Part I, Chapter VIII — The Founding of the Rajahmundry Mission
Four hundred and sixty miles north of Madras, on the Godavery River, one of the twelve sacred streams of India, five miles above the point where the river divides to form its delta, lies the town of Rajahmundry, the ancient seat of an Indian prince (rajah) and the center of Telugu culture and literature. Here The North German Missionary Society of Hamburgh established the second EvangeHcal Lutheran Mission in the Telugu country, to which its attention had been drawn by the Rev. Mr. Wyneken and other friends in America.
Two members of the first class graduated from the Mis- sion Institute of The North German Society in 1842, were selected as its first missionaries to India; but one of them after a serious illness was pronounced to be physically unfit for work in the tropical climate of South India and was sent in- stead to the society's African mission. The other, an inseparable friend, asked to be permitted to go with his friend to Africa and the permission was given. Then Louis P. Menno Valett, a candidate in theology, volunteered to become the society's first missionary to India. He was accepted and duly commissioned. He left Hamburg May 26, 1843, and reached Madras October 2d, four months and one week later. After Heyer had learned of his arrival in Madras he invited him to come to Guntur, live with him in the mission house and study Telugu with him. Valett accepted the in- vitation and came in February, 1844. A few weeks later, however, Valett started northward "to spy out the land" and to select the foreign mission field of his society. He * The office of this society was at first in Hamburg. Afterward it was removed to Bremen.
84 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA took with him as an interpreter one of the older pupils of the English-Telugu school in Guntur. Passing through Ellore he went as far north as Rajahmundry, one hundred and fifteen miles from Guntur. Within a month he was back in Guntur, where he remained until, in January, 1845, he returned to Rajahmundry to begin his work there as a resident missionary. Sir Arthur Cotton and several of his assistant engineers, engaged in the construction of the dam (anicut) at Dowlaishwaram, pledged their moral and financial support and thus greatly encouraged the newly arrived missionary. He at once organized an Anglo-vernacular school like Heyer's in Guntur, and also a purely Telugu school. From the very beginning regular Sunday morning services and daily devotional meetings were conducted by Valett in Telugu for the benefit of the native servants of resi- dent English families, who attended not of their own free will but because their English employers made attendance at these services compulsory. The intention of these English residents was laudable, but compulsory attendance failed to win converts. Every Sunday evening the missionary held an EngHsh service for the foreign residents and Eurasians. After Valett had labored thus for a little over a year, two additional missionaries, Charles W. Groenning and Ferdinand August Heise, joined him. After their graduation from the Mission Institute of the North German Society, they sailed, December 12, 1845, from Hamburg for Calcutta, arriving at Rajahmundry July 22, 1846.
Charles William Groenning was born November 22, 18 13, in Fredericia, Jutland, Denmark. His father, a metal worker, died when Charles was a boy, leaving his mother with four children. After her husband's death she moved to Coldring, on the boundary line between Denmark and Schleswig- Holstein, where Charles, at the age of eight years, was ap- prenticed to a weaver named Horn, who treated the lad as a son. From Coldring, Horn went to Flensborg, taking his apprentice with him. Charles was then fourteen years of age. In Flensborg he was confirmed by Pastor Achenfeldt. Here he heard Pastors Lorenzen and Vallynarts preach, of
CHARLES WILLIAM GROENNING
A TELUGU BRAHMIN
This I'.rahmin was converted to Christianity in the neighboring Baptist Mission. He has been the native contractor for a number of buildings in the Rajahmundry Mission.
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THE FOUNDING OF THE RAJAHMUNDRY MISSION 85 whom he afterward said that they faithfully preached the Word of the cross. He regularly attended the monthly mission meetings conducted by Pastor Lorenzen. "These meetings," he wrote, "were the sweetest ones of my life. . . . I put down my name as an annual contributor to foreign missions." Because of his interest in these meetings his fellow-workmen derided him and called him "one of the saints." He bore their derision with patience. From Flensborg he went to Copenhagen to learn how to make damask by machinery, and then to Elberfeld, near the Rhine, where he worked in a carpet factory and where he was brought into contact with Moravians who awakened in him an earnest desire to become a foreign missionary. One of the students at the Mission Institute at Barmen in the Wupperthal, a young Norwegian, Hans ELnudsen, almost persuaded him to enter that institute; but he returned to Flensborg as a young man of twenty-five, having decided to remain at his trade as a weaver. He started a carpet factory which proved to be financially successful; but the call of the heathen world grew stronger and more irresistible, and finally in March, 1840, he gave up his trade and entered the Mission Institute in Hamburg to prepare for service as a for- eign missionary. During his last two years as a student he devoted several hours every Sunday to visits among the poor of the city of Hamburg and held religious services in their homes. He was graduated in 1845, ^^^ together with his classmate, F. A. Heise, was commissioned as a missionary to the Telugus in India. When Groenning and Heise reached Rajahmundry, they found Valett busily engaged in the erection of the first mission house. It was oddly constructed. In the center of the building was a long, wide room, used as a common living room, school room and place of public worship. At each of the four corners of this large, central room there were two small rooms, each suite for the private use of a missionary, so that four mission- 1 We are sorry that we cannot furnish a sketch of Heise's life before he entered the Mission Institute. The sources consulted furnished no material for such a sketch.
86 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA aries could be accommodated. The completed building cost about $1000. Two months after their arrival Groenning and Heise were ordained at Rajahmundry by Valett and Gunn of Guntur. For a year and a half they devoted themselves to the study of Telugu and English,^ assisted Valett as opportunity offered, and in turn, visited Gunn at Guntur and Heyer in the Palnad district. The monotony of the pioneer's life was broken by a joyful event in 1848, when Valett married the sister of the Rev. Mr. Bowden, a Plymouth Brethren Baptist missionary, then stationed at Palkole near Narsapur. After the wedding the erection of a suitable bungalow in Rajahmundry was begun, but before its completion, after scarcely a year of married life, Mrs. Valett died. When both Groenning and Heise were ready to begin independent mission work, it was felt that one of them should start a new station. Ellore was chosen as the most promising place, and in May, 1849, Groenning began to preach the Gospel in that town. Three months later he left Ellore to take charge of the work in Guntur during Gunn's absence on sick leave. Returning to Ellore after Martz reached Guntur, he began two Telugu schools, in each of which about twenty pupils were enrolled at the start. The year 1850 was the most eventful one of his life. In it occurred his transfer to The Foreign Mission- ary Society of the General Synod, concerning which more will be said later, and his marriage to Henrietta Krug, sister-in-law of Mr. Nagel, a merchant of Hamburg, and an intimate friend of Amalie Sieveking. They had become engaged to be married before Groenning left Germany, but The North German Mis- sionary Society had declared itself financially unable to sup- port a married missionary, and so Groenning was obliged to leave his fiancee behind in Germany and wait until the society's finances enabled it to send her after him to India. They waited five years without hope, and then came the news of the ' Non-English missionaries in India were and still are at a disadvantage, because they must learn English as well as Telugu. As a rule, however, they are good linguists and overcome the disadvantage. Groenning did. His native language was Danish. He spoke German fluently. He gained a fair working knowledge of both English and Telugu.
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THE FOUNDING OF THE RAJAHMUNDRY MISSION 87 transfer of Groenning to the American Evangelical Lutheran Mission under the direction of The Foreign Missionary Society of the General Synod. The American society gave its consent to their marriage and in a few months Groenning's fiancee was in Madras, where he met her and where they were married on October 2, 1850. After a two months' stay in Guntur, Rev. and Mrs. C. W. Groenning went to EUore, where they lived and labored until July, 185 1, when he was appointed resident missionary at Guntur.
Martz succeeded Groenning at Ellore, but remained there only five months, and then in January, 1852, after a period of service as a foreign missionary lasting two years, returned to the United States.
In consequence of Martz's departure, Ellore was abandoned, after having been a station of The North German Missionary Society for a year and three months and of The Foreign Mis- sionary Society of the General Synod for a year and a half. To-day it is in the possession of The Church Missionary Society of England.
At this point it becomes necessary to turn our attention from the mission work in India to the progress of affairs in the Church in America.
Heyer's return to India in 1847, perceptibly increased the foreign mission interest and effort of the home-church. The reports and letters of the missionaries and of the Executive Committee of The Foreign Missionary Society, pubHshed in "The Lutheran Observer" and the "Kirchenzeitung," were read with interest. Heyer's bi-monthly letters from Gurjal to Andora and Matthias Henry, children of the Rev. J. W. Rich- ards, D. D., great-grandchildren of the patriarch Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, and to various Sunday schools, which appeared regularly in "The Lutheran Observer," were especially appreciated.
The method of conducting mission work was changed in the Pennsylvania Ministerium in 1848 (June 21st), when, in- stead of a missionary society, a standing synodical committee for foreign and domestic missions was appointed. This meant ; 88 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA that the synod as a whole assumed responsibility for the payment of Heyer's salary of $600 a year and for such sums as he needed to carry on his work. This change in method was a change for the better.^
For the other missionaries besides Heyer and the rest of the work not under his charge, The Foreign Missionary Society of the General Synod held itself responsible. It drew most of its support from the New York, Hartwick and Pittsburgh synods. The greater interest of these synods in the work of foreign missions must be ascribed to the fact that the mem- bers of the executive committee of The Foreign Missionary Society were drawn mostly from the New York Ministerium that Gunn and Snyder were members of the Hartwick Synod that the missionary zeal of Rev. William A. Passavant, D. D., a firm friend of Heyer, pervaded the Pittsburgh Synod; and that the First Church in Pittsburg gratefully remembered its indebtedness to Heyer by leading all other congregations in that synod in the amount of its foreign mission contributions.
The financial problem in the beginning of the foreign mission work in the Lutheran Church in America, as we have already had occasion to note, was a serious one. The receipts were meagre and, as a consequence, the missionaries few and their efforts restricted. To give an idea of the annual receipts and expenditures of The Foreign Missionary Society during the late forties, we insert here the treasurer's report for the year commencing May 16, 1848, and ending May 11, 1849: RECEIPTS From synods, congregations and schools $1695.82 From American Tract Society 200.00 Balance from previous year 1.40
Total $1897.22
^ In "The Lutheran Observer" of October 18, 1850, Martin Buehler, treasurer of "The Foreign Missionary Society," acknowledged receipt of the following contributions forwarded through the treasurer of the Pennsylvania Ministeriimi, Rev. J. C. Baker, D. D.: Heyer's salary in advance to November, 1851, $600; for schools from Rev. Stohlmann's congregation. New York City, $35; Juvenile Missionary Societies, St. Michael's and Zion's, Philadelphia, $80; St. John's, Easton. Rev. Dr. J. W. Richards, $15.62; Rev. Mr. Mennig's congregation, Potts- ville Pa., $18.88. Others who contributed liberally were St. John's, Philadelphia, Rev. Dr. Mayer; Trinity, Lancaster, Rev. J. C. Baker, D. D.; Salem Lebanon, Rev. W. G. Ernst.
THE FOUNDING OF THE RAJAHMUNDRY MISSION 89 EXPENDITURES May 19, 1848. To tract distribution $ioo.cx) Sept. 8, 1848. To 6 months' salary to Gunn 333-oo Dec. 16, 1848. To 6 months' salary to Gunn 333-oo Dec. 16, 1848. To schools, catechists, etc 67.00 Dec. 16, 1848. To expenses of committee 21.50 Jan. 12, 1849. To G. J. Martz, yi annual salary 100.00 April 7, 1849. To G. J. Martz, expenses 70.00 April 7, 1849. To G. J. Martz, outfit 250.00 April 7, 1849. To G. J. Martz, passage to India 250.00 April 7, 1849. To schools, catechists, books, etc 146.43 May 10, 1849. To tract distribution 100.00 May 10, 1849. To expenses of committee Zl-oo May 10, 1849. To expenses of treasurer 2.47 May 10, 1849. To balance 86.82
Total $1897.22 Estimate of expenses for 1849-50: Salary of Gunn $666.00 Salary of Martz 400.00 Schools, native workers, books, etc 300.00 Buildings 500.00 Contingent expenses at home 50.00
Total $1916.00
Although the conditions of Mr. Stokes' offer to pay the travelling expenses of an additional missionary could not be met, it emphasized the need of sending out more missionaries, and, as a consequence, a call was extended to William J. Cutter, a student in Wittenberg Seminary. William J. Cutter was born in Germany. His parents, who were Roman Catholics, emigrated to the United States when he was a boy. As a young man he was convinced of the errors of Roman Catholicism and, in 1841, united with the Evangelical Lutheran congregation at Jeffersontown, Ken- tucky, Rev. George Yeager pastor. Persuaded that he ought to consecrate himself to the holy ministry, he entered Witten- berg Seminary. At the suggestion of the Executive Com- mittee of The Foreign Missionary Society whose call to ser- vice in the foreign field he accepted, he completed his theologi- cal education in Hartwick Seminary, in order that he might make the acquaintance of pastors and congregations in the East, and was graduated from that institution in 185 1. He was ordained, married, and was commissioned that same year.
While the Foreign Missionary Society was striving to
90 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA increase its force of foreign missionaries, an opportunity was offered to enlarge its foreign mission field. During 1848 and 1849, oil account of the disturbed state of political affairs in Germany, the treasury of The North German Missionary Society became embarrassed, forcing the society to decide upon the abandonment of one of its foreign fields. Labor- ing under the impression that the much lauded intelligence and philosophical acumen of the Hindus demanded missionaries with a university training, and feeling itself un- able to furnish such men, the society resolved to abandon its India field. The first step in this direction was made when the service of Groenning was offered to The Foreign Missionary Society. His formal transfer was made in August, 1850. In a letter dated Hamburg, August 6, 1850, in which Groenning 's transfer was ratified, John Hartwig Braun, secretary of The North German Missionary Society, offered to transfer also the Rajahmundry station and missionaries, writing as follows: "There are two ordained ministers at Rajahmundry, Valett and Heise. An English school supported by EngHsh residents has, thus far, called for no expenditures on our part. Rs. 1000 have accumulated at Rajahmandry as a school fund. There has also been an attempt made to conduct a vernacular school, likewise at the expense of residents. Our society's annual expenditures for the Rajahmundry station have been as follows: Valett's salary, Rs. 1200; Heise's salary, Rs. 1000; incidental expenses, Rs. 600; total, Rs. 2800.^ Two dweUings have been erected. The compound agreement is for ninety years with an insignificant rent, payable to the government. The houses referred to have cost Rs. 4500. No compensation is asked for either of them or for money expended by us on the Mission; but we would not be willing to refund the Rs. 1000 which we borrowed from the school fund. You will be asked to assume that debt. To maintain the mission any longer is beyond the ability of The North German Missionary Society. Its abandonment has been resolved ; and if neither your society nor any other will continue the work, it will be discontinued at the close of the present year. We are anxious that you
^ This was approximately $1400.
THE FOUNDING OF THE RAJAHMUNDRY MISSION 9 should undertake it. We earnestly request that you give this offer your serious consideration and we pray the Lord to direct your minds according to His good pleasure."
This offer appealed to the Executive Committee of The Foreign Missionary Society, and in an open letter to the Church the situation was explained as follows:
"Here the committee feel in duty bound to pause, not be- cause they are at a loss to determine what ought to be the answer to this new appeal, but we think it best and proper to submit the matter to the churches, whose agents we are, and wait for their response. The question is not, what is our duty? That question is settled. The Providence of God has settled it. The voice of the Lord has been distinctly heard in every call that has been addressed to us, and the only question to be determined is whether the Church is willing to obey the voice, whether the Church is prepared to occupy the field which the Lord has made ready to oar hands. We are con- fident that the answer will be: Go on; continue to follow the leadings of Providence, as you have done; promptly answer every call and we will stand by you with our contributions and our prayers."
The confidence of the committee was not misplaced. The New York and Hartwick Synods at their meetings in the fall of 1850 passed resolutions enthusiastically advising the ac- ceptance of the offer; and, having received sufficient assur- ance of support, the Executive Committee^ of The Foreign Missionary Society, assembled in the study of the Rev. Dr. H. N. Pohlmann in Albany, N. Y., October 30, 1850, solemnly resolved, "that we accept the transfer from The North German Society of their mission in India and that we will give each of the missionaries, Valett and Heise, $500 salary per annum."
On January i, 1851, the Rajahmundry mission and mis- sionaries passed under the control of The Foreign Missionary Society of the General Synod, which thus doubled the number 1 The executive committee, as then constituted, included the Revs. Dr. Henry N. Pohhnann, chairman; J. Z. Senderling, corresponding secretary; Wm. D. Stroebel, Wm. N. Sholi and C. A. Smith.
92 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA of its missionaries and the area and importance of its mis- sion operations in India.
Spurred by the prompt and hearty response of the Church to the call for the extension of its foreign mission work, and conscious of the need of more missionaries to man its larger field, the Executive Committee proceeded, in February, 185 1, to call another missionary. William E. Snyder was born in Allamachy, Warren County, N. J., June 27, 1823. His father, Andrew B. Snyder, was by occupation a miller. His mother, Charlotte Sophia, who died in 1835, was the only sister of the Rev. George B. Miller, D. D., professor of theology in Hartwick Seminary. After the death of his mother, William went to Hartwick, N. Y., where he attended public school, his father having meanwhile removed to New Brunswick, N. J., and, in 1848, to Paterson, N. J. In 1838 William became a member of the Lutheran Church in Hartwick. He completed his classical studies in Rutgers College, New Jersey, from which he was graduated in 1 844. Returning to Hartwick he studied theology under his uncle and graduated from the seminary in two years. He was licensed to preach by the Hartwick Synod at Berne, Albany County, N. Y., in 1849, after which he was employed as a teacher in Hartwick Seminary, where a lively interest was taken in the foreign mission work of the Church. After he had accepted the call to be a foreign missionary, he was examined, ordained and commissioned at a special meeting of the ministerium of the Hartwick Synod on Wed- nesday, July 30, 185 1, in Schoharie, N. Y., the Rev. G. A. Lintner, newly-elected General Agent of The Foreign Mission- ary Society, preaching the sermon. Before his ordination, on May 6th, he married Susan Maria, ^ daughter of the Rev. Mr. St. John, a Presbyterian minister. Together they sailed in the company of Rev. and Mrs. W. J. Cutter from Boston, August 11,1851, and reached Guntur February 20,1852. Their arrival on the field increased the mission force to six ordained mis- sionaries and three missionaries' wives.
^ She was born March 24, 1820, at Milford, Otsego County, N. Y., and was educated in Genesee and Cooperstown, N. Y.
THE FOUNDING OF THE RAJAHMUNDRY MISSION 93 Gunn had gone to his eternal reward, the first missionary'- from the Lutheran Church in America to lay down his life on a foreign mission field. He died of consumption July 5, 185 1, lamented by his widow and two children, Martin Luther and Ellen, by all the missionaries, by the English residents and by the native Christians in Guntur, some of whom had visited him during his last illness and had left his bedside deeply impressed with the strength, comfort, courage and hope of Christian faith in the face of death. In the minutes of the Executive Committee of The Foreign Missionary Society the following tribute is found: "Our brother, Rev. Walter Gunn, had respectable attainments. He was evangelical in his views and principles, irreproachable in all his conduct, of humble, devoted and ardent piety. In his missionary life he was truthful, upright, faithful, courageous and persevering. As his motto was, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me"—his favorite hymn—so in his preaching would he have Christ presented to the heathen heart and formed therein. He has finished his work. He sleeps his last sleep. He has gone up to join Ziegenbalg and Schwartz and Martin and a host of worthies who have fallen in bloodless battles on India's shores."
His remains were buried in the Christian cemetery in Guntur by the side of his infant son, Herman Francke, on Sunday afternoon, July 6th. Heyer and Groenning conducted the funeral services in English and Telugu. They were attended by the district judge, the chief magistrate, the assist- ant collectors, the commanding officer, the government en- gineer, the government physician, and a large number of natives, both Christian and Hindu. The coffin was carried in a palankeen by twelve bearers from the house to the cemetery. At the gate of the cemetery twelve invalided native sepoys took up the palankeen and carried it to the grave. Messrs. Stokes and Nesbit and other Enghsh residents of Guntur placed a monument on the grave. Mr. Stokes, who was five 1 To Judge Rohde, who visited him the day before his death, the dying missionary feebly whispered: "I know in whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."—II. Timothy 1:12.
94 AMERICAN EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN MISSIONS IN INDIA hundred miles away and could not attend the funeral, wrote to the bereaved widow this fine tribute: "His life shone clear and steady and many have had reason to glorify God in him. His pure and tender spirit, his hearty love for his brethren, his meekness, his patient labor, his unrepining sufferings in all he has left us a bright and valuable example."