# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 04 17_S130
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

130

here on the one hand laid hold of the heart of King Frederick and moved it for the poor heathen, had already prepared beforehand men fit to carry on the Gospel of peace. It was Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, from the little town of Pulsnitz in Upper Lusatia. He had become an orphan early. His mother died first. When she lay on her deathbed, she said to her children: “Dear children, I have gathered for you a great treasure, a very great treasure have I gathered for you.” When the eldest daughter then asked where the treasure lay, she answered: “Seek it in the Bible, my dear children, there you will find it, for I have wet every leaf with my tears.” These words, spoken in the tone of farewell, the children could never again forget. The father, too, must have been a deeply godly man, who looked forward to death with calm, nay, even with joyfulness. Already in his lifetime he had had his coffin made and had it set up in his house. When he was once grievously sick, a conflagration broke out in the little town, which spread so violently that it closed over the house of the sick Ziegenbalg also with its flames. He was not able to rise from his couch. The members of the household did not know either what to do for him in the danger and distress. So they resolved at once, laid him in the coffin standing ready, carried him thus through the flames to the market-place and set him down there. And there, in the market-place, in the coffin, beside his burning house, he went in to his rest. — Can it surprise us that children, to whom their parents still in dying shine forth with the Word and with believing joy in death, walk in the ways of the LORD in faith from early youth? The eldest sister took the place of father and mother to Bartholomäus. There are still letters from her in which she admonishes the boy at school by all means not to forget the LORD, who gave Himself for him unto death. O that the mothers who write to their children at schools would today also still write such letters! In Berlin and Halle, under the guidance of Ph. Spener and A. H. Francke, the young man studied theology. He was the first on whom Francke's choice fell, when the summons of the King of Denmark reached him. To him he then added Heinrich Plütschow of Wessenberg in Mecklenburg, of whose youth I know nothing to tell you. — These two men were the first missionaries of our Church. — When the king heard of their willingness for the missionary calling, he had them come in haste to Copenhagen, had them examined there and ordained to the preaching and missionary office. On the 29th of November 1705 the first ship with Protestant missionaries, the Sophia Hedwig, sailed toward the heathen land.

When they arrived there, they took hold of their work with the greatest zeal, yet in hearty humility. They, who in Germany had belonged to the ablest candidates of theology, were not ashamed there to go to school to a heathen schoolmaster, to sit down on the bare ground with the poor Tamil children, and to copy out with a stick in the sand the letters and words of the language of the country, in order only to learn first the language of the natives. Another living testimony of Z.'s great humility is the saying with which in a grievous sickness he later comforted his fellow-laborers: “When a servant dies on his master's estate, the farm does not therefore go to ruin; much less the Church of Christ, if I am called away.” — King Frederick cared most faithfully for his messengers. He assigned to each a fixed salary of 200 thalers. Besides this, he had collections made for them in his lands. When he heard that their labor there had some success, he came, as it is said in the old reports, with new and greater emotion to his aged court preacher and said: Master Doctor, procure me men! Soon he sent after them three more messengers, in whose equipment high and low, noble and burgher vied with one another. Everyone wanted to do something. When he learned that his governor there, Hassius, had inflicted all manner of harshness and wrong upon the missionaries, and indeed not without the instigation of the Jesuits, who had nested themselves there during the Protestant sloth, he declared to his whole court at table that he was by no means content with the unwarrantable treatment which his laborers had had to endure, and that he would know how to protect them most vigorously in their office. Gossips and tongue-threshers, who out of their own unbelief and sloth made sharp speeches about the mission, he silenced with sharp speech. In the year 1712 he made a perpetual endowment, according to which every year 2000 thalers in crown-thalers were to be paid out of the post-office revenues for the maintenance of preachers and schoolteachers in India. That was the last thing his faithful counsellor, Provost Lütkens, lived to see. For long he had already been bowed down with sickness. But even in sickness he could never speak without deep emotion of the work in which the LORD had thought him worthy to be a fellow-laborer. His glory was that he had helped to carry wood, when he saw this fire kindle in the soul of his royal master. When he received the news of the perpetual endowment of his king, the spirit of the almost dying man became lively once more, joy shone from his whole countenance, and he cried out: Now will I gladly die, after I have lived to see this joy. God bless the king! — Also after his death the king remained devoted to the work begun in hearty faithfulness. In spite of the heavy war he sent in the year 1714, besides the salary from the post-office treasury, another 2000 thalers to the missionaries. The ship Dansborg, however, which was to convey the same, went down in a storm off Skagen. Then he sends his laborers another 2000 thalers by an English ship and writes thereto with his own hand: since the ship had been lost in the great storm by God's permission, he would yet let them take no part in this misfortune, and sent them hereby the same sum again. In the year 1715 Ziegenbalg came to Europe, visited his king in the camp before Stralsund and presented to him a converted Indian boy, who thanked him for his love shown to the poor heathen people. The king had him preach before him in the camp, and rejoiced over the courage of faith of the man, who wished to return to his heathen land as soon as possible. The king assured him of his faithfulness and help for all times. But because his faithful provost had gone in to his rest, he founded a college, which in future should preside over the mission work with insight and strength. The deed of foundation closes with the words: “So let us then, all together, with united powers and hearts, do what the good and gracious will of God appoints and the misery of men requires. The opportunity is now at hand, the harvest is great. Since we now have time, let us do good, that in due season we may reap without ceasing. He Himself, the LORD, the eternal God, will give the increase to our planting and watering, that the seed of His Word, which is sown among the heathen, may bear fruit a hundredfold. The LORD is faithful, who has promised it, He will also do it. To Him be honor in eternity!” —

This is the beginning, the birth and childhood of our Lutheran mission. Little by little some 30,000 souls out of the heathen people have been won to the LORD in Tranquebar.

(Contributed by Pastor Keyl.)

The Original Order of Divine Service in the German Churches of Lutheran Confession.

(Continuation.)

The festival of the Ascension has been observed from of old as a whole holy day; the Gospel shows us a blessed fruit of the Ascension of Christ and of His sitting at the right hand of God, namely the proclamation of the Gospel in all the world, but the Epistle gives us the account of the Ascension itself.

The Sunday Exaudi contains in its Gospel a comforting promise of the sending of the Holy Ghost for the proclamation of the Gospel and for the overcoming of the cross bound up with it.

The festival of Pentecost is celebrated to the praise and glory of God the Holy Ghost and of His works. The first Gospel, John 14, teaches, as Dr. Luther says, that the whole life of a Christian becomes a true, glorious, new Pentecost-day, in that the Holy Ghost Himself prepares man's heart and hallows it to be the holy house and dwelling of God; of all which the history of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, Acts 2, is a lovely type. The second