Part I, Chapter XII — The Crisis
The history of the American Evangehcal Lutheran Mis- sions in India has been marked by alternating periods of joy- ful activity and dispirited inertia, of elation over good results obtained and of discouragement over seeming failure, of com- paratively rapid progress and of slow retrenchment, of steady gains and of rapid decHne; but in and through it all, the work of the conversion of individuals, of the estabhshment of the Church and of the christianization of the people has been un- interruptedly carried on to its present stage of development.
A reinforcement of three missionaries reached the field in 1858, and the prospect looked exceptionally bright. As one after the other of the missionaries, however, resigned or died, and none were sent to fill the gaps, the work languished, and the interest and effort in the Church at home, dissipated by the Civil War and by internal dissensions in the General Synod, dwindled and almost died out.
Adam Long, one of the new missionaries sent out in 1858, was born December 14, 1825, in Clarion County, Pa. He was graduated from the Academy at Zelienople and, in 1850, entered Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pa. After com- pleting his college course he studied theology in the Gettysburg Seminary. He was ordained at the meeting of the West Pennsylvania Synod at Chambersburg, Pa,, September 29, 1857, and two weeks afterward, November 12th, he mar- ried Marie Diettrich, of Ohio.
Erias Unangst, the other new missionary, was born in 1824, in Lehigh County, Pa. He entered the Preparatory Department, Pennsylvania College, in 1847, and was gradu- ated from the college in 1854. He was ordained in 1857, and on September 24th, that year, married Phoebe Milliken of Lewistown, Pa.
I20 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA A farewell meeting and service of commissioning for these new missionaries and for Rev. William E. Snyder, who was returning to India, was held on the evening of October 13, 1857, in Trinity Church, Reading, Pa. They sailed from Boston on December 23, 1857, in the company of four American Board missionaries, and arrived at Madras on March 14, 1858, Snyder being accompanied by his daughter, Lottie, as well as by his second wife, Mary Jane, the daughter of Jesse Orner of Reading, Pa. Groenning, who had remained in India twelve years, having been promised a furlough after the arrival of the new mis- sionaries, at once left Guntur with his wife and four children and reached Hamburg on September 13, 1858. Snyder took charge of the work in Guntur and the Palnad, Unangst remaining with him. Long went to Rajahmundry. The educational work occupied most of Snyder's time and attention. The English School which, in 1858, began to re- ceive grant-in-aid from the Government, enrolled 52 pupils, many of them Brahmins. In the Telugu schools of Guntur and its vicinity 55 boys were being instructed by seven native Christian teachers. Mrs. Unangst succeeded Mrs. Groenning as the manager of the Guntur Girls' School in which about 40 girls were taught by three teachers, Walter, Ruth and Rebecca.^
Heise, in September, 1857, had succeeded Heyer at Rajahmundry as the missionary of the Pennsylvania Ministerium. The number of communicants in Rajahmundry (22) was smaller than in Guntur (30), but the number of pupils in school continued to be larger, the Anglo-vernacular School enrolling 80, the six Telugu schools 160, and the Girls' School 45 pupils. Thirteen teachers in all were employed. The Christian community, including the baptized children, numbered 120.
The work at Guntur and in the Palnad was just beginning to regain headway under the efficient management of Snyder, when God removed him suddenly by death. He had finished
^ Walter was the headmaster; Ruth was the wife of Henry, the missionaries' butler; Rebecca was the wife of Stephen.
TELUGU POTTERS AT WORK
TELUGU GOLDSMITHS The boy apprentice is blowing upon the fire through a bamboo pipe. The master goldsmith is a devotee of the god Siva, showing, as do all Sivaites, horizontal chalk marks on his chest, arms, and forehead.
TKLU(;i' I'.ASKKT MAKERS WORKINC. IX FRONT OF TIIKIR HI T
KI.rC.L' CARPENTERS SAWINC A LUC, OF W'OoD
THE CRISIS 121 a successful tour in the Palnad, accompanied by Joseph and Walter, having baptized thirty-nine adults and forty children, when, on the day of his return to Guntur, he was stricken with cholera. After an illness of only three days he died on March 5, 1859.^ Ten months after his arrival at Rajahmundry, Long moved to Samulkot. The advisability of starting a new station somewhere in the thickly populated region between Rajahmundry and the coast had been discussed at the conference of missionaries, December 25, 26, 1858,^ and the following resolu- tion had been unanimously adopted: "Resolved, That we proceed immediately to organize a station at Pittapur or Peddapur, and that brother Long be requested to occupy either of these places as soon as possible." Long decided to begin at Samulkot rather than at either of the places recommended, because Captain Todd, the officer in command of the 28th regiment of English soldiers, quartered at Samulkot, urged him to come there and offered the temporary use of one of the officers' houses in the cantonment. On January 31, 1859, Long occupied Samulkot. Soon thereafter Mrs. Long began a school for boys, held on the verandah of their home, starting with thirty-five English, Eurasian and Hindu boys. Long conducted an English service every Sunday in the cantonment for the officers and soldiers, and preached Telugu every Wednesday evening in the bazaar. He also organized a Telugu Sunday school. Occasionally he went to Coconada, Peddapur and Pittapur to preach.
The Executive Committee in America sanctioned the building of a missionary's bungalow at Samulkot, and a site was obtained through the Collector, containing about twelve acres, on the road from Samulkot to Peddapur. The work of excavating for the foundations had been begun when word was received that the lot should not be given to the Mission ^ His widow and daughter at once returned to the United States, the former going to her parents' home in Reading, the latter to her grandfather in Paterson, N- J- . ^ Five towns were under consideration, namely, Samulkot, with approximately 20,000 inhabitants; Peddapur, with 20,000; Pittapur, with 20,000; Coconada, with 18,000, and Jaggampetta.
122 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA but should be offered for public sale. Then Long bought it for Rs. 240. Meanwhile he had been obliged to vacate the house in the cantonment, and for several weeks he lived in a tent. William Black, Esquire, headmaster of the Government school at Rajahmundry, hospitably entertained the missionary and his wife until the Samulkot bungalow was completed, and even loaned him money for the undertaking. The house was finished in February, 1861. It was a one-story building with a verandah, built of rough stone, containing three main rooms, a small bedroom, a pantry and a dressing room. The roof was tiled and the floor laid with stone and plastered. Samulkot has been "stony ground" from the beginning. The presence of the English soldiers in the town proved to be a disadvantage to mission work. Long reported three adult communicants in i860, five the next year and eight in 1865. On his tours in 1864 Long visited fifty-three villages and towns, and, in 1865, sixty-foar, preaching wherever he went and distributing hundreds of Bibles, Testaments and tracts. Long was the Samulkot missionary for six years. From such a short period of residence very little could be expected. Sev- eral adult conversions were recorded, and seven infants were baptized by him.
In the fall of i860 Groenning returned to Guntur. He had sailed from Hamburg, Germany, with his wife and two younger children, on September 2 2d, leaving his three elder children with relatives and friends in Germany. In March, 1862, Heise having been forced to resign and leave the Mission on account of ill-health,^ Groenning went to Rajahmundry. At his own request and because he was the only experienced missionary on the field, the Palnad district was placed under his supervision, though it was manifestly impossible for him to give it much attention from such a distant point as Rajahmundry.
Before leaving Rajahmundry Heise joined the other mis- sionaries in the submission of the following resolutions to the Executive Committee of the Foreign Missionary Society, passed at a meeting of the missionaries held in January, 1862:
1 Heise afterward lived and labored at Kiel Germany.
THE CRISIS 123
"i. A native ministry is considered very desirable if we could find men of faith and vital piety for it. Such a native ministry should receive a salary of Rs. 20 a month.
"2. English schools are to be considered as a secondary means of spreading the truth, wherein the higher castes, desir- ing to learn the English language, consent to Hsten to Bible teaching. An English school, however, should not occupy more than two hours a day of a missionary's time. The rest of the day should be devoted to evangelistic effort.
"3. Telugu schools are necessar>^ means of disseminating the good seed into the hearts of children and parents.
"4. PubHc preaching in the bazaars and villages affords the best opportunity of learning the difficulties and hin- drances which prevent the masses from accepting Christianity, and of preparing the way for inquiry concerning the truth as it is in Jesus.
"5. An examination in Telugu for every missionary after two years in the country or, under unfavorable circumstances, after three or four years, would be desirable.
"6. Every missionary should be willing to labor where the Executive Committee desires, and to spend and be spent for the cause of the Master."
Groenning toured in the Palnad district in September, 1862, and again in August, 1863, spending about five weeks each time in the district and two weeks on the journey thither and back. On his second tour he baptized sixteen persons and administered the Lord's Supper to one hundred communi- cants in six congregations. 1 In October, 1862, the services of a Eurasian catechist, R. E. Cully, were secured for the Palnad district, where he did satisfactory work.
Concerning the educational work Groenning wrote: "The worst of it is that, after the pupils have learned a little about the Gospel, their parents take them out of school and put them to work in the fields, where they can earn a Uttle more than we can give them as pupils; and unless we give them 1 He reported the number of adult Christians in the district to he 196, inquirers 130, pupils 89. Johan taught in Polepalli, Zaccheus in Adigopula, Samuel in Pillutla, Jacob in Jaggareish, Johan in Mutukuru, Lazarus in Taralla, Christian in Mandadi and Samuel in Veldurti.
; 124 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA something for coming to school we cannot get them. It is different in Denmark, where parents are obliged to send their children to school. You might argue that, if Hindu parents will not send their children to school without being paid for it, they ought to be left to their fate; but the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost, and we. His followers, wish by all lawful means to do the same. We even have boarding schools in which we provide everything for the pupils." The mis- sionaries, it appears, admitted not only the sons and daughters of baptized Christians but also unbaptized children, as free boarding pupils,—a practice which experience has proved to be inadvisable. Although the financial support of English residents in Guntur had practically ceased. Judge J. H. Morris and Cap- tain C. Taylor of Rajahmundry contributed liberally toward the school work in that town, giving as much as an average of Rs. 60 a month. Moreover, the Pennsylvania Ministerium sent $150 a year especially for school work in charge of its missionary. Consequently the educational work in Rajahmundry continued to make a better showing than that in Guntur. Outside of Rajahmundry, Telugu schools were conducted at Dowlaishwaram and Muramunda, each attended by about thirty pupils.
Groenning was undoubtedly the most successful of the early missionaries at Rajahmundry. The records show that, in 1863 and 1864, he baptized twenty adults and eight children in 1865, eleven adults and four children ; and on the last Sunday which he spent at the station, in September, 1865, eleven persons, including infants. Forty native Christians received the Lord's Supper that day.
When Groenning learned that no reinforcements could be sent from America for years, he turned to Germany in the hope of securing one or more missionaries. He corresponded with his brother-in-law, Mr. Nagel of Hamburg, Germany, and with Rev. Ludwig Harms, founder of the Hermannsburg Missionary Society, urging them to come to the rescue of the American Evangelical Lutheran Mission in India.
Under date of June 21, 1864, Groenning wrote to the
THE CRISIS 125 Executive Committee in America: "On the last day of May I received a very cheering letter from Pastor Harms, in which he promised to send a man to help as a missionary here. I feel very thankful for this kind offer, and I am sure you will acknowledge herein the hand of Providence. In the month of December ult., I wrote to him to say that on account of the war in America it seemed impossible for my society to send any reinforcements for some time. If he would send a proper man, you would most probably support him by and by. To my surprise he has written that he would. If you feel that it would tax your resources too heavily to carry on this mission station, Pastor Harms, I think, would be walling to take it from you; but if you feel strong enough, his society may look for some other place in this vicinity. May the Lord guide you and me in this important matter. Some time ago I learned from a conversation with an English lady that an- other denomination intended establishing a station or two in this district."
The result of this correspondence was that Pastor Harms secured and sent out the Rev. August Mylius with instructions to arrange with Groenning for the occupation of Rajahmundry as the field of the Hermannsburg Society in India. My- lius reached Rajahmundry in March, 1865. The Executive Committee of the Foreign Missionary Society, however, v/as unwilling to make the transfer, and Mylius, acting under in- structions, looked for unoccupied territory in the Telugu country, and located finally at Sulurpet and Naydupet.
During the hot season of 1865, Groenning, his wife and their two younger sons were seriously ill. One of the children died and was buried in the mission cemetery. Physicians ordered the return of the missionary and his family to the temperate zone. The Executive Committee in America, though willing under the circumstances to grant the mis- sionary a furlough in Germany, was unable to forward the money required for the journey. Friends in Denmark, however, to whom Groenning appealed, supphed him with the necessary funds, and in September, 1865, he left the Mission. He never returned; but he continued to take the deepest in-
: 126 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA terest in the Mission to the day of his death and gave one of his sons as a missionary.
Long succeeded Groenning at Rajahmundry ; but scarcely had he begun there when death claimed him, on March 5, 1866, a victim of small-pox, contracted from a little boy whom he nursed. Of his three children who were ill with the same disease at the time of his death, two died and were laid to rest by the side of their father in the mission cemetery. Eight years he had been in the field and had been a patient, faithful missionary. He laid down his Hfe as a sacrifice to the great cause in obedience to the last command of the Saviour.
One missionary was left, Unangst, at Guntur. He con- tinued his residence there and undertook to supervise the whole Mission. Cully was the catechist for the Palnad. Joseph and Paulus were appointed catechists for the Rajahmundry work, Joseph residing at Rajahmundry and Paulus at Muramunda. Judge Morris and Captain Taylor agreed to look after the school work in Rajahmundry.
In July, 1866, Unangst visited Rajahmundry. On the evening of the seventeenth of that month he administered the Lord's Supper at Rajahmundry to fifty communicants. Judge Morris and Captain Taylor communing with the native Chris- tians. On the twenty-first he administered the Holy Communion to three native Christians in Coconada, and the next day he was in Samulkot. The following Sunday he spent in Rajahmundry. Concerning this part of the Mission he wrote " Rajahmundry needs a resident missionary. The immersion- ists, Plymouth Brethren, are enticing our members away, as if there were not enough for them to do among the heathen. Several of our teachers have been alienated. Unless a mis- sionary occupies that place soon, there will be very little left for us to look after, and we shall, perhaps, be obHged, whether we will or not, to surrender the field to a sect whom we do not very much feel like patronizing."
We may stop for a moment at this critical stage of the history of the American Lutheran Missions in India, after twenty-five years of work, to see what its condition was as shown by statistics. There were four stations: Guntur,
THE CRISIS 127 Rajahmundry, Samulkot and the Palnad. The out-stations or villages in which Christians resided numbered 29. The number baptized from the beginning to the close of the year 1867, was 1 1 40; the number of Christians 680; of communi- cants, about 350. Three catechists, two colporteurs and twenty-three teachers were employed. In twenty-two schools there were about three hundred pupils. The number of bap- tisms reported by Unangst in 1867 was forty-five adults and fifty-one infants.
Now let us turn from the foreign field to the Home-Church. The decline of foreign mission interest and effort during the seventh decade of the past century must be attributed to two causes, namely: first, the Civil War which began in the spring of 1861, and lasted four years; and secondly, confes- sional differences in the General Synod, which culminated in a division and in the formation, in 1867, of a second general body of Lutherans, the General Council.
The income of The Foreign Missionary Society of the General Synod became increasingly inadequate. The Penn- sylvania Ministerium contributed annually $900 for the salary of a missionary and about $150 in addition for school work; but no effort was made to increase the contributions from year to year. The other synods in the General Synod dis- played no more energy than the mother synod. Moreover, some of them allowed the India Mission to suffer by giving a large part of their contributions to the mission in Africa, which had been started as an independent enterprise but afterward had been placed under the care and control of The Foreign Missionary Society. The outbreak of the war, in the spring of 1861, compelled the omission of the regular biennial convention of the General Synod that year, and, as a consequence, the treasury of The Foreign Missionary Society suffered ; and the close of the year's accounts showed a deficit of $3000. Nevertheless, the General Synod at its conven- tion in 1862, at Lancaster, Pa., adopted a resolution, pro- posed by the Pittsburgh Synod, to begin a mission in China. This, surely, was an indication of great faith in the promise of the Lord and of confidence in the Church's ability to under-
128 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA take great things. Rev. R. Neumann, who at one time had been a missionary in China and whose plea for that land had moved the Pittsburgh Synod to present its resolution, was called to be the General Synod's missionary to China and was authorized to raise $2000 for the proposed undertaking. He, however, declined the call and no further steps in this direction were taken.
For twenty-five years the Executive Committee of The Foreign Missionary Society had practically remained intact. Its leading members had been the Rev. H. N. Pohlman, D. D., the Rev. G. A. Lintner, D. D., and the Rev. J. Z. Senderling. It had unquestionably been faithful to its trust. The Gen- eral Synod, however, now demanded a change in the admin- istration of the affairs of The Foreign Missionary Society, and an entirely new committee was elected in 1866. The Rev. E. Greenwald was made chairman; the Rev. L. E. Albert, corresponding secretary; and the Rev. A. C. Wedekind, the Rev. J. E. Graeff and G. P. Ockershausen, Esq., were the other members of the committee. The new committee asked the Rev. C. W. Groenning to return to India, but he declined and accepted a pastorate at Apenrade, Denmark. Neverthe- less, at the solicitation of the committee he took two young men, C. F. J. Becker and H. C. Schmidt, into his home to pre- pare them for work in the service of the American society.
After the organization of The General Council, in 1867, the Pennsylvania Ministerium and the other synods associated with it in the new body, withdrew their support from The Foreign Missionary Society whose income fell from $19,346 for the biennium 1865 and 1866, to $15,875 for the succeeding biennium.
The following letter from India reveals the condition of affairs at this crisis, both in the Mission and in the Church at home. Guntur, December 5, 1868. To the Evangelical Lutheran Churches in the United States.
Dear Friends: I regret very much that we are obhged to inform you, that we and our Mission are in want and dis- tress. The last letter from our corresponding secretary
THE CRISIS 129 gives rather a gloomy picture of the condition of the foreign mission enterprise in our Church, so that we have little or no hope of a reinforcement of missionaries at present. Our treasurer's last letter is dated May 4, 1868. By this letter we got only $1000 for us and our Mission. Since that time we have received nothing, and yet we have had to live and meet all the pecuniary demands of the Mission. Ten teachers and a catechist in the Guntur district, Mr. Cully and eight teach- ers in the Palnad district, a catechist, a colporteur and five teachers in Rajahmundry and Samulkot, had all to be paid their salaries. Incidental expenses and our own living had also to be met. In order to do all this we have been obliged to borrow upward of $1000 (Rs. 2000) from native mer- chants. The interest on this amount is $15 a month. The annoyance and vexation which thus harass us in consequence of our present want and distress may be more clearly imagined than described. I do not know what you would do under similar circumstances. Perhaps you would resign, attach the mission property, clear your debts, secure your own lawful share and retire. If not, then do you wish us to go on and manage the Mission and conduct its various operations by means of borrowed capital? We can hardly believe that you have such a wish, nor can we think that your hearts are so callous as to be insensible to the loud appeals of humanity and the cause of Christ. We, therefore, appeal to you for rehef. Some new missionaries are wanted in our Mission, with several thousand dollars, or else you must give up the work to those who would be willing and ready to furnish both missionaries and money for this field. Our good work here is increasing on our hands, and we feel powerless to take hold of it and carry it on vigorously. Only recently news came from five villages where there are new inquirers. All we can do is to invite the people to come to Guntur. How can we incur additional expense for travelling and go to see these and other places in our mission field, unless you promptly relieve us and pay the Mission's debt which, by the time you see and read this appeal, will have increased to $1500? We appeal to you for help, to pray for us and remember us
130 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA before God at the family altar, the fireside, and in the solemn assembly. May (jod be with you and help you to do so, is the prayer of
Yours affectionately in Christ,
E. Unangst, Matters grew steadily worse in the Mission, especially at Rajahmundry. As a last resort Unangst requested the Rev. F. N. Alexander, a missionary of The Church Missionary Society at Ellore, to take charge of the work at Rajahmundry. He consented and appointed his associate, the Rev. Mr. Darling, to visit that town and make the necessary arrange- ments. This occurred in March, 1869, and two months there- after the mission agents began to receive their salaries from the funds of the Church Missionary Society in the hands of its missionaries at Ellore.
Meanwhile the Executive Committee of The Foreign Missionary Society of the General Synod had received Un- angst's report of his proposal to the Ellore missionaries and had approved it. At the meeting of the committee in Wash- ington, D. C, May 17, 1869, it was resolved to make an offer of the formal transfer of the Rajahmundry-Samulkot district to the Church Missionary Society of England. Before the negotiations were completed, however, (Jod, through his servants Heyer and Groenning, interfered and gave this territory to the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America.
.MAP OF THE GENERAL COUNXIL'S TELUGU MISSION FIELD
N S
^ 0/s
MAP OF GENERAL SYNOD'S TKLUGU MISSION FIEEP
PART II
THE HISTORY OF THE TELUGU MISSION
OF THE
GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA