|A Visit Home.| In 1846 failing health compelled Father Heyer, as he is affectionately called, to return to America. Two years later he returned to Guntur, the visitation among the churches of the home land having been denied him. During the two years, however, he had studied medicine, in Baltimore, receiving his degree at the age of fifty-four.
|“Oh Grave, Where is thy Victory.”| In India he discovered that in his absence little new work had been accomplished on account of the feeble health of Mr. Gunn. Now, however, began a period of rapid advance. Father Heyer made missionary journeys into the Palnad district, and soon, encouraged by many conversions, he built in Gurzala, its chief town, a mission house, the money for which was furnished by Collector Stokes. Heyer’s courage is shown by an incident of his life in Gurzala. The climate of this section is deadly, and on reaching there Heyer had his grave and coffin prepared so that his body might be buried and not burned. But he did not contract the fever and when he left the field he burned the coffin and repeated at the grave the words of Saint Paul, “O grave, where is thy victory?”
In 1850 the mission station of the North German or Bremen Society at Rajahmundry was taken over.
|Back to the Home Mission Field.| In 1857 Father Heyer returned once more to America, not to rest but to devote twelve years to home mission work in the distant fields of Minnesota. In the meantime discord arose at home. The disruption brought about in all elements and institutions of American society by the Civil War had its sad effect upon the Church. Support and missionaries for the foreign work failed, and the Rajahmundry station was about to pass from the hands of its founders into those of the Church Missionary Society of England. Father Heyer was in Germany at the time, but hearing of the danger threatening his beloved work, he set sail for America, and appeared suddenly at the meeting of the Pennsylvania Ministerium at Reading to plead that the mission be retained. He would go to India at once, he said, and in August 1869 he turned his face for the third time across the sea. He remained in Rajahmundry a little over a year. Then handing over his work to a successor, the Rev. H. C. Schmidt, he returned to America where he died in November 1873.
|To India Once More.| Of him his biographer, the Rev. Dr. L. B. Wolf says: “He needs no eulogy. His work at home and abroad makes him the most cosmopolitan character of his time. He had a world-vision, and his soul was restless unless it was in touch with the whole world. He saw what few in his day were able to see, that the Church stands for one supreme work which must be performed in the whole world and for all men. He will live in his Church when men of his day of much larger influence and more commanding place shall have been forgotten, all because he permitted no bounds to be set to the sphere of his work, except those which he recognized as set by his Savior and Lord.”
|Other Laborers.| Beside Father Heyer there labored in the early days of the Lutheran mission the Rev. Walter Gunn, who died after seven years of devoted service; the Rev. Christian William Grönning, a missionary of the North German Society, who entered the service of the American Lutheran Church when Rajahmundry was transferred; the Rev. A. F. Heise, who was compelled by ill health to resign after eleven years of work; the Rev. W. E. Snyder, who died in 1859; the Rev. W. I. Cutter, who was compelled to return on account of the health of his wife after a short term; and the Rev. A. Long, who died of smallpox after eight years of faithful service.
|The Field Divided.| In 1869 the mission field in India was permanently divided, the Gunter station and the surrounding district becoming the charge of the General Synod, the Rajahmundry station becoming the charge of the General Council of which the Ministerium of Pennsylvania was now a part. Between the two missions there have been always the most cordial and helpful of relations. In spirit they have been one.
|At Work Alone.| We shall consider first the work of the General Synod. At the time of the division of the mission field the Rev. E. Unangst was the only representative of the American Lutheran Church in India. For three years he had had no helper. He had seen since his arrival in 1858 seven missionaries die or depart; nevertheless his heart did not fail. For thirty-seven years he labored almost without interruption and happily participated not only in the sowing but in the reaping of the harvest.
|A Civil War Veteran.| The Rev. Dr. J. H. Harpster, a veteran of the Civil War, served his first term as a missionary from 1872 till 1876. Returning for a second term in 1893 he was nine years later allowed by the General Synod to assume temporary charge of the Rajahmundry mission, then passing through a period of confusion. In the service of the Rajahmundry mission he continued until his death. To him his fellow workers paid this tribute: “As a missionary he was indefatigable, as a preacher eloquent and inspiring. He labored in season and out to inculcate self-support. Altogether this was a man to love.” His work at Rajahmundry accomplished all that had been most hopefully expected, for in place of the discord and disorganization which he found he left peace and order and the promise of a great future.
|Almost Fifty Years of Service.| In 1873 the Rev. Dr. L. L. Uhl was sent to Guntur, and there (in 1917) he is still laboring, vigorous, optimistic and in the words which Dr. Harpster applied to his own mental condition, “immensely content.” Laborers younger than he have fallen, a few have become discouraged, but Dr. Uhl is still at work.