|The Children’s Missionary.| In 1872, when a farewell meeting was held in Harrisburg for Dr. Uhl, there was in his audience Adam D. Rowe, who determined then to devote himself to missionary work. Conceiving the plan of collecting from the children of the Church the means for his support, he sailed for India. Worn out by his active labors, he died in 1882. Similarly there fell while at work, the Rev. John Nichols and the Rev. Samuel Kinsinger.
A missionary who has been spared for many years of service is Dr. Anna S. Kugler, who went to India in 1883. Beginning in a humble way by caring for a few afflicted women, Dr. Kugler has stimulated and directed the founding of a large and finely equipped woman’s hospital. Capable, enthusiastic and deeply consecrated, she has been rewarded for years of unceasing labor by the realization of many of her hopes. The importance of Christian medical work is illustrated by an experience of Dr. Kugler. A neighboring rajah, various members of whose family had been cured in the hospital, expressed his gratitude not only by a large gift, but also by the making of a metrical translation of the Gospels into Telugu.
To-day the Guntur Mission has in its service thirty-nine missionaries and twelve Anglo-Indian assistants. In addition it has eight hundred and sixty-one native workers, who include Bible women, colporteurs and catechists. It has a baptized native membership of about fifty thousand. It possesses twenty-one church buildings and school buildings, one hundred and ninety-six schoolhouses and prayer houses, two hospitals, three dispensaries and two college and high school buildings. Its college is the only Lutheran college in India. Its last biennium has been extraordinarily blessed and unceasingly does it call like all other missionary enterprises for more workers, larger sums of money, and more fervent prayers.
|A Man of Practical Ability.| The record of the Mission of the General Council is a brave one. When Father Heyer returned to Rajahmundry after his appeal to the Ministerium of Pennsylvania that the station be not given over to the Church of England, he was followed in a few months by the Rev. F. J. Becker, who had scarcely more than begun his preparation for active service when he died. In a few months his successor, the Rev. H. C. Schmidt, arrived, and subsequently the Rev. Iver K. Poulsen. For a short time, until the final return of Father Heyer to America, there were three missionaries on the field. Beside his fine service as a preacher and teacher, Doctor Schmidt is especially remembered for his wise care of the property of the mission. He is the third of a trio of workers in the Rajahmundry mission who have stood in the eyes of their Church above their fellow men, the others being Father Heyer and Doctor Harpster. At the time of Doctor Schmidt’s retirement, Doctor Harpster became the director of the mission. Of him we have given above a brief account.
MAIN STATION AT MUHLENBERG, LIBERIA, AFRICA.
|A Sad Toll.| The Rev. Poulsen withdrew in 1888 after seventeen years of active service in the Rajahmundry mission, and, coming to the United States, died at the age of sixty-seven in the active pastorate. Within a few years two promising young men, A. B. Carlson and H. G. B. Artman, both trained in the Philadelphia Theological Seminary, arrived, took up the work which so urgently needed them and in a short time died. Two others, the Rev. Franklin S. Dietrich and the Rev. William Grönning also laid down their lives, the former after seven, the latter after four years of service. Grönning, a son of C. W. Grönning, was a brilliant scholar, an eloquent preacher and a trained musician. His parentage and his early training had bred in him a deep love for missions and his loss was irreparable.
Not the least heavy of the blows which the mission suffered was the death of the Rev. F. W. Weiskotten, who was sent to India to inspect and report on the affairs of the mission. Accompanying his daughter to the field, he died on the homeward journey and was buried at sea off the coast of France in December 1900.
To-day the Rajahmundry mission reports over twenty-four thousand members, about thirteen thousand of whom are communicants. Its missionaries number eighteen and the total number of all its workers is about five hundred and fifty. It owns valuable property and conducts a widely useful medical work.
The first money which was given toward the Rajahmundry hospital was contributed by the children in the surgical ward of the German Hospital in Philadelphia.