|Once More the Door Closed.| In 1842, he left Shoa to meet his future wife, Rosina Dietrich, in Egypt and to help on their way two new brethren who had arrived on the coast. Travelling on foot, ill, fatigued and several times set upon by robbers, he reached the coast where he expected to find the two missionaries, only to learn that they had been there and had gone back to Egypt. When he with his bride returned to Shoa they found that its ruler, like the ruler of Adoa, had closed the kingdom against him.
|The First Sacrifice.| The need of the Gallas, a nation to the south to whom no Gospel messenger had been sent, had lain heavily upon the heart of Krapf and now, driven from Shoa, he tried to reach them, but found it impossible. Thereupon he determined to do what he could by circulating the Scriptures. Joining himself to a caravan, he started for the interior, with him his young wife, whose newborn baby was in the course of a few weeks buried in the desert.
|“Cast Down But Not Destroyed.”| Alas, even this long journey and these trials were in vain, for once more was Krapf forbidden to proceed with his work. The brave man, disheartened, but not completely cast down, wrote home: “Abyssinia will not soon again enjoy the time of grace she has so shamefully slighted.... It is a consolation to us and to dear friends of the mission to know that over eight thousand copies of the Scriptures have found their way into Abyssinia. These will not all be lost or remain without a blessing. Faith speaks thus: Though every mission should disappear in a day and leave no trace behind, I would still cleave to mission work with all my prayers, my labors, my gifts, with my body and soul; for there is the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, and where that is there is also His promise and His final victory.”
|A Christian Grave in East Africa.| Krapf now determined to attempt to gain a footing on the coast, in order from there to reach the Gallas, whose language he had learned. With this object in view, he sailed, with his wife, in an Arab vessel from Aden in November, 1843. Strong headwinds and a heavy sea compelled them to return to Aden. In spite of their exertions, the water gained upon them in their leaky boat, and on reaching the entrance to the harbor the land wind drove back the vessel toward the open ocean. Half an hour after they were taken from the vessel it sank. Eight days later Krapf sailed again, and after four or five weeks’ journey arrived at Mombasa. Scarcely, however, had he begun to work at Mombasa when he was called to pass through another sorrow, in the loss of his wife. In prospect of death she prayed for relatives, for the mission, for East Africa, and for the Sultan, that God would incline his heart to promote the eternal welfare of his subjects. The next day she appeared much better, but the day following much worse, while her husband himself was so weakened by fever as to be obliged to leave the care of her almost entirely to others. The next day she breathed her last, and on the following morning--Sunday--they buried her, according to her wish, on the mainland in the territory of the Wanika, her newborn daughter by her side. Krapf, even amid all these trials, wrote in a letter to the secretary of the missionary society: “Tell the committee that in East Africa there is the lonely grave of one member of the mission connected with your society. This is an indication that you have begun the conflict in this part of the world; and since the conquests of the Church are won over the graves of many of its members, you may be all the more assured that the time has come when you are called to work for the conversion of Africa. Think not of the victims who in this glorious warfare may suffer or fall; only press forward until East and West Africa are united in Christ.”
|Two Friends.| In 1846 he had the joy of welcoming a fellow laborer, a Lutheran, Johann Rebmann. The two men were exactly opposite in nature. Krapf, restless and energetic, entertained far-reaching plans, and even saw in imagination a chain of missions stretching from Mombasa to the Niger, and thus connecting east and west Africa; Rebmann, on the contrary, believed in settling in one place and staying there. Nevertheless, the two men worked in harmony. When they finished the building of a house in a village not far from the sea-coast, Krapf felt that the first step toward the dark interior had been taken.
After twelve years of labor, Krapf visited Europe. When he returned to Africa he took with him two missionaries and three mechanics, an undertaking which was not altogether happy. But in the midst of discouragement he took heart.
|Still Undismayed.| “And now let me look backward and forward. In the past what do I see? Scarcely more than the remnant of a defeated army. You know I had the task of strengthening the East African Mission with three missionaries and three handicraftsmen; but where are the missionaries? One remained in London, as he did not consider himself appointed to East Africa; the second remained at Aden, in doubt about the English Church; the third died on May tenth of nervous fever. As to the three mechanics, they are ill of fever, lying between life and death, and instead of being a help look to us for help and attention; and yet I stand by my assertion that Africa must be conquered by missionaries; there must be a chain of mission stations between the east and west, though thousands of the combatants fall upon the left hand and ten thousand on the right.... From the sanctuary of God a voice says to me, ‘Fear not; life comes through death, resurrection through decay, the establishment of Christ’s kingdom through the discomfiture of human undertakings. Instead of allowing yourself to be discouraged at the defeat of your force, go to work yourself. Do not rely on human help, but on the living God, to whom it is all the same to serve by little or by much.... Believe, love, fight, be not weary for His name’s sake, and you will see the glory of God.’”
Twice Krapf tried to penetrate into the distant interior but was both times compelled to return without establishing missions. In 1853 he returned to Europe on account of ill health, but the next year set out to Africa once more, only to be compelled on account of weakness to give up the journey.
Once more, however, he visited the country of his love. Wishing to open a mission in East Africa the Methodist Free Churches requested him to accompany their missionaries and to assist them in establishing the mission. He agreed to go and said of the new station: “The station Ribe will in due time celebrate the triumph of the mission in the conversion of the Wanika, though I may be in the grave. The Lord does not allow His Word to return unto Him void.”
|A Heroic Life Ended.| Returning to Europe, Krapf continued to work and to pray for missions until, in November, 1881, he was found dead, kneeling in the attitude of prayer.