been employed by other societies was _Samuel Gobat_, who was born in
Berne, Switzerland, in 1799. When he was nineteen years old he entered
the Basel Missionary Institute. After he had thoroughly prepared himself
there and in Paris in the Arabic, Ethiopic and Amharic languages, he
offered himself to the Church missionary Society of England and was sent
to begin in 1826 a mission in Abyssinia. Before he sailed for his
mission field he received Lutheran ordination. For three years he
traveled extensively in proclaiming the Gospel both to the priests who
ministered to the sadly degenerate Abyssinian Church and to the people,
then he was compelled to leave on account of ill health. He continued
his missionary activity by superintending the translating of the Bible
into Arabic at the Church Mission in Malta; in 1845 he was made Vice
President of the Protestant College at Malta. Subsequently he was
appointed Bishop of Jerusalem, his election to this important position
being preceded by his entrance into the English Church. He died in
Jerusalem in 1879, “notable for his piety, vigor, tact and good
judgment.”
SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES.
In 1844 the _Norwegian Missionary Society_ sent Hans Schreuder as a
missionary to Zululand. Here at Umpumulo he and thirty companions
started a mission. After twenty-five years’ constant and faithful work,
the number of Christians was two hundred and forty-five. To-day there
are five thousand seven hundred church members divided among thirteen
stations. The training school carries its students carefully through a
nine months’ course in the Gospels, the Catechism and Church history,
besides providing exercise in preaching and instruction concerning the
care of souls. The pupils go out two by two on Sundays to preach in
heathen kraals. Their instructor says of them, “For diligence, attention
and Christian walk, I can give them the highest praise. It has been a
delight to work among them, for they seem to grasp more and more the
central teaching of Christianity.”
In 1873 Hans Schreuder, the pioneer, left the service of the society to
establish the _Norwegian Church Mission_, which now has four stations
and two thousand Christians. Schreuder was the father of Norwegian
missions. His appeal, “A Few Words to the Church of Norway,” in 1842,
aroused the country to a sense of its missionary obligation.
[Sidenote: Co-operation.] The _Swedish State Church_ established in 1876
a mission in South Africa among the Zulus, selecting this spot because
of its nearness to the Norwegian mission from which the Swedes expected
advice and co-operation. In this expectation they were not disappointed.
In sympathy and collaboration with them are also the neighboring Berlin
missionaries. A common hymn book, prayer book and catechism are used.
The native pastors of the three missions are trained by the Swedes, the
teachers by the Norwegian and the evangelists by the Germans.
Oscarberg is the oldest station. The Zulu war and the Boer war both
caused great loss and suffering to the mission. The work was extended in
1902 to South Rhodesia. In all its stations the mission has about six
thousand native Christians.
In Abyssinia and extending into British East Africa is the mission of
the _Swedish National Society_. To this field the society was directed
by Louis Harms in 1865. Its people, whom the missionary-explorer Krapf
longed to reach, are Gallas, a vigorous and superior African race, one
of the few who have not been influenced by Mohammedanism. Like Krapf,
the Swedes hoped to have access to these people through the Abyssinian
Church. To their hopes was put a cruel period by the murder of one of
their missionaries. In 1881 a second effort was made to reach them.
Prince Menelik of Shoa promised free passage and also Negus of
Abyssinia, but both broke their word. Finally slaves who were carried
from the Galla country were trained by the persistent missionaries and
sent back. Among them, Onesimus Nesib, who was baptized in 1872, has
translated the whole Bible into the Galla language and has written
various Christian books and a large dictionary.
The Eritrea station of the Swedish National Society is in the Italian
colony of that name on the Red Sea. Here the missionary press, printing
in seven languages, is busily at work. To the natives of these parts the
missionaries have given their first written language. Boarding schools,
day schools and a hospital are among the mission enterprises.
A German missionary who visited Finland in 1867 roused among the
Lutherans there an interest in Africa. As a result the _Finnish Lutheran
Missionary Society_ established a mission among the Ovambo people, near
the great mission of the Rhenish Society. For thirteen years their
missionaries labored without a single convert. Then the rulers ceased to
oppose mission work and the mission began to succeed. In nine stations
are two thousand eight hundred Christians.
After long instruction the King of Ovamboland was baptized in 1912 and
dying shortly after gave testimony to his faith upon his death-bed.
Subsequently his successor was publicly baptized together with fifty-six
of his subjects.
NORWEGIANS IN MADAGASCAR.
[Sidenote: Planting.] The French island of Madagascar lies to the
southeast of the continent of Africa and has a Malay population of about
four hundred thousand. Work was begun in 1818 by English missionaries
with the approval of King Radama, who acknowledged the suzerainty of
England. Interrupted for some months by the death of most of the pioneer
party, the mission was recommenced in the year 1820, in the capital
city, Antananarivo, in the interior highland, and was carried on with
much success until the year 1835, when the persecuting queen, Ranavalona
I, began severe measures against Christianity, and all the missionaries
were compelled to leave the island. But during that period of fifteen
years of steady labor, the native language was reduced to a written
form, the whole Bible was translated into the Malagasy tongue, a school
system was established in the central province of Imerina, many
thousands of children were instructed, and two small churches were
formed. About two hundred Malagasy were believed to have become sincere
Christians, while several thousands of young people had received
instruction in the elementary facts and truths of Christianity. That was
the period of planting in Madagascar.
[Sidenote: Persecution.] The second period in the history of Malagasy
Christianity was that of persecution which continued for twenty-six
years (1835-61). During this time persistent efforts were made to root
out the hated foreign religion. But the number of the “praying people”
steadily increased, and although about two hundred of them were put to
death in various ways, the Christians multiplied tenfold during that
terrible time of trial.
The truly Christian death of these martyrs is described in a native
account. “Then they prayed, ‘O Lord, receive our spirits, for Thy love
to us hath caused this to come to us; and lay not this sin to their
charge.’ Thus prayed they as long as they had any life and then they
died--softly, gently; and there was at the time a rainbow in the
heavens, which seemed to touch the place of the burning.”
[Sidenote: Harvest.] In 1862 mission work was re-established, and then
began the third period in the religious history of the country,
emphatically that of progress. From that date until the present time
Christianity has steadily grown in influence.
A great outward impetus was given to the spread of Christianity in the
early part of 1869 by the baptism of the queen, Ranavalona II, and her
Prime Minister, and the subsequent destruction of the idols of the
central provinces, and still more by the personal influence of the
sovereign in favor of the Christian religion.[7]
Footnote 7:
The material for this account was gathered from the _Missionary
Review of the World_--Article by James Sibree--June 1895.
[Sidenote: A Model Mission.] Among the societies which entered
Madagascar at this period was the _Norwegian Missionary Society_ which
settled in the province of Betsileo in 1867. With admirable
administration at home, and in spite of serious difficulty with an
opposition mission established by the Jesuits, they have accomplished a
task which is universally praised by missionary historians. They have at
work, besides many Norwegian and some American missionaries, ninety-six
native pastors and over nine hundred catechists. There are two medical
missions and a leper asylum, schools and printing offices. It is
reckoned that among the one hundred and thirty thousand Christians in
the Island, eighty-four thousand are Lutherans.
Among the great names of the mission are those of _Dahle_, who
established a Seminary for native workers, and _Doctor Borchgrevink_, a
medical missionary.
AMERICAN SOCIETIES.
The Norwegians in America, always closely connected with the Church of
the Fatherland, sent their missionary contributions at first through the
fatherland societies, the Norwegian Missionary Society and the Norwegian
Church (Schreuder’s) Mission. To Schreuder’s Mission the _Norwegian
Synod_ (American) still contributes, having sent in 1915 about $10,000.
[Illustration: FIRST GRADUATING CLASS FROM KINDERGARTEN AT OGI, JAPAN.]
[Illustration: GROUP OF THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS, KUMAMOTO.]
In the work in Madagascar American Norwegians have a large and important
part. In 1892 the Norwegian Missionary Society assigned to the _United
Norwegian Lutheran Church_ (American) the southern part of the island.
In 1897 this field was divided once more, the _Norwegian Lutheran Free
Church_ (American) taking the western section. Together these two
societies have a territory covering about thirty thousand square miles,
with a population of almost four hundred thousand. The United Church
contributed in 1915, $42,000 for its work and the Norwegian Free Church
almost $17,000. Together they have a Christian community of about
twenty-six hundred.
To the work of the Leipsic Society in East Africa the American Lutheran
_Synod of Iowa_ contributes and to the work of the Hermannsburg society,
the _Joint Synod of Ohio_.
The _Synod of South Carolina_, now a part of the United Synod in the
South may be said to have been the first Lutheran body in America to
send a missionary to Africa. This was _Boston Drayton_, a colored member
of the English Lutheran Church of Charleston, who sailed in 1845. Of him
or of his work, little more is known.
[Sidenote: An African Republic.] The Republic of Liberia was established
in 1821 “to be reserved forever for the settlement of American freed
slaves.” The little republic contains about fifty thousand of the
descendants of these early settlers and about two million aborigines,
who are divided into eight tribes. Among them fetish worship,
superstition, polygamy, tendency to constant strife, and other
characteristic African faults abound. In this republic the mission of
The _General Synod_ was founded by the Rev. Morris Officer in 1860. Mr.
Officer had served for a year and a half as a missionary of the American
Board, but his heart longed for a mission of his own Church, and his
diary shows his deep satisfaction when he was authorized to begin. He
describes the making of roads, the planting of banana and coffee trees,
sweet potatoes and flowers. He tells of the first children in the
school, forty boys and girls captured from a slave ship. When he decided
upon a site for the mission he knelt down among his native helpers and
prayed for God’s blessing upon the new endeavor.
In a year and a half Mr. Officer was compelled to return on account of
ill health. In the meantime reinforcements had arrived and the sad and
stirring history of this little mission had begun, a history which might
be celebrated, in the words of a writer for the _Missionary Review_, in
some spirited poem like “The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava.”
Of eighteen missionaries sent out during the first thirty-six years, six
died within two years after reaching the field, while eight returned
within three years with greatly shattered health.
[Sidenote: An Ideal Missionary.] In contrast to this shadow we have the
history of Doctor David A. Day, who lived and labored for twenty-three
years in this dangerous country. A man of strong body and fine mind,
Doctor Day was an ideal missionary. Possessing deep faith with which to
meet serious problems, and a keen sense of humor with which to meet
smaller difficulties, he labored until he was worn out. Returning to
America when he dared linger no longer, he died almost in sight of the
home land, his wife, whose devotion was no less than his, having died
two years before. Mrs. Day was made of the same heroic stuff as her
husband. As the end of her life approached she urged her husband to
remain in Africa where he was so much needed rather than join her, great
as was her desire to see him. How many noble missionary wives have made
similar sacrifice!
The great regard in which Doctor Day was held, as well as the
impressionable and affectionate nature of the people among whom he
worked, is shown in an incident recorded in his biography. When the news
came from America that Mrs. Day was dead, the little children of the
mission gathered a bunch of white lilies which they put into the hands
of one of their number who carried them into the room, where, stunned
and grief-stricken, Doctor Day bent under the first shock of his
bereavement. Silently laying the flowers before him, the little girl
kissed his feet and as silently withdrew. Surely missionary work has its
earthly as well as its heavenly reward.
To-day the Muhlenberg mission has fifteen men and women at work. It
counts its native Christians at three hundred. A valuable and
interesting expansion of the work is the employing of _Doctor
Westerman_, a distinguished German philologist, to prepare grammars and
dictionaries of the native languages, which, to prepare for greater
growth, the missionaries must learn. Like all of Africa this mission
begs for more workers, more money, more interest, more prayers.
Here closes the record of our work in Africa. It has given many examples
of faith and courage to missionary history, it has added many names,
John Ludwig Krapf, Rosina Krapf, Schreuder, Day, to the roster of
Africa’s apostles. But in the words of Frederic Perry Noble, Africa’s
chief missionary historian, “Lutheranism is yet in its attitude toward
missions a sleeping giant.” Since Mr. Noble gave expression to this
opinion, Lutheranism has made a beginning in African mission work.
Still, however, she is not yet aroused. As in India, so in Africa,
German missions and missionaries have suffered cruelly in the present
war. May the true spirit of Christ so influence His Church henceforth
that missionary and not military warfare may fill the pages of history.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V.
The Lutheran Church in China, Japan and Elsewhere
CHINA.
The Land
The People
Religion
Character
History
Early Missions.
Karl Frederick Gützlaff
Societies
_German_
Basel
Rhenish
Berlin
_Scandinavian_
Danish
Norwegian Missionary Society
Norwegian Lutheran China Mission
Swedish Mission in China
Swedish Lutheran Mission in Mongolia
Lutheran Gospel Association of Finland
_American_
_United Norwegian Lutheran Church
Hauge’s Norwegian Lutheran Synod
Norwegian Synod
Norwegian Free Church
Norwegian Brethren_
JAPAN.
The Land and the People
Societies
_American_
Lutheran Gospel Association of Finland
United Synod in the South
General Council
Danish American
EAST INDIES
Societies
Rhenish in Sumatra, Borneo, Nias, etc.
Neukirchen in Java
Dutch in Batoe Islands
AUSTRALIA Neuendettelsau
NEW GUINEA Neuendettelsau, Rhenish
THE NEAR EAST
THE JEWS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V.
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA, JAPAN AND ELSEWHERE
CHINA.
[Sidenote: The Land.] China is the most ancient of the great empires of
the world. It comprises more than four million square miles and is
divided into eighteen provinces. Among the various annexed countries are
Tartary, Mongolia and Manchuria. There is a wide variety of scenery and
climate, there are mountains of great elevation and there is an enormous
and fertile river plain, which lies on the lower courses of the Huang Ho
and Yang-tse-Kiang Rivers and which supports a larger population than
any other region of the globe of equal size.
A Danish Lutheran missionary describes thus the features of the Chinese
landscape:
“The soil of the valley is clothed with light green or yellow
rice-fields, through which the water course winds like a glittering
silver ribbon; along the stream, or on either side of the valley, wave
the delicate leafy crowns of the bamboo reeds, bowing to the slightest
breeze. If we look up to the mountain-sides on either hand, these are
covered below with mulberry groves, cotton plantations, and trim
tea-grounds, which are often disposed in artificial terraces, which
sometimes also bear corn. Higher up, as far as the mountain will consent
to be ‘clothed’, grow woods, among whose foliage the light leaves of the
camphor-tree, the reddish leaves of the tallow-tree, and the dark green
leaves of the arbor vitae occupy a conspicuous place; but there are also
found cedars and cypresses. Where the wood sinks into shrubbery, it
frequently consists of azaleas and similar plants, which we grow in
green-houses or in windows fronting the south, and which in the
flowering time afford a spectacle of dazzling beauty. There are also
found groves of roses or jessamines. On the whole, there are many very
beautiful landscapes in China. Nor are there wanting wild mountain
regions of an Alpine character. Deserts there are none; but, on the
other hand, there are dreary and melancholy marshes, and the coasts are
often flat and tiresome.
“While plant life is thus richly developed in China, the opposite is
true of animal life. There is certainly no region on earth where it
plays so slight a part and is so scantily represented as here. The
greedy and reckless children of men have consumed or expelled the beasts
of the field and the fowls of the air.”
[Illustration: LUTHERAN CHURCH IN BORNEO.]
[Illustration: LUTHERAN CHURCH IN JAVA.]
[Sidenote: The People.] The people, numbering about four hundred
million, live chiefly in large towns and in dense settlements along the
rivers. Millions live on the rivers in houseboats. The Chinese are
industrious and thrifty and at the same time ignorant and exceedingly
unprogressive. Only a small class is educated, and education, like all
else that is Chinese, has hitherto looked to the past for its subject
matter. It consists of the fixing in mind of the ancient classical
writings and the acquiring of the ancient, classical style. To the
foreigner the language offers obstacles which are almost insurmountable.
There are only four hundred different words, but these are so modified
by inflections and by the tone of the voice that their variations are
legion. One of the early missionaries said that in order to acquire the
Chinese language one must have a “body of brass, lungs of steel, a head
of oak, the eyes of eagles, the heart of an apostle, the memory of an
angel and the life of Methuselah”. The written language is even more
difficult to learn than the spoken language and both present the
greatest difficulty to the missionary in that they contain no such words
as sin, holiness, regeneration, spirit, God, which are so essential a
part of the Christian vocabulary.
[Sidenote: Religion.] Three religions are firmly established,
Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. These are not clearly differentiated,
by any means, but the individual frequently selects from each the
elements which please him. Doctor Warneck describes this strange
eclectic religion as follows: “All of them reverence Confucius, regulate
their life--to a certain extent--according to his precepts, and are
devoted to ancestor worship; all have recourse, especially in sickness
and need, to the magic arts and superstitious hocus pocus of the Taoists
and almost all commend their souls at death to the Buddhist priests,
have masses read for the soul and make use of the Buddhist burial
ceremonial. The polite man says to the man of different belief, and the
enlightened man who no longer believes anything repeats it: ‘The three
doctrines come to the same thing in the end’.”
There are in China also about thirty million Mohammedans.
[Sidenote: Character.] The Chinese character is as difficult to impress
as the Chinese language is hard to learn. Since the Chinese worships
that which is old, the stranger and foreigner seems to him indeed a
“devil”; since he is self-righteous, he does not consider himself an
object for missionary effort. It was at first laughable to him that
missionaries should come to his land with so foolish a purpose. In
scores of cases he punished the effrontery of their undertaking with
death.
Nevertheless upon his hardened and indifferent heart there has been
wrought a wonderful work. To Christian nations he has learned to look
not only for a better educational system but with increasing eagerness
for a better religion. Recently an edict was passed declaring
Confucianism to be still the State religion, but at the same time
thousands were thronging to hear the speakers in a nation-wide Christian
campaign.
[Sidenote: China no Longer a Closed Land.] Until the middle of the
Nineteenth Century China was closed to foreigners. In 1842, at the end
of the infamous Opium War by which England forced the opium trade upon
unwilling China, five ports were opened, Shanghai, Ningpo, Foochow, Amoy
and Canton, and the Island of Hongkong was ceded to England. In these
ports missionaries went at once to work. In 1850 the Taiping Rebellion
seemed to promise for a while not only sweeping reforms but the possible
acceptance of the religion of the foreigners, but it degenerated into a
barbarous and cruel rebellion which was eventually subdued by “Chinese”
Gordon at the head of the Imperial troops.
In 1856 there was another Opium War in which France joined. At its close
nine more ports were opened. In 1860 there was a third war and finally
twenty-four ports were opened. Now missionaries were allowed free course
through the Empire, but they had become more than ever in the eyes of
the people “foreign devils”.
[Sidenote: The Boxer Uprising.] In 1900, by which time it was estimated
that in spite of fearful opposition there were two hundred and fifteen
thousand Christians, came the Boxer uprising. Disapproving of the
progressive policies of the young Emperor alarmed by the threatening
advance of Germany, Russia, England and France, the Chinese determined
upon a wholesale slaughter, not only of missionaries and other
foreigners, but of native Christians as well. With indescribable
barbarity thousands were slain, among them one hundred and thirty-four
missionaries, fifty-two children of missionaries and sixteen thousand
native Christians.
The effect upon Christian missions was extraordinary. As though the rain
of blood and fire had been a refreshing shower, the harvest sprang up.
Truly the blood of martyrs was once more the seed of the Church. Within
ten years after the uprising the number of Christians had more than
doubled.
[Sidenote: The First Missionaries.] The first Christian mission to the
Chinese was that of the heroic Nestorians in the Seventh Century of
which little but a traditional account remains. Roman Catholic missions
record the names of many heroes, but on account of the hardness of the
heart of the people and also on account of the lack of wisdom of the
missionaries, no permanent missions were established.
Before the treaty ports were opened in 1842, the English missionary
Morrison visited the country secretly and began Protestant missions by
translating the whole Bible into Chinese. Equal in devotion and
diligence and with a peculiar interest for us was another missionary,
_Karl Frederick Gützlaff_, a Lutheran whose ardent appeal for China
helped to quicken the missionary spirit in the American Lutheran Church
and also inspired David Livingstone to give his life to missions.
[Sidenote: A Letter to the King.] Gützlaff was born of humble folk in
Pyritz in Pomerania in 1803. When he was twelve years old he was
apprenticed to a saddler, but he had other intentions for his life, and
wrote in poetical form his desire to become a famous man. This poem the
lad addressed to no less a person than the King of Prussia, through whom
he was sent first to Halle to school and afterwards to the institute of
Jaenicke at Berlin. In 1826 he went as a missionary of the Netherlands
Society to Java. After several years of labor, he determined to
penetrate into closed and inhospitable China. When the Netherlands
Society declined to give him permission, he left their service in 1831
and became an interpreter on a coast vessel.
[Sidenote: Appeals for Help.] Meanwhile during his service in Java,
Gützlaff had learned the Chinese language, the most difficult of the
many tongues which his extraordinary gift for language enabled him to
master. Now in the many journeys which he made up and down the coast, he
began to preach and to distribute thousands of tracts of his own
translating. He wrote to England and America earnest appeals that
workers be sent to share in his labors. Presently he was made an
interpreter in the English consular service, in which position he had
wide opportunity for Christian work. At the end of the Opium War he gave
valuable service by his knowledge of the country and the people.
Tradition records that at this time among China’s vast population there
were six Christians.
Though five ports had been opened by the treaty of Nanking, foreigners
were not allowed to go far beyond them. To meet this difficulty,
Gützlaff began the training of bands of native workers who should carry
the Gospel to the most distant of the eighteen provinces. He continued
to preach and to call upon the home lands for aid. In 1849 he visited
Europe. Travelling rapidly, he flew “like an angel” through most of the
European countries, preaching, pleading and endeavoring to form
societies, which should divide vast China into missionary provinces.
Among the few who heard and answered his plea was, as we have seen,
David Livingstone.
[Sidenote: A Cruel Disappointment.] In 1850 Gützlaff returned to China.
The bands of native workers which he had trained with such enthusiasm
had not lived up to his high hopes but had basely betrayed him. Before
he could do much toward repairing the damage which they had wrought, he
died at the age of forty-eight. He was buried in Hong Kong and over his
body was erected a mighty stone bearing in English the inscription, “An
Apostle”, and in German, “The Apostle to the Chinese”.
[Sidenote: Author and Translator.] The literary labors of Gützlaff were
enormous, especially when we consider that he was constantly occupied
with other affairs as missionary and interpreter. He translated the
Bible into Siamese; he aided the Englishman Robert Morrison in his
translation of the Bible into Chinese; he published a monthly magazine
in Chinese and wrote in Chinese various books on useful subjects. Among
his English and German works were a “Journal of Three Voyages along the
Coast of China in 1831, 1832 and 1833,” “A Sketch of Chinese History,
Ancient and Modern”, “China Opened” and “The Life of Taow-Kwang.”
As remarkable as Gützlaff’s talent and industry was his enthusiasm.
Where his work did not succeed, failure was brought about not by any
lack in himself but in those of whom he expected larger things than they
could accomplish.
A missionary historian describes a memorial to Gützlaff, which seems
singularly appropriate to his life of devotion.
[Sidenote: A Memorial.] “We were passing through the Straits of Formosa
at midnight when we saw suddenly before us on China’s wild coast a
towering lighthouse. At the same moment a loud cry came over the water,
‘Gützlaff!’ We asked who was summoned and they answered that the
lighthouse was named for the missionary Gützlaff, and thus by the use of
his name instead of the accustomed ‘Beware’, was his memory recalled.”
GERMAN SOCIETIES.
It is proper to include here as elsewhere the histories of those German
societies, which, though they are not wholly Lutheran, yet employ and
are supported by many Lutherans. The three Lutheran or partly Lutheran
organizations which have missions in China are the Basel, the Berlin and
the Rhenish societies.
In response to the appeal of Gützlaff, the _Basel Society_ sent to China
in 1847 two missionaries, _Lechler_ and _Hamberg_. Greeted with joy by
Gützlaff, they set about learning the Chinese language and began at once
to preach with the aid of interpreters. Their work was begun in the
southwestern part of Canton, the most southern of China’s eighteen
provinces. So well did they labor that by 1855 they had one hundred and
seventy-five Christians. Gradually a thoroughly organized mission was
established with the characteristic Basel features of industrial work
and careful education. In 1897 the mission celebrated its fiftieth
anniversary, together with the fiftieth anniversary of the work of
Missionary Lechler, the latter a rare and notable occasion in the
history of missions.
[Sidenote: Fifty Years of Service.] To-day the Basel Society works in
two districts, one in the highlands, the other in the lowlands of
Canton. It has a staff of forty-seven missionaries, who are divided
among seventeen main stations, and one hundred and ninety-seven
out-stations.
In addition to its foreign forces it has at work two hundred and twenty
natives. Its communicant members are seven thousand, the total number of
its Christians eleven thousand.
With the Basel missionaries there went to China in 1847 two missionaries
from the _Rhenish Society_, Genahr and Kuster. They established
themselves in the province of Canton and nearer Hong Kong than Lechler
and Hamberg. The mission has had during the seventy-five years of its
existence many difficulties, but, though it has never grown to be very
large, it has accomplished a fine work.
[Sidenote: A Missionary Sermon.] One of the first of its misfortunes was
the death of Missionary Genahr, who contracted cholera from a Christian
who had been cast out by his employers. The earnest spirit of this pious
man may be read in a little missionary sermon from his pen concerning
those easy-going Christians who think that it lies entirely within their
own good pleasure whether they will do anything for work abroad. “In the
Book of Judges, fifth chapter, twenty-third verse, we find: ‘Curse ye
Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants
thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of
the Lord against the mighty.’ In an old book we find the following
questions and answers upon this verse:
“‘Who was commanded to curse Meroz?’ Answer: ‘The angel of the Lord.’
“‘What had Meroz done?’ ‘Nothing.’
“‘How? why, then is Meroz cursed?’ ‘Because she has done nothing.’
“‘What should Meroz have done?’ ‘Come to the help of the Lord.’
“‘Could not the Lord, then, have succeeded without Meroz?’ ‘The Lord did
succeed without Meroz.’
“‘Then has the Lord met with a loss thereby?’ ‘No, but Meroz has.’
“‘Is Meroz, then, to be cursed therefor?’ ‘Yes, and that bitterly.’
“‘Is it right that a man should be cursed for having done nothing?’
‘Yes, when he _should_ have done something.’
“‘Who says that?’ ‘The angel of the Lord; and the Lord Himself says
(Luke 12:47); “He that knew his Lord’s will and did it not, shall be
beaten with many stripes.”’”
[Sidenote: Danger and Loss.] In 1871 two of the stations of the Rhenish
Society were destroyed by a fanatic mob who accused the missionaries of
desiring to poison all those who were not Christians. Again in 1898,
stations were destroyed by robbers and rebels. Fortunately the Boxer
uprising in 1900 left the property of this mission almost untouched and
the missionaries returning after it was safe, were able to begin almost
where they had left off.
At Tungkum the society has a large hospital, whose superintendent had in
1899 twenty thousand consultations. The latest reports gave two thousand
five hundred church members divided among seven stations, at which there
are twenty-three missionaries. In 1873 the Rhenish Society took over
what remained of Gützlaff’s mission.
[Sidenote: A Missionary Scholar.] Among the missionaries of the Rhenish
Society was _Doctor Ernest Faber_, a scholar of immense learning, who,
after being in the service of the Society for eight years joined the
General Protestant Missionary Society. He is especially famous for his
translations of the Chinese classics and it was said of him that he
spoke a better Chinese than the natives themselves.
[Sidenote: A Chinese Saint Paul.] The _Berlin Society_ has two separate
fields of labor in China. The first is in the Province of Canton, near
the missions of the Basel and Rhenish societies. The mission has its
record of loss and persecution during the native uprisings and also its
stories of victory. In its early history the station at Thamschui was
the scene of a cruel attack. The mob was led by a young man blowing a
trumpet and calling to his followers to exterminate the foreign devils,
who meanwhile fled from house roof to house roof and finally escaped.
Subsequently this young man was converted and became a powerful
evangelist who like Saint Paul endeavored with all his power to build up
that which he had hitherto torn down.
[Sidenote: In Time of Famine.] The second station of the Berlin Society
is in the Province of Shantung. In consequence of the assistance given
during the famine in 1889, when over $200,000 was distributed and over
one hundred thousand lives saved, many became interested in Christianity
as the religion which inspires deeds of kindness and mercy; and during
1890 it is said that over a thousand persons were baptized whose
attention was drawn to the religion of Christ by the fact that the
missionaries were so prominent in securing this aid and distributing it.
In this work and its reward the Berlin Society had a part.
The following letter from a missionary of the Berlin Society describes
vividly a Chinese city and gives an account of the work of the Christian
evangelist.
[Sidenote: A Chinese City.] “We hired a bearer and proceeded through the
endless confusion of the narrow, dirty streets of Canton, through the
evil smells of a many-thousand-year-old decaying culture, on past all
the innumerable shops and idol temples, halls of justice and idol
altars, past all the numberless human forms, poor and rich, well and
sick, vested with silk or covered with rags, painted with vermilion or
consumed with leprosy, which flood the lanes of the giant city of
Southern China, out through the great iron Northern gate, through
several streets of the suburbs, past scattered huts--and now the great
alluvial plain of the Northstream delta stretches before our eyes. A
pure air breathes over the land and encompasses us after we have escaped
the exhalations which rest, suffocating and heavy, upon the city of a
million souls.
[Sidenote: In the Mountains.] “In the schools and on the crossways,
where the passing wayfarers were resting in the tea-huts, we sought
opportunities to preach the Word of God. Often we found them, often we
waited in vain. Many a guest listened an instant, then silently took up
his bundle and went on his way. There was nothing in the proclamation of
the Word that engaged the man’s interest. Companies of heathen hungry
for salvation, and hanging upon the lips of the missionary, were not to
be found in the mountains; such, we may well say, are not to be found
anywhere in China. The Lord alone knows where a seed-corn of eternity
sinks into a human heart. The man takes it with him; often it sinks out
of reach or is choked by the thorns and briers of heathenism, yet often,
after the lapse of years, it shoots up again into the light. At one
tea-hut, which was covered with the leaves of the fern palm, there
gathered around us a great company of women. They were burdened with
stones out of the neighboring quarry, at the same time carrying their
infants on their hips. They laid off their loads and listened, and some
asked very intelligent questions, ‘Sir, if we are not to worship idols,
how shall we pray to the heavenly Father?’ A heathen, sitting near,
disturbed us by his unseemly witticisms. The language is rich in such
equivocal turns. People do not understand the reference, and are taken
in by the seeming harmlessness of the phrase. The helper explained to me
the more usual of them. They open a view into the hideous depths of
heathenism.”
This description was written many years ago. To-day the missionary
historian rejoices to record that there are companies of Chinese hungry
for the news of salvation. In many instances the largest auditoriums in
great cities have proved too small for the throngs which pressed to
attend evangelistic meetings.
The Berlin Society has a staff of thirty-six missionaries in fifteen
main stations. Its baptized Christians number about ten thousand.
The contribution of German Lutherans to mission work in China is not to
be reckoned altogether by figures. Here as elsewhere the Germans have
thoroughly studied the native languages, and have devoted much time to
the writing of grammars and dictionaries and the making of translations
so that the foundation might be well laid. Their labors have been a
benefit to other missionary societies as well as to their own.
SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES.
The _Danish Lutherans_ have a mission in Manchuria which was begun in
1895. Two stations are in the south and one at Harbin. There are
forty-two men and women at work and the number of baptized Christians is
nearly one thousand.
The missionaries appointed at the opening of the work in China visited
on their way the United States and roused interest in many churches of
the United Danish Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which now aids in the
China work of the Fatherland Society.
The _Norwegian Missionary Society_ has six stations in the Hunan
Province, in which there are fifteen hundred church members and one
thousand catechumens.
The _Norwegian Lutheran China Mission_ works in Northern Hupeh with
twenty-nine missionaries and has won about eight hundred and fifty
Christians.
The _Swedish Mission in China_, founded in 1887, labors in
connection with the China Inland Mission, a large and successful
inter-denominational mission, which has more than twenty thousand
communicants. To this work other Swedish societies contribute.
[Sidenote: A Pioneer.] The founding of the Swedish Mission in China was
due to the influence of a visit from Lars Skrefsrud, one of the founders
of the Home Mission to the Santals in India. His burning enthusiasm for
the cause of missions influenced _Erik Folke_ to become in 1887 a
pioneer in China. He studied the Chinese language in the school of the
China Inland Mission and then arranged for the founding of an
independent Swedish Mission, which should, however, work in connection
with the China Inland Mission. Mr. Folke’s fearful experiences during
the Boxer uprising so affected his health that it was necessary that he
should return to Sweden where he serves as president of the Home
Committee.
The field of this Swedish Mission is composed of the parts of the
Provinces of Shensi, Shansi and Honan, which meet at the turn of the
Yellow River from south to east. It numbers almost as many inhabitants
as Sweden. Among the mission institutions are opium refuges where those
afflicted with the opium habit may go for treatment.
[Sidenote: The Swedish Martyrs.] There is a small _Swedish Lutheran
Mission in Mongolia_, begun in 1899 with three missionaries, its station
being at Hallang Osso, eighty-five miles north of Kalgan. This mission
suffered greatly during the Boxer uprising, its three missionaries being
killed. It seemed for a long time that labor in this district was worse
than useless, but a few faithful workers have persisted. Now the three
missionaries who are on the field believe that the harvest will shortly
be gathered.
The Swedish missions have laid many sacrifices upon the altar of the
cause which they love. The total number of Swedes murdered in the Boxer
uprising was about forty, one-third of the whole number of the
westerners who were killed. A number of these were Lutherans. If the
blood of its martyrs is the seed of the Church, there opens for Sweden a
great future in China.
The _Lutheran Gospel Association of Finland_ carries on a mission in
Northern Hupeh with sixteen missionaries in four stations.
AMERICAN SOCIETIES.
[Sidenote: A Generous People.] The _Danish Lutherans_ support, as we
have seen, the mission of their fatherland.
Five American Norwegian Lutheran bodies have missions in China, to which
they contributed in 1915, about $118,000.
_The United Norwegian Lutheran Church_ is at work in the south central
portion of the Province of Honan, where it took over in 1904 several
stations of an independent society. It has now six stations and
forty-nine missionaries. The Christians number about fifteen hundred.
Among the stations are Sinyang, where there are training schools for
native workers and Kioshan where the mission hospital is situated.
_Hauge’s Norwegian Lutheran Synod_ began its work in China in 1891. The
main station is Fan Cheng and the territory lies partly in the Honan and
partly in the Hupeh Province. The field of this mission covers six
thousand square miles and has a population of between three and four
millions. The working force includes twenty-one missionaries, two of
them medical missionaries, and ninety-eight native helpers. The
Christians number twenty-six hundred.
The _Norwegian Synod_ has had a mission in Honan since 1912. Here ten
missionaries are at work in three stations.
The _Norwegian Free Church_ has been at work in Honan since 1915. There
are six missionaries at work in a section the population of which
numbers two million.
The _Norwegian Lutheran Brethren Society_ established its mission in
Honan in 1900. There are fourteen missionaries at work.
[Sidenote: Another Large Field.] The _Augustana Synod_[8] has had since
1905 a mission in the Honan province and now has fourteen men and five
women at work there. The field is in the form of a triangle with one
corner at Hsu-Cheo, one at Nan-Yang-Fu and the third at Honan-Fu. Its
area is about ten thousand square miles, a little less than the State of
Minnesota, with a population ten times as large, that is, about three
million. The province of Honan was one of the last to submit to the
invasion of the missionary and the first missionaries of the Augustana
Synod suffered during their search for a mission field from the feeling
against the foreigner. Their experience is vividly described by their
first missionary, the Rev. Edwins.[9]
Footnote 8:
A part of the General Council.
Footnote 9:
This account is taken from _Our First Decade in China_, published by
the China Board of the Augustana Synod.
[Sidenote: A Perilous Journey.] “To our knowledge no danger threatened
us at any time except on the second day of our journey. Then it happened
that we were attacked at a country village where two of the common
Chinese open-air theatres had attracted a concourse of about two
thousand idle spectators. Through the village street, which was crowded
to the utmost, our clumsy mule carts had to make their way. On seeing
that we were foreigners many in the crowd began to yell out a kind of
unearthly war-whoop. Our drivers were somewhat uneasy and desired to
move on as fast as the dense crowd would make way. The two-wheeled cart
swayed from side to side on the uneven road. A basket of Chinese steamed
bread was upset by a slight collision with one of our carts. The vendor,
a young boy, screamed loudly as his little loaves rolled on the ground
and were snatched up by the thievish bystanders. This episode increased
the commotion. Little by little, however, our carts plowed their way
through the dense mass of surging humanity, and we were soon on the
point of leaving the crowd behind us, but then the mob followed us
hooting and yelling and hurling at us and our mules and vehicles
whatever missiles were at hand. Some of our little company received
heavy blows. The mules pulling the foremost cart stopped and for a
moment it seemed that we must be surrounded, but fortunately our drivers
succeeded in getting the animals started again and by rapid driving we
managed to outdistance the howling mob.”
Provided with a military escort, travelling by another route and aided
by the workers of the China Inland Mission, the Americans selected their
field. To-day thirty-two missionaries are preaching and teaching. Two
hospitals and a school for the blind have been established. In 1915 the
Synod contributed $40,000 to this work.
[Sidenote: Co-operation a Reality.] Recently all the Lutheran Missions
in Central China united in a co-operative plan of educational work,
which it is expected will result in economy and efficiency. A union
theological seminary was established at Shekow in Hupeh Province near
Hankow and a union college, a union publishing house, and a union
periodical are under consideration. In the words of a Lutheran
missionary historian: “Co-operation is not only a watchword but an
established reality in the Lutheran missions of China; and thus the
foreign missions of our American Lutheran Church excel the home churches
in wisdom and working efficiency.”
[Sidenote: The Heart of China.] The opportunities of the Lutheran Church
in Central China are set forth in _Our First Decade in China_. “It will
appear in looking at the map of China and noting the important position
that the Lutheran Church holds geographically, that God has meant her to
be a dominating force in new China. He has entrusted to her the very
heart of China. The Lutheran Church occupies in the central provinces
territory equal to all of Illinois and Iowa and half of Wisconsin, or as
large as the whole of New England plus New York, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Delaware and half of Maryland. In this territory she is
ministering to a population of fifty million souls.”
[Sidenote: The Work of a Century.] A hundred years have passed since
Robert Morrison, the English missionary, baptized his first convert and
recorded in his diary. “At a spring of water issuing from the foot of a
lofty hill, by the seaside, away from human observation, I baptized him
in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.... May he be the first
fruits of a great harvest.” To-day there are in China over five thousand
foreign missionaries, seventeen thousand native workers and two hundred
and thirty-five thousand communicant members of the Protestant Church.
Of these about ten per cent. are Lutherans.
JAPAN.
[Sidenote: The Land.] Japan proper consists of four large islands, Yezo,
Hondo, Shikoku and Kyushu and about three thousand smaller islands. In
the northern part the climate is severe, in the southern part
semi-tropical. From north to south through the center of the large
islands runs a long line of volcanic mountains whose highest peaks are
still active. From this high ridge the land slopes gradually to either
shore. Only about one-tenth can be cultivated, an area which is equal to
about one-tenth of the State of California. From this soil about
fifty-three million persons draw their sustenance.
[Sidenote: The Religion.] Like the Chinese, the Japanese selects his
religion from among three great religions, Shintoism, Buddhism and
Confucianism. Like the Chinese he frequently thinks it well to mix the
three. If he is a Confucianist, he is thoroughly trained in the rules
which govern man’s relation to the State and to his fellow man; if he is
a Buddhist, he learns self-control and self discipline in order that he
may at the last become absorbed into a vague impersonal deity; if he is
a Shintoist he worships the rulers and his ancestors.
[Sidenote: The Japanese a Lover of Beauty and a Fatalist.] The Japanese
is intensely patriotic and invariably civil and courteous. His love of
beauty finds expression in almost every detail of his life, his
practical ability needs no further proof than the adaptation of the
nation’s millions to its circumscribed area. His life is happy; but the
volcanic eruptions, numerous earthquakes, dreadful tidal waves which
bring to his lips a patient smile and a fatalistic word “No help for it”
must stir in the depths of his human heart other feelings, however
unexpressed of terror and dismay. To him, so far lifted above many other
non-Christians but lacking the chief thing, the Christian’s God offers
peace for terror and assurance for dismay.
SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES.
There is but one European Lutheran Society in Japan, the _Lutheran
Gospel Association_ of _Finland_, which has six men and three women in
its field northwest of Tokyo, where it began to work in 1902.
AMERICAN SOCIETIES.
[Sidenote: “Kyushu Gakuin.”] The mission of the _United Synod in the
South_ was begun in 1892. It has met with the difficulties and obstacles
common to all young enterprises and is now well-established. Its chief
stations are in Saga, a city of thirty-five thousand, in Kumamoto, a
city of sixty-five thousand and in Fukuoka, which, together with its
twin city Hakata has a population of eighty thousand. The island of
Kyushu upon which these cities lie is densely populated, and there is an
average of only one Protestant Christian to over one thousand of the
people. In the city of Kumamoto is located the educational institution
of the United Synod and the only Lutheran educational institution in
Japan, called Kyushu Gakuin, which consists of a middle school and a
theological department for the training of native workers. Here almost
six hundred boys and young men are being educated, who are but a small
part of those who would gladly come if there were larger accommodations.
The work among the little children in Sunday schools and kindergartens
meets with hearty support at home, a work whose joys it is easy to
comprehend. The United Synod has at work four missionary families and
two single women. Its baptized membership is over six hundred.
[Sidenote: Candidates for Chris-tian Work.] The second American Lutheran
body to enter Japan was the _Danish Synod_ which established itself in
1898 in the same neighborhood, its chief station being at Kurume. At
Kurume it has a baptized membership of one hundred and forty four. From
this congregation ten young men have during the last few years offered
themselves for training in Christian work. The Danes send to the school
at Kumamoto a resident professor, the _Rev. J. M. T. Winther_, who is a
highly efficient teacher.
[Sidenote: A Student Dormitory.] The last of the American Lutherans to
establish a mission in Japan was the _General Council_, which in 1908
began work in Tokyo, the chief city of the Empire. It has now a second
station at Nagoya. Besides its preaching and educational work the
mission conducts a dormitory for students who come to Tokyo to attend
the university. It is hoped by means of Christian influence and by the
Christian services which these young men are required to attend to win
many. There are two missionary families in residence and a baptized
membership of twenty-eight. The General Council maintains a professor in
the school at Kumamoto and contributes at present a third of the running
expenses of the school.
One of the many happy features of Lutheran work in Japan is the friendly
co-operation of the three American Boards. It is the intention of them
and their missionaries to build up a single, united Japanese Church.
Freely aiding one another, all lending their services to the building up
of the school in Kumamoto, they are directed by a common conference and
their financial matters are managed by a single treasurer.
[Sidenote: The Christian Church in Japan.] In the words of a missionary
of the United Synod in the South, “Every indication points to the
ultimate success of the Church in Japan. Only lethargy and unbelief can
rob her of the victory.... The leaven of Christ’s Gospel has been
working in Japanese society for half a century, and under its influence
the whole lump is gradually undergoing a subtle change. There are higher
ideals of social and civic righteousness; different conceptions of
responsibility toward the weak; a growing consciousness of sin, which
never existed before; dissatisfaction with present religious and moral
conditions; an impelling desire to progress along the lines of the
highest material and spiritual development of the west.... A learned
professor in the Imperial University, himself a non-Christian, has said:
‘Buddhism can never again control the thought of Japan; Christianity
will rule the life of New Japan.’”
THE EAST INDIES.
[Sidenote: Where Every Prospect Pleases.] Southeast of India lies a
group of large islands known by the name of East Indies. These are
colonial possessions of Holland. Their population numbering thirty-eight
million is divided among various tribes of the Malay race whose
character is as varied as that of the different tribes of Africa. The
land is rich and its products many, among them sugar-cane, coffee, rice,
spices and all varieties of tropical fruits. Many sections are covered
with forests of valuable timber.
There are Lutheran missionaries on the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Nias,
Java and on the group to the west of Sumatra, which are called the Batoe
Islands.
[Sidenote: Borneo.] On the fertile and beautiful Island of Borneo the
_Rhenish Society_[10] has had its missionaries for eighty years.
Beginning along the southeast coast, the missionaries pushed gradually
into the interior by way of the rivers. The Dyaks among whom they
labored were the fiercest of savages and “head hunters.” Finally eight
stations were established and the future appeared bright, when in 1859
during a rebellion of the Malays against their Dutch rulers, the Dyaks
became involved. In the struggle which ensued, all the inland stations
were destroyed and seven of the missionaries were murdered. In a few
years the work was recommenced. To-day there are eighteen missionaries
and the native church numbers about three thousand five hundred.
Footnote 10:
It should be remembered that the Rhenish Society is largely but not
entirely Lutheran.
[Sidenote: Sumatra--A Great Achieve-ment.] For more than fifty years,
since 1861, the Rhenish Society has conducted a mission in the island of
Sumatra. The larger part of the population is Mohammedan, but in the
interior there are tribes who still retain their primitive religion.
Among these tribes are the Bataks, who have a speech and written
characters of their own. Once cannibals, they had been before the advent
of the Rhenish Missionary Society the object of evangelizing work which
had failed. In spite of constant danger the early missionaries continued
faithful. The annals of missions have scarcely anywhere a greater
victory to record. There is now a well organized church partly
self-supporting. Thirty Batak native preachers have been ordained and
work is carried on at forty-one main stations and five hundred
out-stations. Twenty-seven thousand five hundred Batak children are
being educated in five hundred schools. There is a training school for
native preachers, a hospital, a leper asylum and a large industrial
school. The Christian community numbers about one hundred and fifty
thousand.
[Sidenote: The Work of Deaconesses.] During the last twenty years the
Rhenish Society has sent out deaconesses to take special charge of the
work among women. They manage the girls’ schools, teach and give Bible
lessons to married and unmarried women and try in every way to further
the development of their own sex.
Not only have the Rhenish missionaries won a large harvest from among
the Bataks, but they are winning also many converts from among the
Mohammedans, a much more difficult task.
The effect of the Christian religion is described in a letter from a
Rhenish missionary in Sumatra.
[Sidenote: A Land Transformed.] “What a difference between now and
thirteen years ago! Then everything was unsafe; no one dared to go half
an hour’s distance from his village; war, robbery, piracy and slavery
reigned everywhere. Now there is a free, active Christian life, and
churches full of attentive hearers. The faith of our young Christians is
seen in their deeds. They have renounced idolatrous customs; they visit
the sick, and pray with them; they go to their enemies and make
conciliation with them. This has often made a powerful impression on the
heathen, because they saw that the Christians could do what was
impossible to heathen--they could forgive injuries. Many heathen have
been so overcome by this conduct of the Christians that they came to us
and said: ‘The Lord Jesus has conquered.’”
The failure of Mohammedanism to meet the deep need of the human soul is
shown in another letter from a Rhenish missionary in the same field.
[Sidenote: In the Last Hour.] “Here I must make mention of the faithful
Asenath, whom on the last day of the old year we committed to the bosom
of the earth. After an illness patiently endured for two years she felt
her end approaching. As the last provision for her way she wished yet
once more to enjoy the Holy Supper. I administered it to her in her
roomy house before a large assemblage. As I was about to give her the
bread she said, ‘Let me first pray.’ And now the woman, who for weeks
had not been able to sit upright, straightened herself up, and prayed
for fully ten minutes, as if she would fain pray away every earthly care
out of her heart. I have seldom heard a woman pray in such wise.
Thereupon she received the sacred elements. The next day I found with
her a Mohammedan chieftain, who on taking leave wished her health and
long life. ‘What say you?’ she replied, ‘after that I have no further
longing. My wish is now to go to heaven, to my Lord. Death has no longer
any terrors for me.’ Astonished, the Mohammedan replied: ‘Such language
is strange to us. We shrink and cower before death, and therefore use
every means possible to recover and live long.’
[Sidenote: The Beams of a Living Hope.] “Even so I think of our James,
whose only son died. When at the funeral I pressed his hand, with some
words of comfort, he said: ‘Only do not suppose that I murmur and
complain. All that God does to me, is good and wholesome for me. I shall
hereafter find my son again in life eternal.’ So vanish little by little
the comfortless wailings of heathenism; the beams of a living hope
penetrate the pangs and the terrors of death, as the beams of the sun
the clouds of the night. And, as the hopelessness of heathenism is
disappearing, so is also its implacability. When Christians contend, and
at the Communion I say to them: ‘Give each other your hands’, often they
say: ‘Nature is against it; but how can I withstand the graciousness of
my Saviour?’ Such words are not seldom heard. And am I not well entitled
to hope, that they, as a great gift of my God, warrant a confident hope
in the final and glorious victory of the Prince of Life, and of his
great and righteous cause?”
[Sidenote: Nias.] On the Island of Nias and in some of the lesser
islands, the Rhenish missionaries have been at work since 1865. Here
there are about a quarter of a million inhabitants who are racially
related to the Bataks. Persisting through many years with but a few
baptisms, the missionaries were finally rewarded. There are now thirteen
stations with eighteen thousand Christians. The number of inquiries is
greatest in those portions of the island where heathenism is the least
broken, and the whole island seems to be open to the Gospel.
The Rhenish missionaries have in all in Malaysia Christian communities
whose total inhabitants number one hundred and sixty-five thousand, of
whom seventy-five thousand are church members. It is a rule of the
Rhenish society to exercise the greatest care in baptizing converts so
that only those shall be accepted who are worthy and who understand the
step which they are taking.
[Sidenote: Java.] The beautiful Island of Java to the Southeast of
Sumatra has been called Holland’s treasure house. Though the island has
been under Christian control for three centuries the results of mission
work do not make a very large showing. The largest of the Protestant
Christian societies at work is the German _Neukirchen Mission_ which has
eleven principal stations, with twenty-nine workers. Java is inhabited
chiefly by Mohammedans who have here a university and who have issued
the Koran in the Javanese language. These Mohammedans are more willing
to listen to the Gospel teaching than those in many other parts of the
world.
[Sidenote: The Batoe Islands.] On the Batoe Islands south of Nias, a
Dutch Lutheran Missionary Society has a station with two missionaries
and five hundred Christians.
AUSTRALIA.
[Sidenote: The Destruction of the Native Australians.] Originally the
continent of Australia was occupied by Papuans, who have been gradually
exterminated or driven into reservations. The history of the Australian
native affords a record of injustice and almost incredible cruelty. The
first foreign settlers were a band of criminals quartered there by
England; then as the richness of the country became known, there arrived
other settlers who with almost unthinkable barbarity dispossessed and
murdered the natives, shooting them down like beasts, poisoning them in
crowds, so that to-day the great expanse of Australia has within it not
more than fifty-five thousand Papuans.
This little remnant is cared for by the government and to it go
missionaries of various denominations, among them those of the
_Neuendettelsau Mission_ which has two stations, one at Elim-Hope in
Queensland and another at Bethesda in South Australia. The Australian
Immanuel Synod which is composed of Germans living in Australia has a
station at New Hermannsburg in South Australia.
NEW GUINEA.
[Sidenote: Success Amid Danger.] In 1886 the _Neuendettelsau Society_
began to work in New Guinea. There in Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land, which is a
German protectorate, it has four stations. The climate is dangerous, the
language difficult to learn, and the various tribes at enmity with one
another. Nevertheless the first fruits have been gathered, so that in
1909, three thousand six hundred Christians were reported. Thirty-five
missionaries are on the field.
To the work of this mission the _Lutheran Synod of Iowa_ contributes.
In _Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land_ there is also a mission of the Rhenish
Society, which has three stations round Astrolabe Bay.
LUTHERANS IN THE NEAR EAST.
[Sidenote: An Untilled Field.] “The Mohammedan world, which extends over
the whole of North Africa, part of southeast Europe, and from Arabia and
Asia Minor, through Persia as far as China and the Dutch East Indies,
and which numbers one hundred and ninety-six million five thousand
adherents, is still almost entirely closed against the Gospel. This is
true not only where there is Mohammedan rule, and where conversion to
Christianity is by direction of the Koran punished with death, but also
in the Christian colonial dominions of British and Dutch India. Missions
to Mohammedans are carried on by societies and individuals, but
considerable congregations have nowhere yet been formed from the
confessors of Islam with the single exception of those in Java and
Sumatra.... Besides Mohammedan fanaticism, a special hindrance which has
to be reckoned with is the unfortunate connection of religion with
politics. Not only are the Mohammedan governments inspired with the
greatest distrust towards evangelical missionaries, as if they were the
instigators of sedition, but missions are also impeded by the political
jealousy of the Christian powers.”
Thus wrote Doctor Warneck, the great Lutheran historian of missions in
1902! He went on to speak of the policies of Russia, England and
Germany, which jealously forbade the touching of Turkey. The good man is
no longer living--what would be his emotions if he could look in 1917
upon the Near East and the confusion which political jealousy has
wrought!
[Illustration: OFFICERS AND TEACHERS OF LUTHERAN SUNDAY SCHOOL, NEW
AMSTERDAM, BRITISH GUIANA.]
[Illustration: ITUNI SCHOOL IN SCHOOL ROOM WHICH IS ALSO THE CHURCH.]
[Illustration: SOME INDIAN MEMBERS OF ITUNI CONGREGATION.]
The Lutheran Church has made but little effort either to revive the
ancient Christian churches of the East, or to convert the Mohammedans.
The most ambitious plans were those of the Basel Society whose leader,
Christian Frederic Spittler, dreamed of an apostolic road from Jerusalem
to Gondar in Abyssinia. The early work of the Basel Society in Russia
and Persia was ended by imperial command.
[Sidenote: A Lutheran Orphanage.] Among the various German missionary
enterprises in Palestine which draw a large part of their support from
Lutheran sources, is the _Syrian Orphanage_ outside Jerusalem, which for
sixty-six years has been training children in useful trades. Here
carpentry, joinery, printing, tailoring, shoe-making, blacksmithing and
brick-making are taught. Its founder was _Pastor Schneller_, at whose
death it was continued by his son. Now more than two hundred boys are
enrolled, many of whom are confirmed in the Lutheran Church. A few years
ago a school for the blind was added which received both boys and girls,
who are taught basket-weaving, chair and brush-making.
Another German enterprise which is partly Lutheran is the _German Orient
Mission_ founded in 1895. From its printing press at Philipopolis it has
issued translations of the New Testament and other religious literature
into Turkish. Two Turks who were converted were compelled to take refuge
in Germany.
The _German Jerusalem Union_ has been at work since 1852. Its chief care
is for the German churches in Palestine, but it conducts also mission
work in the old Christian Arab population.
The _German Jerusalem Association_ was founded in 1889 for the benefit
of the German Evangelical congregation in Jerusalem. This is in no sense
a missionary enterprise, but the fact that it is supported and
authorized by the German government gives importance to all the German
Lutheran work in Palestine. In 1898 the German Emperor and Empress were
present at the dedication of the Church of the Redeemer, supported by
this organization. This church building stands within the walls of the
city not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
[Sidenote: The Work of Deaconesses.] Schools and hospitals at Jerusalem,
Beirut, Constantinople and Cairo are supported and conducted by the
_Kaiserswerth Deaconesses_, who for sixty years have labored in the
East. The last report gave one hundred and twenty-eight as the number
actively engaged.
The _Danish Lutherans_ have small stations in Syria, Asia Minor and
Arabia.
The _Church of Sweden_ conducts a hospital in Bethlehem.
The only direct work by American Lutherans for the Near East is done
through the small _Intersynodical Orient Mission Society_ of the
American Norwegians, Swedes and Germans, whose field is Kurdistan. The
_Joint Synod of Ohio_ supports a missionary in Persia, a vast and
uncultivated field, where there is one missionary to two hundred and
twenty-one thousand of the population. There has also been another
Lutheran Society at work, the Syro-Chaldean.
[Sidenote: A Lutheran Scholar.] It is doubtful whether all other
enterprises for the conversion of the Jews have equalled in bulk or
importance the work of a Lutheran, _Dr. Franz Delitzsch_, one of the
most celebrated scholars of his time, who was born in 1813, and who died
in Leipsic in 1890. His greatest devotion was given to mission work for
the Jews, and for them he translated the New Testament into Hebrew. The
first chapters appeared in 1838; by 1888 eighty thousand copies had been
published. Though to millions of Jews the languages of the countries in
which they sojourned had become familiar, yet to them religion and
religious instruction could be given in no other tongue than the sacred
Hebrew to which they were accustomed.
Doctor Delitzsch’s translation was not the first which had been made,
but like Luther’s translation of the Bible into German it far surpassed
in accuracy and literary value all that had gone before.
On account of his close friendship with the fathers of the Missouri
Lutherans in this country, Doctor Delitzsch’s name is a familiar one to
a large part of the American Church.
Beside his translation of the New Testament he contributed many other
works to Hebrew literature, tracts upon various subjects, commentaries,
and a monthly journal.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI.
Lutheran Foreign Missions on Western Continent
SOUTH AMERICA
PORTO RICO
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
ALASKA
THE AMERICAN NEGRO
CONCLUSION.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER VI.
LUTHERAN FOREIGN MISSIONS ON THE WESTERN CONTINENT
SOUTH AMERICA.
[Sidenote: The Land.] To a large proportion of the Americans who are
interested in missions Asia and Africa are better known than the great
continent of South America which lies so much nearer. Of the physical
features of South America it is necessary to speak in superlative terms.
Here is the largest river in the world, the Amazon, with thirty thousand
miles of navigable waterway, here are the densest forests, here is the
greatest mountain range. The continent is five thousand miles long and
at its broadest point, three thousand miles wide. Its long coast line
offers splendid harbors; its interior table lands abundant minerals and
metals and a fertile soil.
For many centuries the Indian held South America for his own. Unmolested
from without, troubled only by quarrels with his neighbors, he lived and
died for the most in slothful ignorance.
[Sidenote: The First Immigrants.] This quiet was interrupted when the
Spaniards and Portuguese took possession of the country by right of
conquest. Once opened to the world, the continent became the destination
of thousands of settlers, not only from Spain and Portugal but from
other European nations, many of whom built up large fortunes. The
relation between them and the natives is described by R. J. Hunt. “Some
of the early colonists were of a friendly disposition, and treated the
natives kindly, much in the same way as they did their horses or their
dogs; others, with a high sense of honor, were just and considerate to
the aboriginees; a fair percentage of them, especially those in the
wild, remote districts, freely mingled with the natives and married one
or more of their women; but the great majority looked upon the natives
with suspicion and distrust if not with abhorrence.
[Sidenote: The Opening of the Country.] “With the influx of immigrants
and the natural increase of the descendants of the pioneers came the
growth of trade, the extension of agricultural pursuits, and the opening
of mines. There came simultaneously the desire for independence and the
consequent rise of republics with a demand for progress and a clear
determination of territorial bounds. Railways were opened in various
directions, the great rivers were supplied with steamers, trade was
increased, companies were formed and numerous interests started. For
scientific and commercial purposes expeditions up the great waterways
and across the trackless plains were organized and carried out with
varying success; but even to-day there remain vast regions unknown and
unexplored except by the red Indians.”[11]
Footnote 11:
_Missionary Review of the World_, July 1911.
[Illustration: LUTHERAN CHAPEL, MONACILLO, PORTO RICO, WITH TWO
MISSIONARIES AND TWO NATIVE WORKERS.]
[Illustration: PORTO RICAN HUT WITH MISS MELLANDER AND THREE MEMBERS OF
CHURCH AT PALO SECO.]
[Sidenote: The Darkness of South America.] In spite of the fact that its
ten political divisions are republics, and that it has produced men of
distinguished rank as scientists and scholars, South America is on the
whole a land of dense ignorance, not only among the Indian population
but among the mixed or pure descendants of the European settlers. In
spiritual things the ignorance is tenfold increased. Of the hundreds of
tribes of Indians, many have never heard the Gospel, and to only ten
millions of the population has it been presented in any intelligible
form. Rome, which has claimed South America for its own has done little
to raise the natives from their degraded condition or to enlighten their
darkness, and has opposed most bitterly the spread of the pure Gospel
among them. The priests declare that the Protestant Bible is an immoral
book which will do great harm to him who reads, and make every effort to
destroy all the copies which they can find. Nor do they offer their own
version. Doctor Robert Speer is reported to have said that visiting
seventy of the largest cathedrals in South America, he could find but
one Bible, and that a Protestant version, about to be burned. Of the
religious condition, Doctor Warneck says, “The Catholicism is of a kind
that, according to even Catholic testimonies, is more heathen than
Christian. There are many crosses but no word of the Cross; many saints,
but no followers of Christ.”
Against the domination of the Catholic Church the most intelligent of
the population have rebelled and men especially have ceased to believe
in the priests or their teaching. May they upon leaving the old find
true guides into new and better things!
[Sidenote: The Population.] The latest statistics give the following as
population of South America:
Whites 18,000,000
Indians 17,000,000
Negroes 6,000,000
Mixed White and Indian 30,000,000
Mixed White and Negro 8,000,000
Mixed Negro and Indian 700,000
East Indian, Japanese and 300,000
Chinese
----------
A total of 80,000,000
Since South America offers vast resources in a sparsely settled country,
its population will unquestionably increase rapidly by immigration.
[Sidenote: The Roman Catholic Church in South America.] Recent activity
on the part of the Protestants in the interest of the nominal Christians
of South America has roused much opposition among Roman Catholics. Among
Protestants themselves the question has been debated with an earnest
desire to see the right and wrong of this problem. To this question Dr.
Robert Speer has given the following reasons for his belief that such
mission work is legitimate and necessary. (1) The moral condition of
South America warrants and demands the presence of the force of
evangelical religion in a country where from one-fourth to one-half of
the births are illegitimate and where male chastity is unknown. (2) The
Protestant missionary enterprise with its stimulus to education and its
appeal to the rational nature of man is required by the intellectual
needs of South America. (3) Protestant missions are justified in order
to give the Bible to South America. (4) Protestant missions are
justified by the character of the Roman Catholic priesthood. (5) The
Roman Church has not given the people Christianity. It offers them a
dead man, not a living Saviour. (6) The Catholic Church has steadily
lost ground; the priests are reviled and derided; religion is abandoned
by men to priests and women. (7) Protestant missions may inspire and
compel self-cleansing in the South American Catholic Church. (8) Only
the Protestant religion, free from superstition, reformed, Scriptural,
apostolic, can meet the needs of South America.
The missionary occupation of South America has been small; indeed no
country has so low a percentage of missionaries. It is said that in any
of the ten countries a missionary could have a city and a dozen of towns
for his parish. In some of the countries he could have one or two
provinces without touching any other evangelical worker.
As Lutheran missionaries in the person of Ziegenbalg and Plütschau were
the first to enter India; as Peter Heiling, a Lutheran, was the first to
enter Africa, so the Lutheran missionary Justinian von Welz, of whose
stirring appeal to the Church we have told in Chapter I, entered South
America, where in Surinam he died in 1668. It gives us at least some
small comfort to realize that of all the South American countries
Surinam is to-day the most thoroughly evangelized, even though it is the
Moravian and not the Lutheran Church which has done the work. After the
time of Justinian von Welz we search in vain for Lutheran missions in
South America for many years.
[Sidenote: German Lutherans in South America.] Among the emigrants to
South America have been large numbers of Germans. For these the Church
at home has cared so that there are many well-established Lutheran
congregations. Here and there these congregations have undertaken a
little missionary work among the natives, but there has been no
organized effort for their evangelization as in the case of Africa and
Asia.
[Sidenote: North American Lutherans in South America.] American
Lutherans have one mission in South America, that of the _General Synod_
in New Amsterdam in British Guiana, a colony with a population of about
three hundred thousand of which about four thousand are Europeans, the
remainder East Indians, negroes and native Indians. In 1743 Dutch and
German Lutherans founded here a Lutheran church which continued for a
hundred years. Then, the congregation having fallen away, service was
discontinued. The property consisted of a beautiful old church, a church
house and parsonage, a good deal of valuable land and an endowment of
twenty thousand dollars. In 1878 the church was again opened and the
Rev. John R. Mittelholzer became its pastor, and the congregation united
with the General Synod.
The Missouri Synod has eighty-three congregations among the Germans in
Brazil and Argentina, a theological seminary and many schools. Some of
its pastors work among the Portugese speaking natives.
Of various recent plans for Lutheran work in South America it is still
too soon to speak.
The appeal of South America to the Lutheran Church is thus expressed by
those who have studied the subject.
“Among the population of South America German and Scandinavian Lutherans
are present in larger proportion than the members of any other
Protestant denomination.
[Sidenote: Has the Lutheran Church an Opportunity in South America? ]
“In Montevideo, Uruguay, there is a colony of five hundred German
families. In Bolivia, there are also many of our people. In Chile there
are eighty thousand Germans. They are numerous in Bogota and
Barronquilla, Colombia, and in Guatemala, where Roman priests are
prosecuted and Protestant ministers welcomed by those in authority. In
Brazil, which is 220,000 square miles larger than the entire United
States, the _Statesman’s Year Book_ declares that there are one million
Germans, besides many Scandinavians. In Paraguay, President Schierer is
a German, and there are at least two hundred thousand of our people. In
fact, there is not a State or island of this vast domain where our
people are not found as sheep without a shepherd. They occupy prominent
and influential positions in government, and are dominant in the
business world. Once interested, they would furnish the means and the
men to care for our own, and extend the work among the intellectuals,
the peons, the Indians, and the negroes of Latin America. Our Lutheran
Church has the largest opportunity, consequently the greatest
obligation, of all the Protestant Churches in these southern lands.”
PORTO RICO.
In Porto Rico, where many of the conditions of South America are
repeated on a much smaller scale, nine Protestant churches are at work.
Since the island is under the control of the United States, missions
have no political opposition to meet. Here, as in South America, the
natives have many crosses but no true cross, many saints but few true
believers in Christ. A missionary relates a discussion between two
members of the native church, one of whom worshiped the Virgin who was
supposed to dwell at Lourdes, another a Virgin who dwelt at some other
shrine. Of Christ they knew nothing.
Here the _General Council_ has had a mission since 1899. It has in all
nine congregations and twelve stations with more than five hundred
communicant members. Among its stations are Catano, San Juan and Bayamon
where it owns fine church properties and has excellent parochial
schools. In Catano there is a kindergarten in connection with the
parochial school to which Miss May Mellander has given years of devoted
service. In Catano the missionaries instruct native teachers.
The experience of the General Council in Porto Rico has been that of all
workers in Latin America. They have discovered that the Roman Catholic
Church has lost its hold on the people and that thousands are longing
for a better way.
THE AMERICAN INDIAN.
The American Indian was so called, as we know, from the fact that the
discoverers of this continent supposed they had reached the eastern
coast of India. Indians belong to one race, though they call themselves
by many different tribal names. How large their number was before the
advent of the white man it is impossible to tell; now, greatly
diminished by wars among themselves, by oppression, by diseases brought
from abroad and especially by the white man’s brandy, they number about
three hundred thousand. Of these the majority live in reservations
appointed to them by the government of the United States whose later
policy has been to care for them with such thoroughness that for most of
them independent development is difficult. It is reckoned that among the
three hundred thousand about ninety-two thousand are Christians. These
are reliable, sober and settled. Almost none of the Indians educated in
the Christian schools return to the habits of their forefathers.
The work of the Lutheran Church among the Indians began, as we have
seen, in the Swedish settlement along the Delaware River. In Georgia the
work of the Salzburgers was closed by the removal of the Indians, an
almost inevitable consummation in the days when the Indians were
constantly shifting in flight or by compulsion from place to place. The
Rev. J. C. Hartwig, one of the pioneer ministers of the American
Lutheran Church who died in 1796 left his property, amounting to about
seventeen thousand dollars for the establishing of a training school
(Hartwick Seminary) for ministers and missionaries. He had in mind
especially missionaries who should work among the American Indians. The
school was established and when application was made to the government
to begin work among the Indians of Otsego County, New York, President
Washington answered that a special act of Congress would be required
before permission could be given.
Among the unconverted Indians the Lutheran Church is at work in various
places to-day.
The _Norwegian Synod_ has had a mission among the Winnebago Indians in
Wisconsin since 1885. For its support they contributed in 1915, $6,000.
Here also _Elling’s Synod_ of the Norwegian Church has a mission.
In Arizona the _Missouri Synod_ has a mission.
In Arizona the _Wisconsin Synod_ has four mission stations--at Globe, a
town of about eight thousand inhabitants, at Peridot on the San Carlos
Indian Reservation, at East Fork, and at Cibecue. The community at East
Fork has been recently visited with serious epidemics, but the
twenty-five children in the Lutheran school all survived and were able
to return. The village of Cibecue lies far from the railroad and the
Indians there have not been affected by the vices of civilization. Here
it was not possible during the last year to receive all the children who
came.
The _Danish Synod_ has been at work in Oklahoma since 1892. It
contributed in 1915, $2,500 to this mission.
ALASKA.
Alaska is the name given to the northwestern corner of North America
which was bought by the United States from Russia in 1867. Its area is
about five hundred and ninety thousand square miles and is equal to that
of all the northern States east of the Mississippi with the addition of
Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The population in 1890
was sixty-three thousand, of whom twenty-five thousand were Indians and
Esquimaux. The natives are superstitious and devoted to the worship of
departed spirits. Though the North of Alaska is uninhabitable, the South
has a temperate Summer.
Here the _Norwegian Synod_ began missionary work in 1894 at Port
Clarence. The mission was begun in buildings furnished by the United
States government, which had suggested the undertaking. The first
missionary, the _Rev. T. L. Brevig_, not only served the colony of
Norwegians and Lapps, but went promptly to work among the native
Esquimaux.
The _Synod of Wisconsin_ has four or five ordained ministers in Alaska.
THE AMERICAN NEGRO.
The _American Negro_ offers to the American Christian Church one of its
most pressing responsibilities. Brought to this country against his
will, held for many years in slavery in which independent development
was out of the question, then by political necessity given in addition
to his freedom the right to help govern the country in which he had been
a slave, he has furnished for himself and for the white race a problem
like no other problem in the world.
Before the Civil War the Christianization of the negro was carried on by
pious individuals, many of them slave-holders and by various churches.
There were in 1860 before the outbreak of the war about half a million
negro Christians, belonging chiefly to the Baptist and Methodist
churches. This number has increased until to-day a conservative estimate
would fix the number of Christian negroes at seven and a half million.
Another motive than the desire to win the negro for the kingdom of God
has entered into much of the philanthropic work undertaken by the white
race. This is the realization of the menace to the State from so large
an uneducated, uncivilized and alien race within it.
That the negro is capable of profiting by education and capable of
becoming a valuable citizen is proved in many ways, not the least
remarkable of which is his progress in religious matters. It is said
that no other people give a larger percentage of their earnings to
religious work. Over eight per cent of the total wealth of the negro
church is vested in its church properties. Late reports mention four
large publishing houses which issue only negro church literature. All
the important negro churches now maintain home and foreign missionary
departments, which contribute over $50,000 a year to foreign missions,
over $100,000 to home missions, employ two hundred missionaries and give
aid to three hundred and fifty needy churches.
The conditions which make it imperative that the American should raise
his negro associate are expressed by Booker Washington. “When I was a
boy I was the champion fighter of my town. I used to love to hold the
boys down in the ditch and hear them yell. When I grew older, I found
that I could not hold another boy down in the ditch without staying
there with him. Nor can any race hold another down in the ditch without
staying down in the ditch with it. Those white Christians who fear the
rise of the negro to intellectual and material independence may put
their fear aside if they give him with education the Christian
religion.”
The early Lutheran pastors in America showed a practical interest in the
spiritual welfare of the negroes. In 1704, the Rev. Justus Falckner
baptized the daughter of negroes who were members of the first Lutheran
congregation in New York. The beautiful prayer which he made upon this
occasion has been recorded.
“Lord, merciful God, Thou who regardeth not the persons of men, but, in
every nation, he that feareth Thee and doeth right is accepted before
Thee; clothe this child with the white garment of innocence and
righteousness, and let it so remain, through Jesus Christ, the Redeemer
and Saviour of all men.”
The Rev. Dr. John Bachman, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church,
Charleston, South Carolina, had many negroes in his congregation. He
sent to Gettysburg Seminary, Daniel Payne, a colored man who afterwards
became a bishop of the African Methodist Church.
The Lutheran Church is represented in work for negroes by the _Synodical
Conference_, which is composed of the synods of Missouri, Wisconsin,
Minnesota, Michigan and Nebraska, and various smaller bodies. It
resolved in 1877 to take up work among the negroes, its first missionary
being the Rev. J. F. Doescher, who began his activity at a missionary
gathering at New Wells, Missouri. Travelling through Arkansas,
Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, he
preached wherever he could find opportunity, in cities and villages and
also on large plantations. His work was continued by other missionaries
and by the Lutheran churches near by. In 1914 there were forty-six
preaching places served by forty-nine laborers, thirty-one of whom are
colored. The total membership of baptized Christians was two thousand
four hundred and thirty four.
As early as possible in the history of this work it was determined to
educate young men to be preachers and teachers and young women to be
teachers in the colored mission. The first promising boys were sent to
Springfield, Illinois, to be trained. In 1903, Immanuel College, the
first colored Lutheran college was established in Greensboro, North
Carolina. Beginning in a school house, the college is now at home in a
large stone building which was dedicated in 1907. In New Orleans the
Mission supports Luther College. To both of these institutions women are
admitted. The six women graduates from the Teacher’s Course of Luther
College and the eight women graduates from the Teacher’s Course of
Immanuel College have given the mission valuable service as teachers.
In the thirty-five years of its history the Synodical Conference has
raised $525,000 for the work of the colored mission. About $30,000 of
this sum has been raised by the colored churches themselves. The annual
expenses of the mission work are now about $30,000 per year. To its
funds the _Norwegian Synod_ contributes.
The _Joint Synod of Ohio_ became interested in the work for negroes in
1890, when the first colored pastor was received into its membership and
a committee was appointed to take charge of the work. Until 1911 the
undertaking was limited to one small congregation in Baltimore, then an
advance was made in the establishing of a mission school and the
securing of candidates for the ministry. In 1915 activity was extended
into the heart of the South and work was begun in Jackson, Mississippi.
A desirable church property has been secured and a parochial school is
conducted. In 1916 a school was established in Prattville, Alabama. In
all there are about one hundred confirmed members, two hundred children
in three parochial schools, one superintendent, one colored pastor and
three teachers.
CONCLUSION.
A study of Lutheran or other missions would be a vain and useless
undertaking if it did not leave the student with his eyes upon the
future instead of upon the past, if it did not in the light of what
others have done show him his own duty toward the millions still
untouched. As a work of individuals, Christian missions may truly be
said to be a magnificent accomplishment; as a work of great
denominational bodies of Christians the result is small. The adding of
figure to figure may seem to produce enormous totals. As we have added
the seventy thousand Christians of the Gossner mission in India, the
twenty thousand of the Basel mission, the fifty thousand of the American
Lutheran mission and others until we had a total of two hundred and
sixteen thousand Indian Lutheran Christians, we have said to ourselves
that the work was well begun. When the total number of Protestant
Christians in India has been estimated at three million five hundred
thousand we have felt a thrill of pride. But India has a population of
three hundred million! Truly our beginning is small! In Africa the
Protestant Christians number about one million seven hundred thousand;
and the population one hundred and eighty million; in South America the
Protestant Christians number two hundred thousand and the population
eighty million! China, Japan, the vast Mohammedan East--to what a task
does a study of missions open our eyes!
For this task our study should give us determination and courage. Though
the results have seemed small, they have been, in comparison to the
number of workers, enormous. We observe a thickly settled section of
India, a few men and women,--preachers, a medical missionary, a few
nurses,--around them in seventy years fifty thousand Christians! Were
our Lutheran Church really to awake, how rapidly and yet how thoroughly
could the work be done! Those who have gone before us have opened the
doors, ours is the opportunity to enter. It is estimated that in India
one of every four inquirers for truth is knocking at the door of a
Lutheran mission. Africa lies open to whoever will possess her, in China
our standard bearers have claimed a great territory; South America is
ours by right of first possession. This opportunity is not one which may
be seized or rejected; thus clearly presented it becomes a
responsibility.
Another promise for the future is the material aid which the Church will
receive from those whom she has converted and trained. In her fields in
China, in India, in South Africa, a native Church is being slowly
moulded. The Christian courage in the Boxer uprising proves that China
can stand fast. Likewise did the great mutiny show the devotion of
thousands of Indian Lutherans to the Christian religion. Wherever there
are converts there are candidates for Christian service. A story told by
Rev. C. F. Kuder of the Rajahmundry mission is rich in suggestion for us
all.
A NEW DEFINITION.
“Four hundred Lutherans were assembled in one of our annual conferences
in India. Missionary Eckardt, who is the Livingstone of our Mission, was
speaking. He has gone farther inland than any of his predecessors had
gone. His district embraces three hundred thousand people, who have no
hope of hearing the Gospel unless he brings it to them.
[Illustration: IMMANUEL COLORED LUTHERAN COLLEGE, GREENSBORO, NORTH
CAROLINA.]
[Illustration: BETHANY INDIAN MISSION BAND, WITTENBERG, WISCONSIN.
(NORWEGIAN SYNOD)]
“He stood up that day at the conference, and said that up in the hills,
where there were a number of Christians, but more heathen, a hill had
been given him by a heathen, on condition that a church would be built
on it. He said that it would be a center for all the Christians in that
locality, and a constant call to the heathen to come to the living God.
The difficulty was: how to get the money to build the church? He did not
want to ask the Christians in America for it; so he asked whether our
Christians in India would not help him?
“The conference listened with interest and sympathy. The hill-country
had for years been its home mission field. After much casting about for
some satisfactory method, the suggestion was made that all the
Christians be asked to practice self-denial from Ash Wednesday to Palm
Sunday, bringing their free-will offerings to the service on Palm
Sunday.
“When the proposition was announced to the Rajahmundry congregation, the
interested faces, quickened eyes, and, in some cases, the tucking of
heads to one side, all bespoke approval and willingness to help.
“And what did the members do? They cut off a little here and a little
there; true, only a little, for if it had been much, there would not
have been anything left for themselves. More than a little would have
been _all_.
“There were women who were widows in the congregation, whose income was
about five cents a day. With that they had to provide food, clothing
and, in some cases, shelter. Of course, it goes without saying that
living in India is very cheap, but it goes equally well without saying
that such widows do not live on broiled pigeons, peacocks’ tongues, and
other delicacies. The truth is, that they must practice self-denial, not
only in Lent, but throughout the year. They rarely are able to have
enough to eat to satisfy hunger fully. It is estimated that over sixty
million people in India go to bed hungry every night.
“But what did they do? In the evenings, when they measured out their
rice, they would say to themselves: ‘I must help to build that little
church up in the hills, so that the women up there may learn to know
_my_ Redeemer. I _could_ eat all this rice, but if I can live with so
much, I can also live on a few mouthfuls less. I’ll give up a little
rice cheerfully, so they may have that meat which perisheth not.’
“Then they would take out a pinch of the raw rice and put it aside in a
bowl for safe-keeping. This they did until Palm Sunday. Then they
measured the rice saved and brought its value to the Lord.
“No, it was not much--probably, in most cases, not more than ten
cents--but it was given of their necessity--_taken out of their mouths_.
“In the boys’ school were some one hundred and sixty boys, from about
nine to fifteen years of age. Money? They had so little they scarcely
knew the color of it; but deep down in their hearts was an earnest
desire. They, too, felt they _must_ help to build the little church on
the hills!
“One evening, a day or two before Ash Wednesday, the manager heard many
voices at the door of the teacher who had charge of the boarding
department. There was an interested consultation, and then he heard the
boys troop back to their rooms with many little shouts of gratulation
and glee, and many a “_bagunnadi_” (it is good).
“The next morning the teacher came to the manager with a queer smile.
“What were the boys up to last night?’ queried the latter.
“‘They asked for permission to go without their supper once a week, on
condition that the money saved be given them for the little church up in
the hills,’ was the reply.
“‘What did you say to them?’
“‘I said they might, if you consented.’
“‘Oh,” said the manager, ‘I think it will not hurt them. Let them try
it; but we must keep a watch on them that they do not get sick.’
“‘Yes,’ replied the teacher, ‘but they were not satisfied with that.
They worked out how much it would make, and this morning they came back
to request that they be allowed to go without supper twice a week!’
“The manager, catching their enthusiasm, said, ‘Let them try it.’
“Growing boys have hearty appetites, and it was not easy for those lads
to go to sleep supperless every Tuesday and Thursday evening during
those weeks, but there was never a murmur.
“Palm Sunday came. No one ever saw brighter-eyed boys than those who
walked to church that morning from our school. When the offerings were
received, they put a solid lump of silver coins on the plate. It
contained twenty-five _rupees_--eight dollars and thirty-three cents.
“The girls in their school had been securing an offering in a similar
way, and they brought only thirty cents less.
“That day there was laid on the plate a total offering of ninety
dollars!
“_This is the Telugu Lutheran definition of self-denial._”
If the devotion of the Church at home even distantly approached such
devotion as this how quickly might the work be accomplished!
The world is still overshadowed by the apparently impenetrable cloud of
a great war. The condition of hundreds of mission stations is a matter
for serious anxiety. When the war closes it is likely that there will be
new boundaries, British colonies now German colonies, or German colonies
now British colonies. Each change of this kind will bring into existence
new complications for missionary policy to meet. The Christian Church
will need faith and courage to take up a task so sadly interrupted and
marred.
It is certain, on the other hand, that the Church will have access to
new mission fields. Such has been the single gleam of brightness through
many war clouds in the past.
For the Church of Christ the war has a lesson which must be learned.
There is but one cure for war--the evangelization of the world. May all
the Christian world by missionary effort prevent the repetition of so
terrible a catastrophe! May especially our own Church come daily into a
clearer realization of her mission! As the time of Christ and his
apostles was a time of seed-sowing, so was the time of the Reformation.
By Martin Luther the world was shown once more the Way of Salvation. By
Martin Luther the Holy Bible, the infallible guide, was put once more
into the hands of mankind, so that true religion and true liberty might
be forever preserved. Let us look well to our ways that after the
seed-sowing may come the harvest.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent when a
predominant form was found in this book; otherwise it was not
changed.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Lutheran Missions, by Elsie Singmaster