# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 05 24_S132
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

132

marvel at what Egede told them of God's incomprehensible power and majesty. In the year 1724 Egede baptized the first child; but when the Greenlanders present now also desired baptism, he could do nothing further than put them off to a later time; with this strict legal manner he committed a wrong, which he himself afterwards most earnestly perceived and repented of, but who will cast the first stone at him? On the other hand, on the 10th of January 1724 he held his first sermon in the Greenland language and composed a catechism in simple questions and prayers. In the year 1725 he baptized a Greenland boy, named Friedrich Christian, who became an excellent teacher of his countrymen. His son Paul, who was then 18 years old, he now already sent out alone among the heathen, although he, in spite of all love and joyfulness of faith, mostly went away only in tears, because the Greenlanders mocked him smartly whenever he made a mistake in speech. When the Greenlanders came home from their summer occupation, fishing and hunting, into their winter tents, Egede mostly had to begin his instruction again from the start. Then it happened many times that, when the inclination to sorcery visibly stirred in them, he angrily threw their amulets and other trumpery on the ground and broke them. Yet no harm ever befell him. Bold and defiant in the faith of the Son of God he stood everywhere in all temptations, often also between the murmuring companions and the lamenting family, to whom, when the ships from Denmark failed to appear, famine seemed sometimes to be impending in the following years also. He shows that a true Christian is also a whole man.

The greatest trouble Egede once had from the Danish soldiers who had been sent over to serve in the little fortress built at Godthaab. Among the wild heathen of Greenland one could lie down quietly, he complains, but among his own people, who called themselves Christians, one was not safe of one's life. But what was worst, these so-called Christians gave, by their dreadful conduct, such offense among the Greenlanders that one, by the name of Okoko, once made the proposal to send Angekoks, that is, Greenland sorcerers, to Europe, "to convert the people there to good morals." A Greenlander writes, for example, afterwards: "Your teachers teach us that we should flee the devil, and the sailors pray with great earnestness that the devil may take them. Your people know that there is a Creator and Preserver of all things, that men after this life, according to their works, receive blessedness or unblessedness, and yet they live as if it had been commanded them to be wicked, as if it were their honor and advantage to sin. My countrymen, on the other hand, know not whether there is a God or a devil, believe in neither reward nor punishment after this life, and yet they live blamelessly, deal with one another peacefully and lovingly, and gladly share." Think ye not that even now many heathen, perhaps many Indians in our country, make such complaint? - The offense was great, but Egede's and his family's excellent example nevertheless prepared his preaching an entrance everywhere. Also the temptation which the question brought him, how one should proceed with holy baptism among the heathen, was overcome when the two other missionaries who had been sent after him to the Greenlanders, among them the learned Otto Lange, came to Godthaab to a conference. There these three men of God agreed 1.) that from now on, in the name of the LORD Jesus, they would impart holy baptism to the infant children of the Greenlanders dwelling nearest round about, provided that the parents themselves gave assent to the Christian doctrine and were at the same time willing to offer their little children to the LORD Jesus; 2.) that they would proceed in like manner with the somewhat older children, if they had simply grasped the chief parts of our Christian faith; and 3.) no less with the grown-up and aged, if these, besides the needful knowledge and understanding of the Christian doctrine, gave signs of true devotion and of genuine earnestness in the matter of salvation, and expressed a desire for the most worthy Sacrament of Baptism. - These resolutions were afterwards confirmed by the Mission College, and thereby a heavy burden was taken from Egede's heart. In general he had in those days many comforting experiences. Thus in the year 1730 a man from the Greenlanders living farther north came with the message: "Say to the Speaker that he should come north to us and set up his dwelling here; for here the land is better and there are more people here than down there where he now lives. He shall receive from us everything that the sailors are otherwise wont to receive; for these can tell us nothing of consequence and speak of nothing else than of blubber." We would also gladly receive thorough instruction from the great Creator, of whom those have spoken with us who have heard Him." "Who would not," cried Egede at this news, "let himself be moved by such remarkable speech and message, in a fruitful hope to make God and the Creator known in those places." He sent his son Niels over forthwith. Often he heard the Greenlanders say at that time: tell the King to send us more preachers.

How wonderful is the counsel of the LORD! Just at that time, when Egede was beginning to see the first fruits of his laborious work, the news came to Greenland that King Frederick IV had died in the year 1730, but that his successor Christian VI had declared the settlement in Greenland abandoned. If Egede and anyone else would remain, provision should be left them for one year. Egede could not go away: when it became known that he would perhaps have to depart, many Greenlanders came with earnest complaints and entreaties not to forsake them; he could, they said, always remain with them and, like them, live on reindeer, seals, birds and fishes, of which they had abundance. A Greenlander in particular brought his two recently baptized children and said to Egede: these will by no means allow thee to go away He remained, but he also wrote at that time: "so I am left behind alone with my wife, three children, ten sailors and eight Greenland boys and girls, who have been with me almost from the beginning." "God grant me to live to see the blessed hour when I shall again hear more cheering tidings from the fatherland. He soon after received indeed the news that the King, upon the intercession of Count Zinzendorf, had resolved to support the mission in Greenland vigorously again, but this was like a refreshing draught handed to a dying man. On New Year's Day 1732 one of the boys died, who had enjoyed Egede's instruction for 7 years and had given hope that he would soon be able to instruct his countrymen himself. Egede writes of him: "Since it has pleased the all-wise God now already to call him to Himself, I must be content with His gracious will, and cannot begrudge him the blessed, joyful and eternal New Year to which he is now called according to the soul." In September 1733, however, smallpox broke out in the settlement, which had been brought over by a Greenland boy from Copenhagen; soon Egede stood as in a great hospital. One of the first whom the plague carried off was Christian Friedrich, the Greenlander, who had now already been in the third year a teacher (catechist) and had instructed Egede and his son Paul especially in the Greenland language. In his sickness he showed the greatest patience and called fervently and unceasingly to God for His help and grace. "How wonderful and incomprehensible," wrote Egede thereupon, "is the counsel and way of the Most High, in that He deprives us wholly of the means which according to our human insight can most further the spread of His honor! Teach us, O God, that we may submit to it and, in a pure, simple surrender, commit ourselves to Thy wondrous yet blessed guidance and leading!" - The poor helpless Greenlanders fled from the dreadful sickness from place to place and thus spread it over the whole land; soon whole heaps of unburied corpses lay about on the fields. The sick who came to Egede he took in as long as his dwelling could hold them, and nursed them. The whole winter he had no rest by day or by night; sometimes when one of the sick died in the night, he himself had to put the dead in