# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1854 07 29_S195
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

195

on friendly terms with the Indians, whereby he also did not neglect to win them for the Gospel. Oh, if only men had always conducted themselves thus toward our red brethren, redeemed with us, many more of them would probably have been won for the Gospel!

In consequence of the good tidings of the flourishing of the colony in Georgia, through the mediation of the already mentioned Pastor Urlsperger, the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," which had arisen in England, issued an invitation to the banished Salzburgers to remove to Georgia. Free passage, provision with the necessary means for the first beginning, land for them and their children, freedom from taxes for 10 years and, after their expiry, repayment of the price of the land and of the advances made by a yearly moderate rent — these were the generous offers made to them and afterward also faithfully kept. It may be imagined that this invitation was received with joy by those Salzburgers who had not gone with their brethren to Lithuania, but had settled chiefly in Swabia and in the South German imperial cities and had probably to support themselves more scantily than those in Lithuania. So it came about that in the year 1733 there formed a little band of 90 pilgrims, which, under the leadership of two courageous and godly preachers, J. M. Boltzius and G. C. Gronau, both pupils of the Halle Orphanage, was to sail to Georgia. Refreshed by a farewell sermon preached to them, richly supplied with Bibles, catechisms, hymnbooks and other devotional writings, and with three wagons, of which one carried their few belongings and each of the other two the aged, infirm and children, they began their pilgrimage on the Feast of the Reformation 1733.

Their next destination was Frankfurt on the Main, into which they entered two by two and with singing. After a short rest among the fellow believers there they embarked on the Main, to reach Rotterdam and from there England. And as they floated down between the glorious banks of the Main and the Rhine, oh how their mouths ran over, time after time, with praise and thanks toward Him who knew how to prepare for them, the outcasts from their homeland, even a home beyond the ocean. On the Main and Rhine, no doubt, so many songs of praise have never since resounded as then, and hardly have these rivers since borne on their backs such a floating church.

When they arrived at Rotterdam on the 27th of November, they met their two preachers, Boltzius and Gronau. Then the joy and the thanks were first truly great. Without long delay they hastened with them across the Channel to Dover, where they arrived safe and sound on the 3rd of December and were visited by several members of the above-mentioned board of directors.

Amid the preparations for the sea voyage the holy Christmas feast came on — the first and at the same time the last that they kept with their new preachers in the old world. Then, however, in January 1734, they were to put to sea. Ah, not without the shuddering of nature did they see the day of departure approach. Trembling before the unknown dangers of the ocean and moved by many a painful feeling of parting, they went on board. But soon faith, strengthened by an inspired sermon of one of their preachers, conquered. Gone was all fear and timidity for the whole sea voyage, although, owing to the unfavorable wintry season, they had a long, stormy passage. Yes, when once on the 18th of February such a storm raged that all the sails had to be taken in and the waves of the sea threatened to swallow up the little ship — then, in the midst of the howling of the storm and the roaring of the sea, songs of praise rose from their lips. That throughout the whole sea voyage it was said among them: "Thy Word be my food until I journey to heaven" — I need not first assure the reader. Yes, while many of our emigrants of today already on the ship throw overboard the last remnant of reverence toward God and His Word and attachment to their Church, in order to land thus as godless in the proper sense of the word in the new world, it was much rather the sincere wish of the Salzburgers to enter the new home as true, pure servants of God and godly people. When, therefore, in calmer weather they could assemble for common evening worship, they did not fail to exhort one another to carry out a true reformation of the heart even at sea, and to put away all strange gods that might still be in it (Genesis 35, 2–4) and sink them in the depth of the sea.

When they had thus spent 104 days upon the ocean, they landed at last in March 1734 at Charleston, in South Carolina. As soon as they stepped ashore they fell upon their knees, and in order that they and their descendants might ever and ever not forget what is written in Psalm 107, 23–32, they resolved to celebrate solemnly every year the day of their landing. On the news of their arrival Oglethorpe at once had them bid welcome and conducted by water to Savannah, which they reached after five days.

Only a few days did they rest there, and then they set out for Effingham County. To encourage them by his example in the so toilsome and dangerous journey through the pathless wilderness, and to assist them with counsel and deed in the choice of their dwelling place, the brave Oglethorpe himself accompanied them. Indians were their guides through the thicket, fallen trees the bridges on which they had to cross swamps and water to the farther bank; many a night they had to spend lying about a fire under the open sky. At last a suitable place for settlement was found; on the Savannah River, 25 miles from the city of Savannah, they pitched their dwellings and named this their first dwelling place, which later blossomed into a town and remained the chief place of the Salzburgers, Ebenezer, that is, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us. (1 Sam. 7, 12).

But if even today the first settlement in the wilderness is attended for German emigrants with great hardships and privations of every kind, how much more was it so then, how much more for our Salzburgers, who were not accustomed to the hot, enervating climate of the southern states. "Their beginning was hard. The soil was for the most part unfruitful, horses and cattle they had only few, they understood neither how to make grist mills nor sawmills, and had no boat to bring provisions up the river. When the government's vessel brought them nothing, then the men had to carry on their shoulders the bread from the city of Savannah through swamp and forest in the heat of the sun. Then came the sicknesses and laid them low; fortunately the Halle Orphanage had given them some of its famous medicines."

Yet in trust in the LORD they held out through all these trials of the early time. And the LORD did not suffer them to be tempted above their ability. For their relief collections were made in Germany and England, the English government also did not fail to give considerable money-support and besides paid their preachers up to the year 1773. Quite especially, however, the noble Oglethorpe took them under his care. Since in the first two years they could not get on at all, he betook himself to them, and through his assistance with counsel and deed a different state of things soon set in. Gratefully this man is remembered by the preachers in their reports sent to Germany, and in them it is said in his praise that he cares to the best of his ability for the Salzburgers, that he cherishes a great love for the children of God, and that where he is present and makes arrangements, what others would not accomplish in ten years succeeds in One year. Under the blessing of God and the counsel of such a man and their own untiring diligence our settlers could already in the third year rejoice in such success that, for example, their silk culture, the first in America at all, yielded them already 10,000 pounds of raw silk; and they had the same good fortune with indigo, the cultivation of which they likewise undertook first.

Gladly would I now relate to the reader something more of the main matter, of their church affairs; but for this I lack just now a chief source, Urlsperger's "Reisediarium.