|In South America. Justinian von Welz.| The most important name of the Seventeenth Century in our study of Lutheran missions is that of Justinian von Welz, a German nobleman. To him there came clearly the true vision of the indissoluble relation of living Christianity and Christian missions. In 1664 he issued two pamphlets, one bearing the title, “An invitation for a society of Jesus to promote Christianity and the conversion of heathendom,” the other “A Christian and true-hearted exhortation to all right-believing Christians of the Augsburg Confession respecting a special association by means of which, with God’s help, our evangelical religion might be extended.” In the latter pamphlet there were such questions as these: “Is it right that we evangelical Christians hold the Gospel for ourselves alone?” “Is it right that in all places we have so many theological students, and do not induce them to labor elsewhere in the garden of the Lord?” “Is it right that we evangelical Christians expend so much on all sorts of dress, delicacies in eating and drinking, etc., but have hitherto thought of no means for the spread of the Gospel?”
|His Appeal Ridiculed.| When this appeal was met with opposition and ridicule, von Welz issued a still stronger manifesto. He called upon the court preachers, the learned professors and others in authority to establish a missionary school where oriental languages, the lives of the early missionaries, geography and kindred missionary subjects might be studied. Alas! von Welz was considered now more fanatical and insane than before. When he suggested the sending out of artisans and laymen to tell the Gospel story, since the learned and influential leaders would not go, he was thought to be quite mad.
|A Martyr.| Forsaking his noble rank, this eager soul turned away from his own country to Holland, where he found a minister to ordain him as “an apostle to the Gentiles”. Arranging his affairs so that all his wealth might be applied to his great endeavor, he set sail as a missionary to Dutch Guiana in South America. There in a few months he found a lonely grave.
|A Hero.| In Justinian von Welz the Church of the Reformation possesses one of her worthiest and least known heroes. It was not until 1786, more than a century later, that the Baptist William Carey, considered the first standard bearer of modern missions, lifted up his admonishing voice. Of von Welz, Doctor Warneck, the greatest of all missionary historians, speaks thus: “The indubitable sincerity of his purposes, the noble enthusiasm of his heart, the sacrifice of his position, his fortune, his life for the yet unrecognized duty of the Church to missions, insure for him an abiding place of honor in missionary history.” To him another German missionary historian pays this tribute: “Sometimes in a mild December a snow drop lifts its head, yet is spring far away. Frost and snow will hold field and garden in chains for many months. But have patience. Only a little while and Spring will be here!”
|The Spring at Hand.| Von Welz’s labors and prayers were to bear fruit. His teaching sank into the hearts of some of those who read. In a period of dreary rationalism which followed there began to spring up the seeds which he had sowed. Missions became more and more a subject of discussion among learned men. Among those who gave the theories of von Welz his earnest attention was the German scientist Leibnitz who urged the sending of missionaries to China through Russia. When men began not only to think and to discuss but to pray, the Spring was really at hand.
|Philip Spener.| To two Lutherans above all other men the world owes the impulse to modern Protestant missions. If Philip Jacob Spener and August Herman Francke had not lived, the preaching of the pure Gospel to the heathen, already long delayed, would have had a still later Spring.
Philip Spener was born in 1635 and died in 1705. He was a man of deep piety and great learning. Occupying many important positions, among them that of court preacher at Dresden, he preached and taught constantly that pure living must be added to pure doctrine, urging that the “rigid and externalized” orthodoxy of the Church be transmuted into practical piety which should include Bible study and all sorts of Christian work. He held in his own house meetings for the study of the Bible and the exchanging of personal religious experiences. From the name of these meetings, collegia pietatis, the name of Pietists was given in ridicule to him and his followers.
Among the practical manifestations of a true Christian spirit which Spener urged was the sending of missionaries to the heathen. On the Feast of the Ascension he preached as follows:
“We are thus reminded that although every preacher is not bound to go everywhere and preach, since God has knit each of us to his congregation, yet the obligation rests on the whole Church to have care as to how the Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, and that to this end no diligence, labor, or cost be spared in behalf of the poor heathen and unbelievers. That almost no thought has been given to this, and that great potentates, as the earthly heads of the Church, do so very little therein, is not to be excused, but is evidence how little the honor of Christ and of humanity concerns us; yea, I fear that in that day unbelievers will cry for vengeance upon Christians who have been so utterly without care for their salvation.”
|A. H. Francke.| Most famous among the followers and admirers of Spener was August Herman Francke, who was born in 1663 and died in 1727. He showed as a child extraordinary powers of mind, being prepared to enter the university at the age of fourteen. In 1685 he graduated from the University of Leipsic after having studied there and at Erfurt and Kiel. In 1688 he spent two months with Spener at Dresden and became deeply impressed with pietistic theories. In 1691 he was appointed professor of Greek and Oriental languages in the University of Halle, then recently founded. Here he became pastor of a church in a neighboring village, an undertaking which was to have world-wide importance.