# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1853 05 24_S133
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

133

carry them into the anteroom. Everywhere the Greenlanders looked up to Egede as to a rescuing angel, as to a father, into whose hands they might confidently lay down their heads. A Greenlander, who until then had only mocked the preacher's doctrine, but who now also came under Egede's care, said as he was dying: "Thou hast done for us what our own would not have done for us; for thou hast sustained us with food when we had nothing to eat, thou hast buried our dead, who otherwise, if thou hadst not been there, would have been devoured by the dogs, foxes and ravens; but especially hast thou taught us of God, how we are to be saved, so that we can now die joyfully and look for a better life after this." Egede's work now underwent the trial of the cross, a heavy, earnest trial, but it was proved true; he had never made much talk of conversions and more conversions, as is now the fashion in the missions among the heathen, but when the cross came upon his spiritual children, it was shown that he had faithfully grounded them and built them upon God's Word and, in addition, had portrayed Christ to them by his own walk. His Greenland neighbors "longed in earnest faith and trust in the merit of Jesus Christ for eternal blessedness and departed hence calling upon their Redeemer." Especially in children the workings of grace and of the Holy Spirit were perceived, but also from the lips of the older people, of an old man among others, a Hosanna was heard in the hour of death; if Egede had often felt as lonely as Elias, now, under the visitation, he had to perceive that he stood in the midst of a Christian congregation, though a dying one. Dying it was at that time; after the pestilence had raged in Greenland for seven months, all the Greenlanders in the settlement, with the exception of one little boy and one little girl, had died; of more than 200 families who lived in the surrounding district within a distance of 20 English miles, scarcely three were left. Egede stood as in a wilderness, it seemed as though the whole work, which had been meant and begun to God's glory, must now fall to the ground; he folded his hands and said: God look upon it for Jesus' sake, to whose gracious good pleasure I commend and deliver this cause in faith.

In the same period another, perhaps still heavier trial came upon Egede. In the year 1733 the Brethren's congregation (the Herrnhuters) sent the missionaries Christian David and Matthew and Christian Stach to Greenland, to whom King Christian and the Mission College had given letters of recommendation to Egede. Egede received them kindly, patiently taught them the Greenland language, and kindly nursed them in the sicknesses by which they were overtaken immediately in the first period. When, however, he soon came to suspect that those men were not firmly grounded in the pure doctrine of the Word of God, as it is confessed in the Lutheran Confessions, he questioned them about it, particularly in regard to the high article of justification, and soon had to learn that they confused justification and sanctification, yea, asserted that justification consists not in the imputed but in the indwelling righteousness of Christ, and that sanctification must not only follow justification but also precede it. It was natural that Egede testified earnestly against such false doctrine and declared: if they would subscribe the doctrine of the Lutheran Church and give it real assent, he would gladly see them remain; but if they persisted in their false doctrine, there could be no unity between them and no common edification. That was a manly Christian speech, but how it was answered! Christian David asserted that Egede had not the Spirit of Christ and hindered the heathen in their conversion; that he himself was not converted, and therefore also not fit to convert others; yea, they even added slanders, such as that Egede had embezzled 8000 thalers, and when the shamelessness of this lie was put before them, one of them excused it by saying that even if he had not embezzled these 8000 thalers, it was still plain as day that he did not walk in faith before God; in this judgment they could not possibly err, for they had the anointing of the Spirit. — These are dreadful speeches, but they too must serve only to make Egede's right faith and faithful confession of the pure doctrine of the Word of God shine out upon us all the brighter, to shame and admonish us to follow his example and, despite the slandering of people, faithfully to keep our honorable Lutheran confession.

At the end of this time of tribulation Egede had to learn that God has set time and hour, as in His whole kingdom, so also for the labor of His servants. After he had now labored hard for 14 years in the desolate land, he felt, as did his Gertrude, that the heavy exertions during the time of the smallpox pestilence had told far too severely on their health, already hard pressed. Gertrude died after a long, painful sickbed on the 21st of December 1735. "Were it not," writes Egede, "for the comforting hope of a joyful reunion in the kingdom of glory, I could scarcely have comforted myself over the departure of so pious and virtuous a wife. . . . . As a child of God she bore the cross laid upon her with great patience; and when she perceived that she was going to her death, she called upon her God and Redeemer most fervently for a gracious deliverance out of this vale of tears. After she had still taken a loving farewell of me and the children, God delivered her by a blessed death from her grievous sufferings." Egede himself suffered at that time from canker of the mouth and weakness of the chest, and was besides tormented by severe spiritual temptations. The dangers and toils which he had endured in his vigorous manhood he could no longer bear; the rebuilding of the mission work, almost wholly destroyed during the dreadful pestilence, brought new toils and dangers with it. It would have been foolish to remain longer in Greenland, since he could now entrust the direction of the mission to his son Paul, and yet might expect that he could serve the same work better with the strength still left him in the homeland. He resolved to return home. Concerning this he writes: that "my aim in this resolution was to be able, through my return home, to contribute the more to the upbuilding and furtherance of the work, which is known to the all-knowing God, as also that I sought no sort of refreshment or reward for the labor endured, which would not become me; for as I did not go to Greenland for the sake of temporal advantage and gain, so I have not forsaken it on that account either, but God's honor alone and the enlightenment of these poor, ignorant people was, is, and shall be my only aim, yea, the unceasing wish of my heart until my death."—On the 29th of July 1736 Egede preached his farewell sermon on Isaiah 49:4: I have said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God. From all sides the Greenlanders had come, to see and hear their teacher once more. On the 9th of August 1736 Egede sailed away from the place of his labor and toil; he took with him the love of the Greenlanders, among whom he is still called to this day "the unforgettable Father."

Having arrived in Copenhagen on the 24th of September 1736, Egede now began to provide for the Greenland Church in a different manner than before. A Greenland Seminary was established, of students who were to be missionaries, and of children of the orphanage who were to become teachers; Egede became its director and in 1740 received in addition the oversight of the entire Greenland mission. There he labored with his old strength and faithfulness to train the young men to be truly Lutheran, diligent preachers of the pure doctrine, there he imparted to them his experiences in the heavy work that lay before them, as for example the instruction (direction) which he had drawn up for the missionaries attests, there he also testified openly and mightily against the levity with which the Mission College sent out missionaries who were not firmly grounded in doctrine, and in general treated the mission work as though it were the business of a worldly government or chancery. But a time then broke in, in which people no longer cared to bear the preaching of the pure doctrine, as Egede conducted it. Unchurchly ways seized also many of the missionaries, so that, for example, one named Trachardt pronounced it perverse that Egede had ordered the Greenlanders to be taught the three articles of the Christian faith. The