Chapter 15

10.It should be remembered that the Rhenish Society is largely but not entirely Lutheran.

|Sumatra--A Great Achieve-ment.|For more than fifty years, since 1861, the Rhenish Society has conducted a mission in the island of Sumatra. The larger part of the population is Mohammedan, but in the interior there are tribes who still retain their primitive religion. Among these tribes are the Bataks, who have a speech and written characters of their own. Once cannibals, they had been before the advent of the Rhenish Missionary Society the object of evangelizing work which had failed. In spite of constant danger the early missionaries continued faithful. The annals of missions have scarcely anywhere a greater victory to record. There is now a well organized church partly self-supporting. Thirty Batak native preachers have been ordained and work is carried on at forty-one main stations and five hundred out-stations. Twenty-seven thousand five hundred Batak children are being educated in five hundred schools. There is a training school for native preachers, a hospital, a leper asylum and a large industrial school. The Christian community numbers about one hundred and fifty thousand.

|The Work of Deaconesses.|During the last twenty years the Rhenish Society has sent out deaconesses to take special charge of the work among women. They manage the girls’ schools, teach and give Bible lessons to married and unmarried women and try in every way to further the development of their own sex.

Not only have the Rhenish missionaries won a large harvest from among the Bataks, but they are winning also many converts from among the Mohammedans, a much more difficult task.

The effect of the Christian religion is described in a letter from a Rhenish missionary in Sumatra.

|A Land Transformed.|“What a difference between now and thirteen years ago! Then everything was unsafe; no one dared to go half an hour’s distance from his village; war, robbery, piracy and slavery reigned everywhere. Now there is a free, active Christian life, and churches full of attentive hearers. The faith of our young Christians is seen in their deeds. They have renounced idolatrous customs; they visit the sick, and pray with them; they go to their enemies and make conciliation with them. This has often made a powerful impression on the heathen, because they saw that the Christians could do what was impossible to heathen--they could forgive injuries. Many heathen have been so overcome by this conduct of the Christians that they came to us and said: ‘The Lord Jesus has conquered.’”

The failure of Mohammedanism to meet the deep need of the human soul is shown in another letter from a Rhenish missionary in the same field.

|In the Last Hour.|“Here I must make mention of the faithful Asenath, whom on the last day of the old year we committed to the bosom of the earth. After an illness patiently endured for two years she felt her end approaching. As the last provision for her way she wished yet once more to enjoy the Holy Supper. I administered it to her in her roomy house before a large assemblage. As I was about to give her the bread she said, ‘Let me first pray.’ And now the woman, who for weeks had not been able to sit upright, straightened herself up, and prayed for fully ten minutes, as if she would fain pray away every earthly care out of her heart. I have seldom heard a woman pray in such wise. Thereupon she received the sacred elements. The next day I found with her a Mohammedan chieftain, who on taking leave wished her health and long life. ‘What say you?’ she replied, ‘after that I have no further longing. My wish is now to go to heaven, to my Lord. Death has no longer any terrors for me.’ Astonished, the Mohammedan replied: ‘Such language is strange to us. We shrink and cower before death, and therefore use every means possible to recover and live long.’

|The Beams of a Living Hope.|“Even so I think of our James, whose only son died. When at the funeral I pressed his hand, with some words of comfort, he said: ‘Only do not suppose that I murmur and complain. All that God does to me, is good and wholesome for me. I shall hereafter find my son again in life eternal.’ So vanish little by little the comfortless wailings of heathenism; the beams of a living hope penetrate the pangs and the terrors of death, as the beams of the sun the clouds of the night. And, as the hopelessness of heathenism is disappearing, so is also its implacability. When Christians contend, and at the Communion I say to them: ‘Give each other your hands’, often they say: ‘Nature is against it; but how can I withstand the graciousness of my Saviour?’ Such words are not seldom heard. And am I not well entitled to hope, that they, as a great gift of my God, warrant a confident hope in the final and glorious victory of the Prince of Life, and of his great and righteous cause?”

|Nias.|On the Island of Nias and in some of the lesser islands, the Rhenish missionaries have been at work since 1865. Here there are about a quarter of a million inhabitants who are racially related to the Bataks. Persisting through many years with but a few baptisms, the missionaries were finally rewarded. There are now thirteen stations with eighteen thousand Christians. The number of inquiries is greatest in those portions of the island where heathenism is the least broken, and the whole island seems to be open to the Gospel.

The Rhenish missionaries have in all in Malaysia Christian communities whose total inhabitants number one hundred and sixty-five thousand, of whom seventy-five thousand are church members. It is a rule of the Rhenish society to exercise the greatest care in baptizing converts so that only those shall be accepted who are worthy and who understand the step which they are taking.

|Java.|The beautiful Island of Java to the Southeast of Sumatra has been called Holland’s treasure house. Though the island has been under Christian control for three centuries the results of mission work do not make a very large showing. The largest of the Protestant Christian societies at work is the GermanNeukirchen Missionwhich has eleven principal stations, with twenty-nine workers. Java is inhabited chiefly by Mohammedans who have here a university and who have issued the Koran in the Javanese language. These Mohammedans are more willing to listen to the Gospel teaching than those in many other parts of the world.

|The Batoe Islands.|On the Batoe Islands south of Nias, a Dutch Lutheran Missionary Society has a station with two missionaries and five hundred Christians.

Australia.

|The Destruction of the Native Australians.|Originally the continent of Australia was occupied by Papuans, who have been gradually exterminated or driven into reservations. The history of the Australian native affords a record of injustice and almost incredible cruelty. The first foreign settlers were a band of criminals quartered there by England; then as the richness of the country became known, there arrived other settlers who with almost unthinkable barbarity dispossessed and murdered the natives, shooting them down like beasts, poisoning them in crowds, so that to-day the great expanse of Australia has within it not more than fifty-five thousand Papuans.

This little remnant is cared for by the government and to it go missionaries of various denominations, among them those of theNeuendettelsau Missionwhich has two stations, one at Elim-Hope in Queensland and another at Bethesda in South Australia. The Australian Immanuel Synod which is composed of Germans living in Australia has a station at New Hermannsburg in South Australia.

New Guinea.

|Success Amid Danger.|In 1886 theNeuendettelsau Societybegan to work in New Guinea. There in Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land, which is a German protectorate, it has four stations. The climate is dangerous, the language difficult to learn, and the various tribes at enmity with one another. Nevertheless the first fruits have been gathered, so that in 1909, three thousand six hundred Christians were reported. Thirty-five missionaries are on the field.

To the work of this mission theLutheran Synod of Iowacontributes.

InKaiser Wilhelm’s Landthere is also a mission of the Rhenish Society, which has three stations round Astrolabe Bay.

Lutherans in the Near East.

|An Untilled Field.|“The Mohammedan world, which extends over the whole of North Africa, part of southeast Europe, and from Arabia and Asia Minor, through Persia as far as China and the Dutch East Indies, and which numbers one hundred and ninety-six million five thousand adherents, is still almost entirely closed against the Gospel. This is true not only where there is Mohammedan rule, and where conversion to Christianity is by direction of the Koran punished with death, but also in the Christian colonial dominions of British and Dutch India. Missions to Mohammedans are carried on by societies and individuals, but considerable congregations have nowhere yet been formed from the confessors of Islam with the single exception of those in Java and Sumatra.... Besides Mohammedan fanaticism, a special hindrance which has to be reckoned with is the unfortunate connection of religion with politics. Not only are the Mohammedan governments inspired with the greatest distrust towards evangelical missionaries, as if they were the instigators of sedition, but missions are also impeded by the political jealousy of the Christian powers.”

Thus wrote Doctor Warneck, the great Lutheran historian of missions in 1902! He went on to speak of the policies of Russia, England and Germany, which jealously forbade the touching of Turkey. The good man is no longer living--what would be his emotions if he could look in 1917 upon the Near East and the confusion which political jealousy has wrought!

OFFICERS AND TEACHERS OF LUTHERAN SUNDAY SCHOOL, NEW AMSTERDAM, BRITISH GUIANA.

ITUNI SCHOOL IN SCHOOL ROOM WHICH IS ALSO THE CHURCH.

SOME INDIAN MEMBERS OF ITUNI CONGREGATION.

The Lutheran Church has made but little effort either to revive the ancient Christian churches of the East, or to convert the Mohammedans. The most ambitious plans were those of the Basel Society whose leader, Christian Frederic Spittler, dreamed of an apostolic road from Jerusalem to Gondar in Abyssinia. The early work of the Basel Society in Russia and Persia was ended by imperial command.

|A Lutheran Orphanage.|Among the various German missionary enterprises in Palestine which draw a large part of their support from Lutheran sources, is theSyrian Orphanageoutside Jerusalem, which for sixty-six years has been training children in useful trades. Here carpentry, joinery, printing, tailoring, shoe-making, blacksmithing and brick-making are taught. Its founder wasPastor Schneller, at whose death it was continued by his son. Now more than two hundred boys are enrolled, many of whom are confirmed in the Lutheran Church. A few years ago a school for the blind was added which received both boys and girls, who are taught basket-weaving, chair and brush-making.

Another German enterprise which is partly Lutheran is theGerman Orient Missionfounded in 1895. From its printing press at Philipopolis it has issued translations of the New Testament and other religious literature into Turkish. Two Turks who were converted were compelled to take refuge in Germany.

TheGerman Jerusalem Unionhas been at work since 1852. Its chief care is for the German churches in Palestine, but it conducts also mission work in the old Christian Arab population.

TheGerman Jerusalem Associationwas founded in 1889 for the benefit of the German Evangelical congregation in Jerusalem. This is in no sense a missionary enterprise, but the fact that it is supported and authorized by the German government gives importance to all the German Lutheran work in Palestine. In 1898 the German Emperor and Empress were present at the dedication of the Church of the Redeemer, supported by this organization. This church building stands within the walls of the city not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

|The Work of Deaconesses.|Schools and hospitals at Jerusalem, Beirut, Constantinople and Cairo are supported and conducted by theKaiserswerth Deaconesses, who for sixty years have labored in the East. The last report gave one hundred and twenty-eight as the number actively engaged.

TheDanish Lutheranshave small stations in Syria, Asia Minor and Arabia.

TheChurch of Swedenconducts a hospital in Bethlehem.

The only direct work by American Lutherans for the Near East is done through the smallIntersynodical Orient Mission Societyof the American Norwegians, Swedes and Germans, whose field is Kurdistan. TheJoint Synod of Ohiosupports a missionary in Persia, a vast and uncultivated field, where there is one missionary to two hundred and twenty-one thousand of the population. There has also been another Lutheran Society at work, the Syro-Chaldean.

|A Lutheran Scholar.|It is doubtful whether all other enterprises for the conversion of the Jews have equalled in bulk or importance the work of a Lutheran,Dr. Franz Delitzsch, one of the most celebrated scholars of his time, who was born in 1813, and who died in Leipsic in 1890. His greatest devotion was given to mission work for the Jews, and for them he translated the New Testament into Hebrew. The first chapters appeared in 1838; by 1888 eighty thousand copies had been published. Though to millions of Jews the languages of the countries in which they sojourned had become familiar, yet to them religion and religious instruction could be given in no other tongue than the sacred Hebrew to which they were accustomed.

Doctor Delitzsch’s translation was not the first which had been made, but like Luther’s translation of the Bible into German it far surpassed in accuracy and literary value all that had gone before.

On account of his close friendship with the fathers of the Missouri Lutherans in this country, Doctor Delitzsch’s name is a familiar one to a large part of the American Church.

Beside his translation of the New Testament he contributed many other works to Hebrew literature, tracts upon various subjects, commentaries, and a monthly journal.

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