Chapter II

. He should also refer constantly to the map, marking, if possible, on a map of his own the position of each foreign field. Thus he will add not only accuracy but interest to his missionary study.

[Sidenote: A Gift for Missions.] The _Basel Society_, which is, it should be remembered, not wholly Lutheran in organization, support, or workers, had already established missions in other places when, in 1834, it received a gift of $10,000 from the Prince of Schönberg with the stipulation that it should start a mission in a new place. The spot selected was the Malabar district on the west coast of India on the opposite side of the peninsula from Tranquebar and thither three missionaries were promptly sent.

[Sidenote: Hard Hearts in a Fertile Land.] The country which they had selected was beautiful and fertile, but the hearts of the inhabitants were hard soil. A proverb expressed their carelessness and indifference: “What can man do? Idleness is good, sleep is better, death is best of all.” In the mission field six different languages were spoken, and thus long study and much literary work were required before permanent results could be hoped for.

Establishing their first station at Telicheri the missionaries worked out into the surrounding country. As soon as possible they began to preach, to establish schools and to translate the Bible into the native tongues.

[Sidenote: An Experiment.] Not the least of their difficulties was the lack of tried missionary principles. One worker was convinced that the only way to impress the heathen was to live their life with them. Persuading other new missionaries to his way of thinking, he left the mission buildings and established himself with thirty Hindu boys in a little hut. The floor served for chairs and table and the missionary ate with his pupils three times a day their meal of rice. An illness brought him to his senses and he returned to a sane way of living.

With such devotion and diligence did the Basel missionaries labor that when one of the earliest workers was married eight years after the establishment of the mission one hundred and twenty Christians came to the wedding. Spreading northward into the Bombay Presidency the mission had established by 1913 twenty-six stations with sixty missionaries and not less than twenty thousand Christians.

[Sidenote: A Christian Settlement.] One of the chief stations is at Mangalore. Outside the town is Balmatta Hill round the base of which lies a Christian village. Here live the missionaries and their wives, here are schools, here a theological seminary for the training of native workers. Near by is an almshouse; in this building weavers ply their trade; yonder there is a printing establishment; here are stores, a bakery, a carpenter shop. Crowning all, there stands on the hill top the Church of Peace.

[Sidenote: Shall Missionaries Provide Work for Converts?] The famous industrial work of the Basel Society is actively promoted. Here idle hands are trained to work, here those who have been makers of wine are given an occupation better suited to a Christian profession, here the very poor are able to earn their livings. There is a difference of opinion about the value of industrial work in connection with missions, some students believing that the spiritual work is hampered and confused by this connection with commercial life and that undesirable and unfaithful converts are attracted by the prospect of having work to do. This danger, however, the Basel Mission seems to have avoided. An unprejudiced observer writes: “Even those who for these reasons believe that only necessity will justify the starting of mission industries, have to admit that this Basel work has made a real contribution to economic progress and to the dignifying of labor as worthy of a Christian.” It is interesting to note that in the Basel weaving shop at Mangalore was first made khaki cloth, which now covers so many million soldiers.

The most famous of the Basel missionaries in India was _Doctor Gundert_, who labored for more than twenty years, then returning to the Fatherland assumed the work left by Doctor Barth, another Lutheran director of the Basel Society. His remaining years were filled with labor for the cause which he loved, writing, speaking and editing missionary journals. His wife, Julia, was the first woman missionary sent out by the Basel Society.

[Sidenote: A Stirring Charge.] The _Gossner Mission_ was founded in 1844 when Pastor Gossner sent four missionaries to India with the instructions, “Believe, hope, love, pray, burn, waken the dead! Hold fast by prayer! Wrestle like Jacob! Up, up my brethren! The Lord is coming and to everyone he will say, ‘Where hast thou left the souls of these heathen?’”

Arriving at Calcutta the first group of missionaries endeavored to establish a colony but were not successful. They saw among the coolies on the city streets, many men of a distinct type and discovered that they were Kols. Among these people, once of a better standing, but now degraded and oppressed, the Gossner missionaries determined to set to work.

[Sidenote: Discouragement.] Selecting the capital of the local government, Ranchi, for their headquarters they named the spot where they settled Bethesda. For five years they worked without gaining a single convert. Utterly discouraged they asked for permission to seek another field. To this request Pastor Gossner answered as follows: “Whether the Kols will be converted or not is the same to you. If they will not accept the Word they must hear it to their condemnation. Your duty is to pray and preach to them. We at home will also pray more earnestly.”

[Sidenote: Reward.] Presently four natives were baptized, others came to inquire, and a church was built. When it was begun there were sixty members of the congregation; when it was completed there were three hundred. So thoroughly was the work of evangelization done, so well grounded were these degraded people in the faith, that in 1857 at the time of the great mutiny when the natives of India rose against the English the nine hundred adherents of the Gossner mission refused to give up that faith to which they had been baptized. Here is an extraordinary episode in missionary history. In 1845 the deepest degradation, misery and superstition, which included the worship of idols and demons and even the recollection of the sacrifice of living beings--in 1857 the most exalted Christian faith and courage.

From now on the mission prospered and its converts multiplied. Presently work was begun among the Hindus and Mohammedans in the Ganges Valley with a station at Ghazipur.

A visitor to Ranchi has written down some of his impressions of the chief station of the Gossner mission.

[Sidenote: Impressions of a Mission Station.] “In Ranchi I could have spent a month with the greatest delight, there is so much to see and to hear. There is a Christian hostel here on the mission premises, which seems to be a great power for good. It is a large square courtyard with open rooms all around, in which any Christians are allowed to put up who may be in from the district on business; they get their firewood free, and the only condition of admittance is that they attend morning and evening worship. Occasionally heathen people stop there too. The idea is a capital one, as it keeps the missionaries in touch with their native converts in a way which otherwise it would be very difficult to accomplish. We visited the printing press and the boys’ and girls’ schools. I was particularly struck by the bright little girls, who answered so intelligently when I questioned them, and whose part-singing was beautiful. The Kols are naturally musical, their ear being, as a rule, very good. The girls sang softly and sweetly; some of them even sang alone for me. They were being taught by a native who seemed to have a great deal of musical talent; he had just picked up a new thing himself--by ear, I suppose--and was putting it to notes for his girls.

“I was greatly struck by the practical work being done by these German missionaries. The children were being taught in an elementary and practical manner suitable to their village life. For instance, the girls were given a sum; one stated it on the blackboard, another worked it out in her head and gave the answer, and then both had a pair of scales and weights with some sand, and before the others they weighed out the amount which, according to the sum, they were entitled to. In the same practical way the girls were taught cooking and other things which would be useful to them as the wives of country villagers.

“I was taken to see the theological seminary and boys’ boarding school, and the fine church, where about eight hundred of the native congregation meet every Sunday for the worship of the true God; and yet we are told that missions are a failure!

“One very striking thing in the seminary was the singing class; I was amazed at the splendid way in which they rendered selections from Handel’s ‘Messiah’.”

[Sidenote: Purulia.] One of the chief enterprises of the Gossner Mission is its famous leper asylum at Purulia. The asylum was founded by _Missionary Uffman_ in 1888, the immediate occasion being the driving of a number of poor lepers from their miserable huts. The missionary offered them a refuge in his compound and there relieved them as much as possible. From this small beginning has grown the largest and finest institution of its kind in India. There is a model village on a tract of fifty acres of evergreen woods, with sixty spacious houses, offices, dispensaries, a hospital, prayer rooms and a lofty Lutheran church. Four-fifths of the inhabitants are Christians. The medical treatment is that prescribed by the latest investigations of scientific men who have discovered the blessed fact that the prevention of leprosy for the children of lepers is possible and inexpensive.

[Sidenote: Hope in the Midst of Misery.] A visitor describes thus a Christmas celebration. “The lepers came marching out singing hymns and playing instruments. Some limp slowly, some blind ones are led by their comrades, some are carried. At last all are seated in the sunshine. There were knitted garments, mufflers, scrapbooks, toys, something for everybody, and how grateful they were! But when we saw the disfigured hands held out for the gifts, or little leper girls caressing their new dolls, our hearts were deeply touched, and we could hear those leper boys making music with their new instruments almost through the whole night.

“Hear this grateful letter from a leper saint. ‘Lady, Peace! your love-heart is so great that it reached this leper village--reached this very place. I being Guoi Aing, have received from you a bed’s wadded quilt. In coldest weather, covered at night, my body will have warmth, will have gladness. Alas, the wideness of the world prevents us seeing each other face to face, but wait until the last day, when with the Lord we meet together in heaven’s clouds--then what else can I utter but a whole-hearted mouthful of thanks? You will want to know what my body is like--there is no wellness in it. No feet, no hands, no sight, no feeling; outside body greatly distressed, but inside heart is greatest peace, for the inside heart has hopes. What hopes? Hopes of everlasting blessedness, because of God’s love and because of the Savior’s grace. These words are from Guoi Aing’s mouth. The honorable pencil-person is Dian Sister.’

“Beyond question this work at Purulia is one of the most successful concrete results of Christian missions that the world can show.”

[Sidenote: A Costly Sacrifice.] The founder, Missionary Uffman, paid a costly sacrifice of devotion to the cause which he loved in the death of his oldest daughter from leprosy. Among the workers for the lepers was the _Rev. F. P. Hahn_, who gave forty-two years of labor in the mission, dying in 1910. He had been awarded, as have been other Lutheran missionaries, the Kaiser-i-Hind golden medal, which the British government bestows only upon those who have rendered distinguished service in humanitarian causes.

The reports of the Gossner Society for 1913 recorded fifty German missionaries and seventy-one thousand Christians. The Gossner mission is the largest of the Lutheran enterprises in India.

[Sidenote: The Command of God Unheeded.] The Danish-Halle mission among the Tamils in Tranquebar had been founded by Ziegenbalg and Plütschau as we have seen. Then during a period of unbelief at home, this noble mission declined. It was no wonder that the command of God was forgotten when a writer upon ecclesiastical affairs could express himself thus: “The Church of Christ is not suited to such nations as the East Indians, the Greenlanders, the Laplanders, and the Esquimaux. These people belong to the race of apes and it is useless to preach the Gospel to them until they become men.”

[Sidenote: A Decline.] At the time of the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the mission, Madras, Cuddalore, Tanjore and Trichinopoli had been allowed to pass into the hands of English missionaries, smaller stations had ceased to be occupied at all, and the Danish-Halle Society was limited to work at Tranquebar and Poriear. In 1825 a royal command put an end officially to the mission.

In 1837 there died the last Danish-Halle missionary, _Kemerer_ by name, who bewailed upon his death-bed the sad condition which he left. But the church which he loved was not to remain without witnesses. The _Leipsic Society_, whose origin we have described above, sent to Tranquebar in 1840 _John Henry Charles Cordes_, who was a son-in-law of Kemerer.

[Sidenote: A Single Witness.] Alone, Cordes set to work. Feeling the need of native helpers he began once more a training school for them at Poriear. When in 1845 England bought Tranquebar he saved the mission to the Lutheran Church. At first the circumstances under which Cordes labored were disheartening in the extreme. Then two missionaries, _Ochs_ and _Schwartz_ arrived. A third station at Majaweram, begun and given up by the English, was incorporated.

[Sidenote: A Delicate Question.] In 1846 several hundred Tamils from Madras turned from the mission of the Church of England into the mission of the Leipsic Society on account of caste difficulties. One of the most delicate questions which must be met by missionary policy in India is that of caste. It has been the policy of most churches to decline to recognize that which is so contrary to the spirit of the Christian religion. The policy of the Leipsic missionaries has been to ignore the question, trusting to the purifying and uplifting effect of the Gospel eventually to solve the problem.

[Sidenote: Old Citadels Retaken.] Gradually under Missionary Cordes and his successors some of the old work of the Danish-Halle Mission was resumed and new stations were established. Work was begun once more in Madras, where Schultze had labored. Cumbaconam, where Christian Frederick Schwartz had preached, where ten thousand heathen priests were supported by the populace, where heathen temple touched heathen temple, heard again the Gospel, preached now by another Schwartz. In Sidabarum where the natives declared: “Christians may not live here; the God Siva will not endure it,” the Leipsic missionaries won seven hundred converts.

For more than thirty years Cordes worked in India and until his death in 1892, fifty years after he had been ordained as a missionary, he busied himself with missionary affairs.

[Sidenote: Brotherly Support.] The Leipsic Society is famous for the thoroughness and solidity of its work. Its last report gives twenty-four main stations which lie chiefly in the districts of Trichinopoli, Tanjore, Coimbatore and Madura. It has also small missions in Rangoon, Penang and Colombo for the sake of the Tamil Christians who have emigrated to these places. In the southern part of its territory it is aided by the Swedish Church Mission. Together the Leipsic Mission and the Swedish Church Mission have fifty-eight missionaries at work. There is a Christian community of twenty-two thousand and there are fourteen thousand pupils in the schools.

The following description given by a young Leipsic missionary in 1890 indicates at the same time the enormous task before the Church and the courage with which the scattered workers are endeavoring to solve it.

[Sidenote: A Great Festival.] “On the evening of November 5th we went by rail together to Majaweram, in order to celebrate Brother Meyner’s wedding. This fell just in the time of the great Bathing Festival to which as many as fifty to sixty thousand assemble. On the chief day we went to the bathing-place, and looked at the matter a little more closely. There was a tumultuous throng; hardly to be penetrated. We were the only white faces among all these dusky multitudes. The best place for viewing the whole affair appeared to be the flat roof of the idol temple. We climbed up to it by a ladder, without any opposition. From here we could overlook the human masses; they stood close packed together, some bathing, some chatting, etc. We saw also how they were carrying about different idols, which were adorned with gold, silver and precious stones. All were greeted by the crowd with uplifted hands and loud acclaims. In view of this our hearts might well sink, as we beheld heathenism yet subsisting in its full, unbroken might. If we did not know that God’s truth gains the victory, we should despair of the possibility that India will ever be converted. It is an almost impregnable citadel of Satan, and the individual mission stations are like oases in the waste, and the individual missionary is as a drop in the ocean. For instance, in each of such cities as Sidabarum, Cuddalore, Cumbaconam, etc., of forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, there is only a single missionary! What can a single man effect over against such masses? Even yet it is only a siege from without--we have not yet made our way into the interior of the fortress. Nevertheless we will not therefore despond, but with fresh courage attack the task in the name of the Lord--you at home with prayer and gifts, we in the land itself by preaching the Gospel to the poor, blinded people, and attracting such as are willing to let themselves be saved. We know that the Lord by little can accomplish much. But Thou, O Lord Jesus, accept our poor, weak will, our slender strength, take also the offer of our youth, and fashion us into men, and into instruments of Thy mercy! Do Thou Thyself fulfill Thy work in power and bring hither to Thy flock them that are scattered abroad in the world, so that Thou canst soon appear in Thy glory and conduct us out of the conflict and strife of time into Thy kingdom of peace! Amen.”

A quarter of a century has changed greatly the situation in India. The siege has advanced nobly and many fortresses have been taken.

[Illustration: ALL INDIA LUTHERAN CONFERENCE IN 1914. DELEGATES FROM EIGHT MISSIONS.]

[Sidenote: Another Brave Record.] The station of the _Hermannsburg Society_ in India is in the southern part of Telugu land in the Presidency of Madras and the district of Nellore. This mission has a history of bitter opposition from the natives and cruel sufferings from cholera, but its workers have bravely persisted, longing for a larger force. After fifty years of work they write hopefully: “Our work in the Telugu mission is a blessed one. The plot is small, but it will be a great harvest field. Our preaching meets with great opposition, but opposition is better than a dull indifference. Had we but the means to offer salvation to the pariahs they would come in throngs.”

After fifty years the mission reports a staff of fifteen missionaries in twenty stations and a Christian community of more than three thousand. A leper asylum is one of its enterprises.

[Sidenote: A Promising Field.] The last of the German missionary societies to establish itself in India is the _Breklum_ or _Schleswig-Holstein Society_. It had been recommended to work in the Bastar land, but the king refused to allow the missionaries to stay and they went therefore to Salur in 1883. Though the mission is still young, it provides for all varieties of missionary work, its schools are first-class, it has established a training school for native workers and a leper asylum and deaconesses are in charge of Zenana work.

The Breklum Mission lies partly in high land where the temperature is that of Europe. Here in the hills the various popular religious cults of India had not penetrated; the inhabitants were demon worshipers. Among them the Gospel has been received. To the missionaries it seems that dawn is at hand; in the words of one, “there is throughout the land a rustling as though rain is coming.”

In 1913 the mission reported twenty-seven German missionaries and sixteen thousand five hundred converts.

[Sidenote: Work Interrupted.] It is with a sad heart that the lover of missions contemplates the condition of German missions in India to-day. Instead of the longed-for and expected harvest there is blight and desolation; instead of plenteous rain there is drought. These Germans, pious, diligent and successful, find drawn across the history of their work a deeper rift than that which was drawn by the mutiny of ’57. Removed from their missions and either held as prisoners of war or returned to Germany, they watch with distress as the labor of years is disastrously halted. The Basel mission which is partly manned by Swiss, is not so seriously affected as the Leipsic, the Hermannsburg, the Gossner and the Schleswig-Holstein or Breklum missions, which are deprived of their workers and deprived of support.

Lutherans in other lands are doing all that they can to care for these enterprises. The Leipsic Mission will be looked after by the Lutheran Church of Sweden; the Schleswig-Holstein or Breklum Mission by the General Council; the Hermannsburg Mission by the Joint Synod of Ohio, and the Gossner Mission by the General Synod. In this cause the American Norwegian and Danish bodies have offered their services, as might have been expected from their characteristic liberality.

SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES.

[Sidenote: A Trans-formation in Fifty Years.] The _Home Mission to the Santals_, founded, as we have learned in