CHAPTER IV.

THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA

[Sidenote: The Land.] The continent of Africa has been likened to a great ear which waits upon the word of the rest of the world. It is enormous in extent, its area being nearly twelve million square miles. If a line should be run east and west a little north of the Equator, the northern section would enclose all North America, the southern section all Europe. The coast line is low, and the country near the coast unhealthy; the interior is high, composed of vast table lands and mountain ranges. The Congo River, which is said to be thirty times the size of the Mississippi, rushes to the sea over gigantic waterfalls and through deep-cut channels which are almost unfathomable. Besides the Congo there are three other large rivers, the Niger, flowing toward the west, the Nile, toward the north, the Zambesi toward the east.

[Sidenote: The People.] It is estimated that the native population of Africa numbers about one hundred and seventy-five millions. Among this vast throng there is the widest diversity of character, religion and speech. Beside the negroes there are millions of Arabs, Copts, Berbers and Moors. One of the better tribes of negroes, the Kondes of Central Africa, is described by a Lutheran missionary. “You can hardly imagine, for Africa, anything more idyllic than a Konde village. First, well-tilled fields announce that it is near; then we often see a widely-extended banana grove. The dwelling houses are often so neat and clean that they would draw attention even in Europe. The people are strong and of muscular build, their color is dark. You notice among the men many whose features speak of reflection. They are sober and honest. There appears, therefore, to be such a soil for the diffusion of the Gospel as is seldom found.”

Of the worst tribes it is difficult to speak or write. Their degradation seems to put them below the level of the beasts. Indescribable practices, cannibalism and slavery are common. A member of the Congo medical service said of that section of the country: “At N’Gandu, we found that the chief had gathered together about ten thousand cannibal brigands, mostly of the Batatela race. Through the whole of the Batatela country for some four days’ march, one sees neither gray hairs, nor halt, nor blind. Even parents are eaten by their children on the first sign of approaching decrepitude. N’Gandu is approached by a very handsome pavement of human skulls, the top being the only part showing above ground. I counted more than a thousand skulls in the pavement of one gate alone. Almost every tree forming the fortification was crowned with a human skull.”

Commenting upon the conditions in which many Africans live, a missionary says that “when eleven men, women and children, and seventeen goats live together in a hut seventeen feet square, it is difficult for the flowers of love and tenderness to flourish.”

If we wait for evolution to raise these poor people, we will wait forever. Fortunately, here and there, another theory of human development has been applied with magical results.

[Sidenote: The African Woman.] A student of Africa and the Africans has seen in the shape of the continent the figure of a woman with a huge burden on her back, looking toward America. If it is true that “the index of civilization of every nation is not their religion, their manner of life, their prosperity, but the respect paid to women”, then we need seek no further for proof of the sad degradation of the Dark Continent. Bought and sold, rented or given away, living in polygamy or worse conditions, “she is the prey of the strong, her virtue is held of no account, she has no innocent childhood, motherhood is desecrated, and when she wraps vileness about her as her habitual garment, it is encouraged.” In the words of Doctor Dennis, “she is regarded as a scandal and a slave, a drudge and a disgrace, a temptation and a terror, a blemish and a burden”. It is far easier for an African to accept the Gospel for himself than to believe that it is intended also for women. Doctor Day describes the vigorous driving away of the women from his services by the headman or “king-whip” who laid about him briskly as he cried out, “This God-palaver is not for women!”

[Sidenote: The Riches of Africa.] The riches of Africa are for the most part surmised rather than accurately known. The country is fertile and crops can be cultivated with a minimum of effort. Great forests abound--ebony, teak, rosewood, mahogany and almost every other known kind of timber. An investigator with a fondness of mathematical speculation has said that the forests of Africa would build a boardwalk round the globe six inches thick and eight miles wide. The names of certain localities, “Diamond fields”, “Gold Coast”, “Ivory Coast”, tell us of the riches to be found therein. The coal deposits are estimated as covering eight hundred thousand square miles. The copper fields equal those of North America and Europe combined; the undeveloped iron ore amounts to five times that of North America. Nor is the power for the development of these riches wanting. Human strength is there; the black who carries on his back for the many hours of a long march a sixty pound burden can learn to apply his muscles to other tasks. Water power is there in enormous waterfalls, and there are many navigable rivers.

W. E. Burghardt Dubois, himself of African descent, declares that in Africa may be found not only the roots of the present war, but the menace of future wars. Of the process by which the European nations have gained possession of practically all the black man’s continent he speaks with passionate indignation. “Lying treaties, rivers of rum, murder, assassination, mutilation, rape and torture” have marked the progress of these nations in their campaign for African land. There is the spoil “exceeding the gold-haunted dreams of the most modern of imperialists” there is the prize for which nations will struggle indefinitely unless a new spirit is bred among them.

[Sidenote: A Continent Betrayed.] The great missionary command, “Go ye into all the world and preach my Gospel to every creature” is a sufficient direction for the Christian world in its relations with Africa; but re-inforcing it there is, or there should be, our enormous obligation to this most benighted country. Africa is the most helpless continent, the most degraded, and, alas, that it should be so, the most fearfully abused. Livingstone described it as the open sore of the world. Small countries have been exploited, the Papuans of Australia have been almost exterminated, the American Indian has been driven from hunting ground to hunting ground until all that he can call his own is a small donation of the vast land which was once his. But Africa is a whole continent which has been betrayed. The white man has in the main not sought to enlighten, to show the hideousness of sin, to point the better way, but upon the evil fires of paganism he has poured gin so that the smouldering ashes have leaped into destroying flame. The slavery which was one of the most horrible products of paganism he did not try to abolish, but himself stole and bought human beings; in all one hundred million souls.

The history of the African rum traffic would seem to take forever from England and Germany and the United States their boasted name of Christian. Upon the heart of our Doctor Day this fearful evil lay with a heavy weight. Said he:

[Sidenote: The Traffic in Gin.] “Within a stone’s throw of us lay a large steamer laden to the water’s edge with rum. When we remember that one of these steamers carries four thousand tons of freight and that hundreds of them are running to the country laden with rum, the very vilest that chemistry can invent and concoct, we may have some conception of what it means, not only to the heathen, but to missionaries at work there. At the mouth of every river and stream wherever there is a rod of beach smooth enough to land, the traffic goes on. In the name of God, in the name of all that is high and holy, why do not the owners of these ships, who live in luxury in Boston, Liverpool, Hamburg and London, paint their ships black and run up the black flag, or better still, nail it to the mast? Never pirate sailed the seas whose crimes were so black as the crimes now perpetrated on this continent in the name of commerce.

“At Freetown, our ship had a lot of powder to discharge. It could not be landed at the regular wharf, but must be landed in a state of quarantine a quarter of a mile away. What a farce! There lay the liquor ship landing thousands of cases of rum, dangerous in a thousand fold greater sense than all the powder that ever went into the dark continent.

Think too of the awful caricature of ships carrying in their holds these untold millions of gallons of rum, holding on Sabbath the beautiful services of the Church of England! More than all this, along this coast are ships of war, bristling with cannon, and on these ships, too, are read the Sabbath service, and there is a chaplain to read daily prayers. They are here to protect commerce, a trade that is transforming so many of these people into driveling idiots, gibbering maniacs, thieves, harlots, everything that is low and wicked, then launching their sinful souls into the lake that burns.”

To the horror of its own situation Africa is not dull. Like the American Indian, like every poor besotted wretch in his hours of sanity, the African has besought that this curse be removed. In 1883 the natives of the diamond fields implored the Cape Parliament to have public houses removed at least six miles. The petition was refused. [Sidenote: Mohammedanism in Africa.] A little over six hundred years before the Christian era Mohammed preached his new religion in Arabia, urging upon those who followed him prayer, almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage to Mecca, and allowing them slavery, concubinage, polygamy and easy divorce. With the rapidity of fire in a field of dry grass the new faith spread, not the least productive of the methods of the prophet being wars of subjugation and extermination.

The Mohammedans soon conquered North Africa sweeping away the early Christianity, and then crossed into Spain from which they were finally driven. For a long time the great desert served as an impenetrable barrier to further advance in Africa, but presently they crossed the desert, and when Christian missionaries arrived on the west coast, they found that Islam had preceded them. Forbidding none of the old practices of heathendom, imposing only a few new rules which are easily followed, the Mohammedan faith has had an enormous following. Between the Crescent and the Cross West Africa must make her choice and upon the Christian Church depends the decision.

In meeting Islam and its active missionaries the Christian cannot but be sadly aware that the evil of drink was and is condemned by the prophet and his followers and that to a true Mohammedan all forms of alcohol are taboo, a fact with which the Mohammedan has not failed to taunt his rival.

Dr. Zwemer and Dr. Westerman estimate the total population of the Moslem world to be two hundred million of whom forty-two million are in Africa. To them as well as to the pagan should the Gospel message go.

A missionary book or a missionary address to which I am not able to give credit describes the parting of an English trader from the African woman with whom he had lived during a long residence in Africa, who had served him and truly loved him. Having accumulated riches, he was about to return to England without even bidding her farewell, but she had heard of his departure and followed him to the shore, where throwing herself at his feet, she besought him not to cast her aside. Indifferent to her grief, annoyed by her importunity, he angrily thrust her from him and embarked. Such have been the dealings of the white race with Africa.

[Sidenote: Africa Under European Flags.] Except for a few almost negligible sections the continent is under European flags. France owns a colony twenty times the size of France itself; Great Britain a colony as large as the United States, which extends almost without interruption from the coast to Cairo, a distance of six thousand miles; Germany, a colony one and one-half times as large as the German Empire in Europe; Belgium, a territory equal to that of Germany; and Portugal, Spain and Italy a twelfth of the continent between them.

[Sidenote: The Picture Not All Dark.] But the picture is not all dark. The mention of Africa recalls to our minds the names of Livingstone, of Robert Moffatt, of David A. Day. The Christian world has in Africa its records of shame, it has also its records of glory. It has at Kimberly the deep shafts of diamond mines, symbol of the pride and lust of man’s heart; it has nearby the graves of many pious German Lutherans. Lingering along the western shore there must be still the cries of the afflicted, the wailing of mothers torn from their children, of husbands beaten from their wives! Yet here are the graves of the children of David A. Day. Into the distant interior penetrated the slave raiders, torturing, driving the inhabitants from their villages, binding them with chains, marking their course with blood; yet here is buried the heart of Livingstone. Whether or not we heed the call, we are bound to Africa by an unbreakable bond.

[Sidenote: The First African Missionary a Lutheran.] It is a satisfaction and an inspiration to know in the searching of heart which should be ours that our own church has heeded the Ethiopian call. If it is true that “when the history of the great African States of the future comes to be written, the arrival of the first missionary will be the first historical event”, then will the Lutheran Church have its Peter Heiling (Chapter I) to record as the first of the Protestants to concern himself directly with the spiritual welfare of the Africans. Would that there were no such gap as that which exists between his going to Abyssinia in 1634 and that of the next Lutheran missionaries!

For purposes of Lutheran missionary study, we shall divide Africa into three sections: first, the West Coast; secondly, South Africa; thirdly, East Africa. As in the case of India we shall consider first the work of the German, then the work of the Scandinavian, then the work of the American Lutherans.

THE GERMAN SOCIETIES

THE WEST COAST.

[Sidenote: The Spirit of Faith.] To the eastern side of the so-called Gold Coast went in 1828 the _Basel Society_ to begin a costly work. “Sober and patient”--thus Doctor Warneck describes them. Opposed to them were superstition, dense ignorance, a fearful climate, to say nothing of all the difficulties produced by colonial politics.

Between 1828 and 1842 the society sent to the West Coast of Africa seventeen ministers, ten of whom died within one year, two others in three years, and three returned to their native country confirmed invalids. Yet steadily they pressed from the coast into the still darker interior, working among the Ga, Chi and Ashanti negroes. In Africa there are few native tribes which have a written language, hence the first work of the substantial missionary is to create one. Wars among the natives and wars among the great nations disturbed the mission, but the work went on in spite of all obstacles. After thirty years of labor three hundred and sixty-seven Christians were counted, after sixty years eighteen thousand. Station after station has been founded, school after school established. A theological seminary trains the natives to preach, the famous Basel industrial enterprises train their hands and eyes, and medical missionaries heal their bodies and show them how to live in cleanliness and decency.

[Sidenote: “The Door-Keeper of the Gold Coast.”] Among the most devoted heroes of this mission, was _Andrew Riis_, a Lutheran. At one time when three or four missionaries had died and persecution had dimmed somewhat the lamp of faith, he was advised to return to Europe. But he would listen to no such advice. Sending back the message, “I will remain”, he went farther into the interior. Presently there arrived two other missionaries and with them the young woman to whom Riis was engaged. When the two newly arrived missionaries died, Riis was left once more, the only “door-keeper” on the Gold Coast. Now he sailed for Europe, not to give up the mission but to rouse the home churches to its support. Successful in this effort, he returned to the field and the mission began anew, now quickly to become prosperous.

The changed conditions in this dark land are described in a German missionary journal.

[Sidenote: A City Transformed.] “In June, 1869, the missionary Ramseyer, of the Basel Missionary Society, was dragged as a prisoner into Abetifi, then a city of Ashantee, with his wife and child. They spent three days in a miserable hut, with their feet in chains. Human sacrifices were then common in Abetifi, which was under the tyrannical rule of the Ashantee chieftains. To-day, in the same streets, under the same shady trees, instead of the bloody executioner going his rounds, a Christian congregation gathers together every Sunday. Christian hymns, such as, “Who will be Christ’s Soldier?” ring joyfully through the streets. The people come out of their houses, the chieftain is invited; he comes with his suite and listens to the joyful tidings of salvation. And it is not vain; many have become the disciples of Jesus. Many even dare to tell their fellow-countrymen in the streets what joy and peace they have found in Him.”

In 1896 the Basel mission opened its eleventh station at Kumassi. It has twenty-four thousand three hundred church members with a school roll of nearly eight thousand pupils. There are thirty-six missionaries and forty-three other Europeans who direct the industrial and commercial work. The mission extends from Ashanti beyond the Volta River.

[Sidenote: The Beauty of Nature and the Depredation of Mankind.] The Basel mission has also a flourishing work in the German colony of Kamerun, among the Bantu negroes. The beauty of the land in which they work and the human misery are described by one of the missionaries. “It is a beautiful wild country which often reminds us of Switzerland; on all sides we see chains of mountains separated by deep valleys, roaring torrents, foaming waterfalls, and forests of palm trees reaching to the highest summits. How many times our hearts have leaped for joy at the glory of the scene! And, on the other hand, what a sorrow it is to see humanity fallen so low! The inhabitants of this paradise live in a real hell, always in unspeakable dread of evil spirits and of death. The dying often quit this world with cries of terror. The different tribes fight constantly with one another. Their moral condition is incredible. There are actually certain localities which exchange their dead in order to devour them.”

How vividly this description brings to our minds a danger not often considered at home, the fearful effect which constant sight of the most hideous immorality upon the missionary who is himself but a man. God be thanked that they hold fast to all that is pure, thinking, in the midst of monstrous crimes, of those things which are lovely!

The Basel Society has here thirteen main stations which extend nearly a hundred miles into the interior. Here there are sixty-three European missionaries. The Christian community numbers twelve thousand.

The _Gossner Mission_, whose chief work is in India, resolved in 1914 to send missionaries to Central Kamerun. Just before the outbreak of the war four missionaries were sent out to make preliminary studies.

On the Slave Coast the _North German_ or _Bremen Society_ has had a mission since 1847. This society has no mission school of its own, but draws its workers from the mission school at Basel. Its African mission has been continued only at enormous sacrifice. In fifty years sixty-five men and women died. The climate is dangerous, the hearts of the natives are stubborn. The territory in which the mission is situated is partly German and partly English, a fact which causes not only political but linguistic complications since German must be the language of one section, English of the other.

Nevertheless, the Bremen missionaries have persisted. To-day they have nine stations with a staff of twenty-eight, and over ten thousand native Christians. A thorough study has been made of the language, customs and religion of the people, who belong to the Evhe tribe.

Assisting in the work of the Bremen Society are deaconesses. The lives of these godly women have had a marvelous effect especially upon the native women.

SOUTH AFRICA.

[Sidenote: A Land of Many Nations.] By South Africa we mean the great southern portion of the continent extending from Cape Town up to the Zambesi River, which flows toward the east and the Congo which flows toward the west. Here, in addition to the native tribes who are chiefly Hottentots, Bushmen and Bantus, Kaffirs and Zulus, are large settlements of whites, who, unable to go beyond this section on account of the climate, are more and more steadily making the country their own. Their presence, as may easily be imagined, complicates and makes immensely difficult all mission work. To this fertile land, rich in gold, diamonds and other minerals, have gone naturally the adventurous and in many cases the wicked of other nations. There have been already fearful struggles between native and foreigner, black and white. When we realize that among the five hundred and seventy-five thousand baptized native Christians, one hundred and twenty thousand are Lutherans, our interest in the sadly complicated situation becomes keen.

[Sidenote: The Missionary Press.] The first German society to work in South Africa was the _Rhenish_ which, like the Basel Society, is not wholly Lutheran. This society in 1829 established stations first in Nama Land, then in Herero Land, then in Ovambo Land. Here we have another record of opposition, of native wars, of indifference. The mission station lies almost entirely in the German colony. It has in all fifty-two missionaries. The number of Christians is now more than twenty-six thousand. Here also, the Germans have translated and taught with the greatest care. The press is constantly used to bind together the scattered Christians in the sparsely settled districts, two monthly religious papers, one in the Nama, the other in the Herero language, being published.

[Sidenote: A Labor Not in Vain.] Says Doctor Warneck: “It has been a laborious work of patience that the missionaries have done in these great countries, industrially so poor,--a work made difficult by the great inconstancy of the Hottentots and the strong opposition of the Herero, as well as by the entanglements of war,--and more than once in Herero Land the workers were on a point of withdrawing. But German fidelity at last carried the day. Now the whole of the great region from the Orange River to beyond Walfisch Bay, far into the interior of Great Nama Land and Herero Land and even up to Ovambo Land is covered with a network of stations. All the points that could be occupied have been made mission stations and the whole population has been brought under the educative and civilizing influence of Christianity.”

The Rhenish Society has also a mission in the southern part of Cape Colony. Its first station was at Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, established in 1829.

The society has now in all a membership of twenty-one thousand four hundred Christians. A number of its churches are financially independent. Here as everywhere there are discouraging backslidings into the old sins of drunkenness and impurity, but even so the light has shone and will shine with increasing brightness.

[Sidenote: The Discovery of Diamonds.] The _Berlin Missionary Society_ began work in South Africa in 1834, first among the Koranna people between the Orange and Vaal Rivers, and later, in 1838, in Cape Colony itself, its first station being at Peniel. At first few foreigners penetrated into this district between the Orange and the Vaal, but in 1870 when diamonds were discovered, Cape Colony, in spite of the protests of the Orange Free State to which it had belonged, annexed it. At once thousands of adventurers poured in, both black and white. In 1860 the missionaries went north into the Transvaal.

The Berlin Mission is the largest in South Africa. Its last report names fifty-eight stations and one thousand sub-stations. The Christian community, which numbers sixty thousand is organized in five synods of Cape Colony, the Zulu-Xosa district, Orange River Colony, South Transvaal and North Transvaal.

Among the notable Lutheran missionaries of the Berlin South African mission have been _Merensky_, a famous writer upon missionary subjects, _Grützer_, who gave forty-nine years of devoted service to the mission, _Wuras_, who gave fifty and Doctor _D. Kropf_ who did valuable work as a translator.

Another Berlin missionary of large achievement describes his early experience, writing in 1889:

“After having worked myself weary through the week, when on Sunday I saw these wild men of the wilderness sitting before me, absolute obtuseness toward everything divine, together with mockery and brutal lusts written on their faces, I sometimes lost all disposition to preach. Those fluent young preachers who not only like to be heard, but to hear themselves, ought to be sometimes required to ascend the pulpit before such an assemblage. There is not the least thing there to lift up the preacher of the Divine Word or to come to the help of his weakness. As when a green, fresh branch laid before the door of a glowing oven shrivels up at once, such has sometimes been my experience when I had come full of warm devotion, before the Kaffirs, and undertaken to preach. I have sometimes wished that I had never become a missionary. Once the hour of Sunday services again approached. The sun was fearfully hot, and I felt weary in body and soul. My unbelieving heart said: ‘Your preaching is for nothing’, and Beelzebub added a lusty amen. The Kaffirs were sitting in the hut waiting for me. ‘I’ll not preach to-day’, said I to my wife, but she looked at me with her angelic eyes, lifted her finger, and said gravely: ‘William, you will do your duty. You will go and preach’. I seized Bible and hymn book, and loitered to church like an idle boy creeping unwillingly to school. I began, preluding on the violin, the Kaffirs grunting. I prayed, read my text, and began to preach with about as much fluency as stuttering Moses. Yet soon the Lord loosened the band of my tongue, and the fire of the Holy Ghost awakened me out of my sluggishness. I spoke with such fervor concerning the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, that if that sermon has quickened no heart of a hearer yet my own was profoundly moved.”

The writer, Missionary Posselt, lived to baptize one thousand Kaffirs.

[Sidenote: The Progress of Tropical Medical Treatment.] One of the interesting developments in the Berlin Society mission has been the great decrease in sickness, owing to the progress of tropical medical treatment. No employee of the society, whether missionary, wife of missionary or artisan, is sent to Africa without a thorough course in tropical hygiene. To those faithful scientists who discovered the cause of malaria is ascribed the success of the Panama canal; no less are they to be thanked for the continued life and work of many missionaries.

The _Hermannsburg Mission_ entered South Africa in 1854. Its field is located among the Zulus in Natal where there are twenty-one stations and twelve thousand eight hundred Christians, and among the Bechunas in the Transvaal where there are twenty-eight stations and sixty-one thousand Christians.

[Sidenote: The Ship “Candace.”]. We have learned in Chapter II of the origin of the Hermannsburg Mission in the mind and heart of Louis Harms. After a year or two, a number of German sailors, recently converted, sought admission to the training school, and at their suggestion a ship was built and named the ‘Candace.’ This ship was to carry the Gospel to South Africa, and on October 8, 1853, she sailed from Hamburg. On board were sailors, colonists and missionaries who were to found a missionary colony. To each separate class Pastor Harms gave separate directions, but upon all he urged the necessity for prayer. “Begin all your work with prayer; when the storm rises, pray, when the billows rage round the ship, pray; when sin comes, pray; and when the devil tempts you, pray. So long as you pray it will go well with you, body and soul.”

The missionary colony hoped to settle among the Galla tribes, but were driven away by the Mohammedans, therefore they returned to Natal. On the 19th of September, 1854, they established their first station near Greytown, giving it the dear name of Hermannsburg. Each artisan began to practice his trade, a house was built, and before three months had passed the first converts of the Zulu church were baptized.

[Sidenote: A Truly Lutheran Mission.] No Lutheran mission has so intense a Lutheran spirit as the Hermannsburg mission, whose founder wished all the Lutheran symbols and especially the beautiful Lutheran liturgy to be recognized and used by mission churches as well as by churches in the fatherland.

The good ship “Candace,” one of the most famous and probably the first of the missionary ships of the world, made many journeys. Not the least interesting, at least to those concerned, was her second when she carried to Natal reinforcements and additional colonists, among them a wife for each of the missionaries who had made the pioneer journey.

The Hermannsburg mission has not lacked a baptism of blood. In 1883 thirteen stations were destroyed and Missionary _Schroeder_ met a martyr’s death.

The _Hanover Free Evangelical Lutheran Church Missionary Society_, branched off from the Hermannsburg Mission in 1892. It has six stations in Natal and Zululand with about twenty-two thousand Christians, and among the Bechunas in the Transvaal three stations with thirty-six hundred Christians.

EAST AFRICA.

[Sidenote: German East Africa.] The colonial expansion of Germany in the eighties stimulated missionary interest and activity in its newly acquired possessions in East Africa, where is situated the largest and most thickly populated of the German Colonies, with about seven and a half million inhabitants. The mission field is a difficult one, the natives belonging to one of the lowest human groups. Hard of heart, slow to give up their heathen customs, especially that of polygamy, affected in some sections by Islam, they are difficult to impress and reluctant to be won. Yet among them a harvest has been reaped.

The East African mission field is inseparably connected with the name of a Lutheran, _John Ludwig Krapf_, who in the employ of an English missionary society founded Christian missions in this section.

[Sidenote: A Call to Service.] [6]Krapf was born in 1810 near Tübingen in Germany. A fondness for geography coupled with the reading of a pamphlet describing the spread of missions among the heathen impelled him when he was a mere boy to prepare himself for missionary work. After studying at Basel, he became pastor of a congregation, but he could not shut out from his heart the needs of unchristianized lands. “In the needs of my congregation I recognized those of non-Christian lands in a measure that affected me very deeply; in their sorrow I recognized the wretchedness of the heathen. The grace which I myself enjoyed and which I commended to my own people, was, I felt, for the heathen as well, but there might be no one to proclaim it to them. Here, everyone without difficulty may find the way of life; in those lands there may be no one to show the way.”

Footnote 6:

The account of John Ludwig Krapf is taken largely from the Rev. F. Wilkinson, _Missionary Review of the World_, November, 1892.

[Sidenote: A Slave Market.] Following his inclination, he offered himself for missionary work and was sent by the Church Missionary Society of England, which used Basel missionaries in the work, to its Abyssinian Mission. Leaving England in 1837, he reached Alexandria and started up the Nile. At Cairo he had his first glimpse of Africa’s great curse, the traffic in human beings. He visited the slave markets and there saw the wretched creatures men, women and children, lying fainting under the burning sun, to be examined like cattle by purchasers. Like Abraham Lincoln on his journey down the Mississippi, Krapf vowed eternal hatred for the hideous institution of human slavery.

[Sidenote: The First Repulse.] Journeying to Adoa in the highlands of Abyssinia, Krapf joined other missionaries trained at Basel and employed by the Church Missionary Society, Blumhardt and Isenberg by name, but they were soon driven away by the ruling prince. Thus repulsed, Krapf determined to go to Shoa in the south of Abyssinia, and, accompanied by Isenberg, he arrived there after a severe illness in June, 1859. There, when Isenberg had returned to Egypt, Krapf worked for several years alone.

[Sidenote: Once More the Door Closed.] In 1842, he left Shoa to meet his future wife, Rosina Dietrich, in Egypt and to help on their way two new brethren who had arrived on the coast. Travelling on foot, ill, fatigued and several times set upon by robbers, he reached the coast where he expected to find the two missionaries, only to learn that they had been there and had gone back to Egypt. When he with his bride returned to Shoa they found that its ruler, like the ruler of Adoa, had closed the kingdom against him.

[Sidenote: The First Sacrifice.] The need of the Gallas, a nation to the south to whom no Gospel messenger had been sent, had lain heavily upon the heart of Krapf and now, driven from Shoa, he tried to reach them, but found it impossible. Thereupon he determined to do what he could by circulating the Scriptures. Joining himself to a caravan, he started for the interior, with him his young wife, whose newborn baby was in the course of a few weeks buried in the desert.

[Sidenote: “Cast Down But Not Destroyed.”] Alas, even this long journey and these trials were in vain, for once more was Krapf forbidden to proceed with his work. The brave man, disheartened, but not completely cast down, wrote home: “Abyssinia will not soon again enjoy the time of grace she has so shamefully slighted.... It is a consolation to us and to dear friends of the mission to know that over eight thousand copies of the Scriptures have found their way into Abyssinia. These will not all be lost or remain without a blessing. Faith speaks thus: Though every mission should disappear in a day and leave no trace behind, I would still cleave to mission work with all my prayers, my labors, my gifts, with my body and soul; for there is the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, and where that is there is also His promise and His final victory.”

[Sidenote: A Christian Grave in East Africa.] Krapf now determined to attempt to gain a footing on the coast, in order from there to reach the Gallas, whose language he had learned. With this object in view, he sailed, with his wife, in an Arab vessel from Aden in November, 1843. Strong headwinds and a heavy sea compelled them to return to Aden. In spite of their exertions, the water gained upon them in their leaky boat, and on reaching the entrance to the harbor the land wind drove back the vessel toward the open ocean. Half an hour after they were taken from the vessel it sank. Eight days later Krapf sailed again, and after four or five weeks’ journey arrived at Mombasa. Scarcely, however, had he begun to work at Mombasa when he was called to pass through another sorrow, in the loss of his wife. In prospect of death she prayed for relatives, for the mission, for East Africa, and for the Sultan, that God would incline his heart to promote the eternal welfare of his subjects. The next day she appeared much better, but the day following much worse, while her husband himself was so weakened by fever as to be obliged to leave the care of her almost entirely to others. The next day she breathed her last, and on the following morning--Sunday--they buried her, according to her wish, on the mainland in the territory of the Wanika, her newborn daughter by her side. Krapf, even amid all these trials, wrote in a letter to the secretary of the missionary society: “Tell the committee that in East Africa there is the lonely grave of one member of the mission connected with your society. This is an indication that you have begun the conflict in this part of the world; and since the conquests of the Church are won over the graves of many of its members, you may be all the more assured that the time has come when you are called to work for the conversion of Africa. Think not of the victims who in this glorious warfare may suffer or fall; only press forward until East and West Africa are united in Christ.”

[Sidenote: Two Friends.] In 1846 he had the joy of welcoming a fellow laborer, a Lutheran, _Johann Rebmann_. The two men were exactly opposite in nature. Krapf, restless and energetic, entertained far-reaching plans, and even saw in imagination a chain of missions stretching from Mombasa to the Niger, and thus connecting east and west Africa; Rebmann, on the contrary, believed in settling in one place and staying there. Nevertheless, the two men worked in harmony. When they finished the building of a house in a village not far from the sea-coast, Krapf felt that the first step toward the dark interior had been taken.

After twelve years of labor, Krapf visited Europe. When he returned to Africa he took with him two missionaries and three mechanics, an undertaking which was not altogether happy. But in the midst of discouragement he took heart.

[Sidenote: Still Undismayed.] “And now let me look backward and forward. In the past what do I see? Scarcely more than the remnant of a defeated army. You know I had the task of strengthening the East African Mission with three missionaries and three handicraftsmen; but where are the missionaries? One remained in London, as he did not consider himself appointed to East Africa; the second remained at Aden, in doubt about the English Church; the third died on May tenth of nervous fever. As to the three mechanics, they are ill of fever, lying between life and death, and instead of being a help look to us for help and attention; and yet I stand by my assertion that Africa must be conquered by missionaries; there must be a chain of mission stations between the east and west, though thousands of the combatants fall upon the left hand and ten thousand on the right.... From the sanctuary of God a voice says to me, ‘Fear not; life comes through death, resurrection through decay, the establishment of Christ’s kingdom through the discomfiture of human undertakings. Instead of allowing yourself to be discouraged at the defeat of your force, go to work yourself. Do not rely on human help, but on the living God, to whom it is all the same to serve by little or by much.... Believe, love, fight, be not weary for His name’s sake, and you will see the glory of God.’”

Twice Krapf tried to penetrate into the distant interior but was both times compelled to return without establishing missions. In 1853 he returned to Europe on account of ill health, but the next year set out to Africa once more, only to be compelled on account of weakness to give up the journey.

Once more, however, he visited the country of his love. Wishing to open a mission in East Africa the Methodist Free Churches requested him to accompany their missionaries and to assist them in establishing the mission. He agreed to go and said of the new station: “The station Ribe will in due time celebrate the triumph of the mission in the conversion of the Wanika, though I may be in the grave. The Lord does not allow His Word to return unto Him void.”

[Sidenote: A Heroic Life Ended.] Returning to Europe, Krapf continued to work and to pray for missions until, in November, 1881, he was found dead, kneeling in the attitude of prayer.

[Sidenote: The Missionary as Explorer.] The names of Krapf and Rebmann are associated not only in heroic missionary labors but in important linguistic work and most valuable geographic discoveries. When they declared that there existed in the center of Africa snow-capped mountains and an inland sea, they were laughed at, but as a result exploring expeditions were sent out to discover that what the missionaries claimed was true. The American poet Bayard Taylor, struck by the marvelous variety of temperature and verdure upon Mt. Kilimanjaro, whose base was surrounded by tropical forests and whose summit was wrapped in snow, celebrated it in verse.

“Hail to thee, monarch of African mountains, Remote, inaccessible, silent and lone-- Who, from the heart of the tropical fervors, Liftest to heaven thine alien snows, Feeding forever the fountains that make thee Father of Nile and creator of Egypt! I see thee supreme in the midst of thy co-mates, Standing alone ’twixt the earth and the heavens, Heir of the sunset and herald of morn. Zone above zone, to thy shoulders of granite, The climates of earth are displayed as an index, Giving the scope of the book of creation. There in the wandering airs of the tropics Shivers the aspen, still dreaming of cold: There stretches the oak, from the loftiest ledges, His arms to the far-away lands of his brothers, And the pine looks down on his rival, the palm.”

[Sidenote: David Livingstone.] This section of Africa cannot be passed without a mention of that other hero, David Livingstone, the missionary, scientist, and explorer, who said, “I am tired of discovery if no fruit follows it”, and “The end of geographical achievement is only the beginning of missionary undertaking”, who was a king among men and who considered it his only glory that he was a “poor, poor imitation of Christ.”

There is a very particular reason for including a mention of Livingstone in a history of Lutheran missions, because his impulse to become a missionary was directly inspired by a Lutheran, Karl Frederick Gützlaff, whom we shall study in Chapter V. Livingstone was interested in missions and had resolved “that he would give to the cause of missions all that he might earn beyond what was required for his subsistence.” When he read Gützlaff’s appeal on behalf of China he determined to give himself. For various reasons Africa rather than China was determined upon for the scene of his labor.

The first German movement toward a missionary possession of the German colonies in Africa was in Bavaria where a group of men who had been influenced by Krapf, planned a Wakamba mission. Their society is generally known by the name of their headquarters, _Bielefeld_. One of the leading spirits and a director of this society was Bodelschwingh, the famous leader of Germany’s Inner Mission movement. Bodelschwingh, like Francke, was an illustration of the fact that they who do mission work at home do also mission work abroad.

The principal field of the Bielefeld Society is Tanga and the country lying behind it. In 1907 it began a new mission in the northwest corner of German East Africa, a densely populated district between Lakes Victoria Nyanza, Kivu and Tanganyika. In its two fields the mission has thirty-five missionaries and about two thousand Christians.

[Sidenote: Careful and Painstaking.] The careful and painstaking methods of the German missionaries are indicated in a description of the winning of their first converts in their newer field. Three years after they had begun to work, a youth appeared for baptism. He was followed by six other young men. Then a number of girls asked for instruction and presently a leprous woman whose interest had been gained by the tender care of the missionaries. For more than a year these inquirers received instruction. At the end of that time four young men and three young women were considered worthy of baptism.

The _Berlin Society_ began work in 1891 in the extreme southwest corner of the German possessions. Gradually extending, it has now fifty-seven missionaries and about four thousand native Christians. The mission field lies among the Konde tribes at the northern end of Lake Nyassa.

The _Leipsic Society_ had begun its work before the possession of this section by Germany. The people among whom it labors belong to the Chaga tribes at the foot of snow-capped Mt. Kilimanjaro. Its stations extend also southward and westward. It has in all twenty-eight missionaries and about twenty-seven hundred Christians.

The _Breklum Society_ began work in 1911 in the Uhha country on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika where it has three missionaries.

The _Neukirchen Society_ has a mission in German territory in Urundi between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu with five missionaries, and also in British territory near the mouth of the Pomo River, where there are nine missionaries.

In Africa as well as in India there is a long list of faithful Germans who worked in the missions of other churches. Among them _Nylander_ went as a missionary of the English Church Missionary Society to Sierra Leone in 1806. Until his death in 1825 he remained at his post, never returning home for a furlough. _Doctor Schön_ reduced the Hausa language to order and wrote for it grammars, dictionaries and reading lessons. Upon him the French Institute conferred a gold medal for his brilliant philological work. Livingstone declared that Schön’s name would live long after his own had been forgotten. _Sigismund Kölle_ compiled the _Polyglotta Africana_, a comparison of a hundred African dialects. He was first a missionary in Sierra Leone and afterwards in Egypt, Constantinople and Palestine.

[Sidenote: A Lutheran in Jerusalem.] Another German Lutheran who has 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.

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.