreign missions, religious correspondence, writing and works of mercy
of all kinds. That activity with which we are most concerned is the
mission in India which he established on certain independent principles.
He believed, for instance, that missionaries should work with their
hands and thus provide for their maintenance as did the Apostle Paul. In
ten years he sent out to various missionary societies eighty
missionaries. In 1844 he established a mission of his own among the Kols
in India. To-day the Gossner mission concentrates its efforts chiefly
upon its India station. Its income was in 1913 $184,000.
[Sidenote: Three Promising Societies.] Forty years had now passed since
Father Jaenicke founded his missionary school and the new life of
missions began. For about twenty years no societies were formed. Since
that time there have been many new undertakings. Among them is the
_Breklum_ or _Schleswig-Holstein Society_ which was founded in 1877 by a
devoted Pastor Jensen. Its fields are India and Africa and its income
was in 1913 $67,000. The _Neukirchen Society_ was founded in 1882 in the
Rhine province, by Ludwig Doll, who vowed during a severe illness that
if he were restored he would give his life to missions. This society
labors in Africa and Java and had in 1913 an income of $30,000. Most
important among the remaining Lutheran societies are that of
_Neuendettelsau_ which works in Kaiser Wilhelmsland in New Guinea, and
also in Australia, the _Hanover Society_ with stations in South Africa,
and the _Bielefeld Society_ in East Africa.
[Sidenote: German Missionary Scholarship.] Before leaving this brief
introduction to the missionary labors of Germany, we must allude to the
fine service paid by various Germans in the field of missionary
literature. The Germans were the originators of the scientific study of
missions. They have given to missions its greatest historian, Doctor
Gustav Warneck, who for many years occupied at the University of Halle
the only academic chair in Christendom then devoted to the teaching and
study of missions, and who prepared monumental volumes discussing his
beloved theme. To his study and to that of other German scholars the
Lutheran Church owes much of that sobriety and thoroughness with which
its mission work has been done.
SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES.
[Sidenote: In Denmark.] Though the pioneer Lutheran missionaries,
Ziegenbalg and Plütschau, were sent to India by Denmark, missionary
activity languished in Scandinavia for many years. The _Danish
Missionary Society_, organized in 1821, sent missionaries to the
Greenland mission and a few to the work of the Basel society in Africa.
In 1862 it established missions of its own in India and Northern China.
In 1913 its income was $125,000.
[Sidenote: In Norway.] The _Norwegian Missionary Society_ was founded in
1842 in Stavanger and consists at the present time of about nine hundred
societies. It works among the Zulus in South Africa, in Madagascar, and
also in China. In 1913 its income was $234,000. The _Norwegian Church
Mission_ was organized by Bishop Schreuder in 1873. Its field is in
South Africa. The _Norwegian Lutheran China Mission_, organized in 1890,
has an income of $62,000.
[Sidenote: In Sweden.] In Sweden there are various Lutheran missionary
organizations. The most important are the _Swedish National Society_,
which works in East Africa and Central India, and has an income of
$120,000, and the _Swedish Church Mission_ whose fields are in South
Africa and East India and which has an income of $88,000. Among the
smaller societies are the _Swedish Mission in China_, the _Swedish
Mongol Mission_, and the _Jerusalem Association_.
[Illustration: CENTRAL GIRLS SCHOOL, RAJAHMUNDRY.]
[Sidenote: A Brave Girl.] One of the interesting characters in the
history of Scandinavian missions was a young Finnish girl, Maria
Mathsdotter, by name, who, through the preaching of the missionaries had
come to understand the need of her people for the Gospel. She learned
Swedish so that she might speak to the King and thereupon in 1864 set
out to walk two hundred miles to Stockholm. When a few days later she
started back, she carried with her enough money to build a children’s
home to which Finnish children could go for Christian and some
industrial instruction. As a result there are to-day a number of such
homes in Finland.
[Sidenote: Two Friends.] Among the most popular missionary societies in
Denmark and Norway is the _Home Mission to the Santals_, established in
1867 by a Dane, Hans Peter Börresen and a Norwegian Lars Olsen
Skrefsrud. Lars Skrefsrud was the son of pious Christian parents, but
led a life of such waywardness that he was finally confined in prison.
During his term of two years he was thoroughly converted and determined
to devote his life when he should be free to mission work. As soon as he
was released he offered himself to the Norwegian mission in Africa, but
the committee concluded that a man just out of prison was not a safe
agent. He then applied to Father Gossner, who accepted him for work in
India. In the training school he became acquainted with Börresen, and so
close was their friendship that when they were placed in different
stations they separated from the Gossner mission to found the _Home
Mission to the Santals_, which is supported by Danish and Norwegian
Lutherans in all parts of the world.
FINNISH, POLISH, AND OTHER SOCIETIES.
Not the least valuable of Lutheran missionary enterprises is that of
little Finland, which after contributing to the missionary work of other
nations, established in 1859 on the occasion of the seven hundredth
anniversary of the conversion of Finland to Christianity the _Finnish
Lutheran Missionary Society_ with headquarters at Helsingfors. In 1867
the society began its own mission in South Africa, and later in Japan.
Its income was in 1913 $72,000. The _Finnish Lutheran Gospel Society_
works in China.
The Lutherans of Poland divide their contributions among various German
Lutheran societies, among them the Leipsic and Gossner societies.
The Lutherans of Friesland, a province of Holland, contribute to the
work of the Bremen or North German Society.
In the Netherlands there are small Lutheran organizations which aid in
the work of the German missionaries in the Dutch East Indies.
AMERICAN SOCIETIES.
The missionary work of the American Lutheran Church is accomplished both
by the various large bodies and by organizations within the synods whose
sole purpose is missionary work. From the Norwegians and Danes in
America, contributions are sent to the missionary societies of the
fatherland, such as the _Home Mission to the Santals_. There are nine
American Norwegian organizations--the United Church, the Norwegian
Synod, the Hauge’s Synod, the Norwegian Free Church, the Brethren Synod,
the Elling Synod, the Santal Committee, the Zion Society and the
Intersynodical Orient Mission--which in 1915 contributed $235,000, an
average of sixty-nine cents per member. The General Synod contributed in
the same year $117,000, an average of thirty-three cents. The General
Council contributed $119,000, an average of twenty-four cents. The
United Synod in the South[4] contributed $20,000, an average of forty
cents per member. The Synodical Conference contributed $56,000, an
average of six cents per member. Not included in the above figures is
the work of the Synodical Conference for the American negro which
amounted in 1910-12 to $66,000. The Joint Synod of Ohio contributed
$16,800, an average of eleven cents per member. The Danish Society
contributed $7,825, an average of fifty-five cents per member. The Iowa
Synod contributed $16,000. It is estimated that the average yearly per
capita contribution of American Lutherans to missions is twenty-three
cents. The fields of American Lutheranism include Africa, Madagascar,
China, India, Japan, the East Indies and South America.
Footnote 4:
Contributions not reported through the regular treasurer bring the
per capita contribution to fifty-three cents.
It has been impossible in this brief account to give a separate place to
the work of women’s or other auxiliary societies, which have contributed
so largely to the work of missions. The actual financial additions
brought by these societies may be easily computed, but not the interest
which they have roused, the information which they have disseminated,
the prayers which they have offered. May they long continue their
generous work!
Many persons and some churches hold the opinion that missionary work can
be done in a haphazard fashion, each man following what he believes to
be the divine direction within him. Devoted men who counted their lives
as nothing so that they might serve Christ have gone to preach to the
Hindu without understanding his language or being able to speak it and
have counted with ill-founded joy thousands of converts who had in
reality not comprehended a word of the message. The coast of Africa has
within its soil the bodies of many missionaries who alone, unsupported
by home supplies, unfitted for their task, have laid down their lives in
a glorious but useless endeavor.
Enterprises of this sort have not been a part of missionary work in the
Lutheran Church, which believes that the foundation of the Indian or
African Church must be laid surely and substantially, no matter how
slowly, that adult baptism cannot take place without understanding, that
only those may share the communion of Christ’s Church who know His
Gospel, and that with the precious message to the soul there should go
also the uplifting of the body so that it may become a worthy vessel.
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CHAPTER III.
The Lutheran Church in India
THE LAND.
The people
The religions
The Caste System
The moral condition
The English in India
The contrasts of India
The word “heathen”
THE GERMAN SOCIETIES.
Basel
Gossner
Leipsic
Hermannsburg
Breklum or Schleswig-Holstein
THE SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES.
Home Mission to the Santals
Danish Evangelical Lutheran Missionary Society
Evangelical National Missionary Society of Sweden
The Church of Sweden Mission
THE AMERICAN SOCIETIES.
The beginnings
The General Synod
The General Council
The Missouri Synod
The Joint Synod of Ohio
The Synod of Iowa
The American Danes, Norwegians and Swedes.
CONCLUSION.
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CHAPTER III.
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN INDIA