# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 11 27_S50
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

50

his helpers around you and in your own midst, gird your loins with heavenly truth, and put on the breastplate of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Above all, take the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And pray always, pray always with all supplication, with prayer and entreaty in the Spirit. And watch, watch thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints, and also for me, thy lesser, weaker, smaller sister, that utterance may be given unto me also, even as unto thee, the Word, with the joyful opening of my mouth, that I may make known to all my children the mystery of the Gospel, and that from me the sweet savor of the Lord may go forth to the heathen round about, to the honor of the name of my Lord and King.

So I call to thee, my sister, and beseech thee now from my whole urgent heart, that thou wouldest take my proffered hand, strengthen me in love, lend thy heart to my call, and answer with a sisterly letter, greeting, and earnest call, and thereby strengthen and comfort my heart.

But that thou mayest know who sends thee this letter, greeting, and call, and who it is that longingly begs the like from thee, hear:

One hundred and fifty years ago I was not yet. But when Frederick IV of Denmark, encouraged by his court preacher Lütkens, requested missionaries for his Tranquebar from Francke's orphanage, and Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütshau said Yes in the name of the Lord, and on the 9th of July, 1706, landed here on the shores of Tranquebar, then I came near to birth. And when on the 15th of September, 1707, the first heathen were baptized in the new mission church Jerusalem, then I was born.

My first childhood and youth were lovely and beautiful. My father in Christ, Ziegenbalg, and with him and after him my other highly beloved fathers Gründler, Schulze, Dal, Pressier, tended and led me by the hand, gave me sweet honey to eat and pure, unadulterated milk to drink. So I grew up, and became a fair maiden, and grew greater and increased and spread abroad, and very soon my Lord and Bridegroom had spread my name, not only in the old Danish-Tranquebar territory, but especially through the labors and many journeys of my father Benjamin Schulze, also beyond the borders of this territory, as far as Madras, yea, beyond Madras, and had brought me a multitude of children. To give me back the whole Word of my Lord, not a few of the lovely hymns of my German mother, as well as many other wholesome books full of doctrine and comfort in my own Tamil language, the fathers were from the beginning highly diligent. And more: it was not the thought and purpose of the fathers concerning me that I should remain a child, but that I, having come into the beginning of my thirties, should now also begin to learn to lead an independent life. I was to learn to see fathers grow up for me out of my own children, who should feed me in the pasture of the Gospel, and I was to outgrow by degrees the care of the foreigners, who, though dear, highly beloved fathers in Christ, were yet strangers to my innermost nationality, and be weaned from them. The first men who thus became fathers to me out of children were Aaron and Diogo, who received holy ordination in the forties of the last century. Upon their service in the congregations, upon their care for souls, upon their journeys into the distance, where the word of the Gospel was not yet known, upon their calling and gathering, the Lord has laid His blessing in rich measure, and the names of Aaron and Diogo are blessed even now from the lips of the late grandchildren. Other native preachers followed them. And through the blessing which the Lord laid upon their labor and that of the white fathers, it came to pass that in the second half of the last century the Lutheran Church here extended far over the Tamil country, from the deeper south to north beyond Madras. The three names Schwarz, Fabricius, and Guericke are those which represent the brilliant period of my life and existence in the last century. Schwarz in Tanjore and Trichinopoly, a friend of kings and teacher of royal princes, sought out for his great personality by native and English great men, for his mighty influence a support of the congregations and of the oppressed in all manner of persecutions and trials. Fabricius in Madras, a quiet, gentle light with mild, refreshing shine, finisher of the translation of the Bible and of the hymnal, a father who called and exhorted the children with great urgency and tenderness to Jesus Christ and to a holy walk in Him. Guericke, who after long service, even at the end of his life, through rich, blessed conversions in the deeper south built the Lord a house there and founded a place where the honor of His name could dwell.

But my mouth, which until now has sung and described the grace of the Lord over me, why must it now open itself to lamentations and weeping? The hand which until now has proclaimed to thee the praise of the old fathers, beloved sister, why must it now turn to complaints about them? Permit her who was so full in loving and praising to lament her sorrow to thee in a few lines.

The first origin of the misery lay in this, that the fathers came out educated at Halle and brought with them the unchurchliness of Halle, the pietistic prejudice of Halle, the indifferentism of Halle, the oldest fathers in lesser degree, the later ones in ever-increasing measure. And so in the second half of the last century the English became ever more powerful in these regions, and many believing Englishmen and also the older English missionary societies rejoiced over the work of the Lord here in the Tamil country and strengthened the hands of the fathers with much money; and the fathers took the money with thanksgiving and took it again, and by degrees the one and the other found it consistent with his conscience to enter the service of the older English missionary societies, and the English catechism was by degrees introduced here and there into the congregations. And although the old Fabricius would have no more fellowship with the missionary Geister, who first introduced that catechism into his congregations, and would no longer eat with him, yet Schwarz was entirely Reformed in his mind in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, and from the shepherds there spread also in the congregations the most complete confessional indifferentism with regard to Reformed ways. Thus that became possible which has actually happened, namely, that by degrees all the old Lutheran congregations in the Tamil country which lay outside the Danish territory fell into the hands of the Reformed English, through the blindness of the fathers and the guilt of the times. And I myself now, the old mother bereaved of her children, thrown back upon the one little Tranquebar, had to look on how also here, where a hundred years ago sweet, lovely cradle songs had been sung to me, how also here, into the city of my birth, the wolf entered, not English Calvinism, but Rationalism, which found its way hither too and exercised its destructive activity also here in great devastation. The names John and especially Cämmerer (died 1837) represent the period of Rationalism in Tranquebar.

But with that the highest pinnacle of misery was reached. I was bereaved of all my children, and I myself, bitten and torn by the wolf, lay helpless and bleeding on the ground. Then the Lord passed by and recognized in me that lovely maid in whom His eye had formerly taken pleasure. And the bowels of His mercy were moved over me, and He said: "Thou shalt live." And He took me into His care and sent me again His pure Word from the mouth of orthodox teachers, and gave me again His Sacraments in right use. He washed me clean from all filth through His blood, and poured oil and wine into my wounds, and new life into my veins and my bones; so that I began again to stir, to stand upon my feet, to walk, to praise His name again and to proclaim His glory among the heathen, as in former times. And further, He has magnified His grace over me and has begun again to bring me new children out of the heathen round about, has given me footholds in thickly populated heathen districts for preaching to the heathen. Yea, He has even