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.

[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.

“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