A History of the Moravian Church

by J. E. Hutton

We pass on to other scenes. We go to the Gold Coast in the Dutch Colony of Guinea, where Huckoff, another German Moravian, and Protten, a mulatto theological scholar, attempted to found a school for slaves {1737.}, and where, again, the work was opposed by the Governor. We pass to another Dutch Colony in Ceylon; and there find David Nitschmann III. and Dr. Eller establishing a society in Colombo, and labouring further inland for the conversion of the Cingalese; and again we find that the Dutch clergy, inflamed by the "Pastoral Letter," were bitterly opposed to the Brethren and compelled them to return to Herrnhut. We take our journey to Constantinople, and find Arvid Gradin, the learned Swede, engaged in an attempt to come to terms with the Greek Church {1740.}, and thus open the way for the Brethren's Gospel to Asia. We step north to Wallachia, and find two Brethren consulting about a settlement there with the Haspodar of Bucharest. We arrive at St. Petersburg, and find three Brethren there before us, commissioned to preach the Gospel to the heathen Calmucks. We pass on to Persia and find two doctors, Hocker and Rüffer, stripped naked by robbers on the highway, and then starting a practice at Ispahan (1747). We cross the sandy plains to the city of Bagdad, and find two Brethren in its narrow streets; we find Hocker expounding the Gospel to the Copts in Cairo!

And even this was not the end of the Brethren's missionary labours {1738-42.}. For some years the Brethren conducted a mission to the Jews. For Jews the Count had special sympathy. He had vowed in his youth to do all he could for their conversion; he had met a good many Jews at Herrnhut and at Frankfurt-on-the-Main; he made a practice of speaking about them in public on the Great Day of Atonement; and in their Sunday morning litany the Brethren uttered the prayer, "Deliver Thy people Israel from their blindness; bring many of them to know Thee, till the fulness of the Gentiles is come and all Israel is saved." The chief seat of this work was Amsterdam, and the chief workers Leonard Dober and Samuel Leiberkühn. The last man was a model missionary. He had studied theology at Jena and Halle; he was a master of the Hebrew tongue; he was expert in all customs of the Jews; he was offered a professorship at Königsberg; and yet, instead of winning his laurels as an Oriental scholar, he preferred to settle down in humble style in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, and there talk to his friends the Jews about the Christ he loved so deeply. His method of work was instructive. He never dazed his Jewish friends with dogmatic theology. He never tried to prove that Christ was the Messiah of the prophecies. He simply told them, in a kindly way, how Jesus had risen from the dead, and how much this risen Jesus had done in the world; he shared their hope of a national gathering in Palestine; and, though he could never boast of making converts, he was so beloved by his Jewish friends that they called him "Rabbi Schmuel."

Let us try to estimate the value of all this work. Of all the enterprises undertaken by the Brethren this heroic advance on heathen soil had the greatest influence on other Protestant Churches; and some writers have called the Moravians the pioneers of Protestant Foreign Missions. But this statement is only true in a special sense. They were not the first to preach the Gospel to the heathen. If the reader consults any history of Christian Missions[88] he will see that long before Leonard Dober set out for St. Thomas other men had preached the Gospel in heathen lands.

But in all these efforts there is one feature missing. There is no sign of any united Church action. At the time when Leonard Dober set out from Herrnhut not a single other Protestant Church in the world had attacked the task of foreign missions, or even regarded that task as a Divinely appointed duty. In England the work was undertaken, not by the Church as such, but by two voluntary associations, the S.P.C.K. and the S.P.G.; in Germany, not by the Lutheran Church, but by a few earnest Pietists; in Denmark, not by the Church, but by the State; in Holland, not by the Church, but by one or two pious Colonial Governors; and in Scotland, neither by the Church nor by anyone else. At that time the whole work of foreign missions was regarded as the duty, not of the Churches, but of "Kings, Princes, and States." In England, Anglicans, Independents and Baptists were all more or less indifferent. In Scotland the subject was never mentioned; and even sixty years later a resolution to inquire into the matter was rejected by the General Assembly {1796.}. In Germany the Lutherans were either indifferent or hostile. In Denmark and Holland the whole subject was treated with contempt. And the only Protestant Church to recognize the duty was this little, struggling Renewed Church of the Brethren. In this sense, therefore, and in this sense only, can we call the Moravians the pioneers of modern missions. They were the first Protestant Church in Christendom to undertake the conversion of the heathen. They sent out their missionaries as authorised agents of the Church. They prayed for the cause of missions in their Sunday Litany. They had several missionary hymns in their Hymn-Book. They had regular meetings to listen to the reading of missionaries' diaries and letters. They discussed missionary problems at their Synods. They appointed a Church Financial Committee to see to ways and means. They sent out officially appointed "visitors" to inspect the work in various countries. They were, in a word, the first Protestant Missionary Church in history; and thus they set an inspiring example to all their stronger sisters.

Again, this work of the Brethren was important because it was thorough and systematic. At first the missionaries were compelled to go out with very vague ideas of their duties. But in 1734 the Brethren published "Instructions for the Colony in Georgia"; in 1737 "Instructions for Missionaries to the East"; in 1738 "Instructions for all Missionaries"; and in 1740 "The Right Way to Convert the Heathen." Thus even during those early years the Moravian missionaries were trained in missionary work. They were told what Gospel to preach and how to preach it. "You are not," said Zinzendorf, in his "Instructions," "to allow yourselves to be blinded by the notion that the heathen must be taught first to believe in God, and then afterwards in Jesus Christ. It is false. They know already that there is a God. You must preach to them about the Son. You must be like Paul, who knew nothing but Jesus and Him crucified. You must speak constantly, in season, and out of season, of Jesus, the Lamb, the Saviour; and you must tell them that the way to salvation is belief in this Jesus, the Eternal Son of God." Instead of discussing doctrinal questions the missionaries laid the whole stress on the person and sacrifice of Christ. They avoided dogmatic language. They used the language, not of the theological world, but of the Gospels. They preached, not a theory of the Atonement, but the story of the Cross. "We must," said Spangenberg, "hold to the fact that the blood and death of Jesus are the diamond in the golden ring of the Gospel."

But alongside this Gospel message the Brethren introduced as far as possible the stern system of moral discipline which already existed at Herrnhut. They lived in daily personal touch with the people. They taught them to be honest, obedient, industrious, and loyal to the Government. They opened schools, taught reading and writing, and instructed the girls in sewing and needlework. They divided their congregations, not only into "Choirs," but also into "Classes." They laid the stress, not on public preaching, but on the individual "cure of souls." For this purpose they practised what was called "The Speaking." At certain fixed seasons, i.e., the missionary, or one of his helpers, had a private interview with each member of the congregation. The old system of the Bohemian Brethren was here revived.[89] At these private interviews there was no possibility of any moral danger. At the head of the men was the missionary, at the head of the women his wife; for the men there were male "Helpers," for the women female "Helpers"; and thus all "speakings" took place between persons of the same sex only. There were three degrees of discipline. For the first offence the punishment was reproof; for the second, suspension from the Communion; for the third, expulsion from the congregation. And thus the Brethren proved up to the hilt that Christian work among the heathen was not mere waste of time.

Again, this work was important because it was public. It was not done in a corner. It was acted on the open stage of history. As these Brethren laboured among the heathen, they were constantly coming into close contact with Governors, with trading companies, and with Boards of Control. In Greenland they were under Danish rule; in Surinam, under Dutch; in North America, under English; in the West Indies, under English, French, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese; and thus they were teaching a moral lesson to the whole Western European world. At that time the West Indian Islands were the gathering ground for all the powers on the Atlantic seaboard of Europe. There, and there alone in the world, they all had possessions; and there, in the midst of all these nationalities, the Brethren accomplished their most successful work. And the striking fact is that in each of these islands they gained the approval of the Governor. They were the agents of an international Church; they were free from all political complications; they could never be suspected of treachery; they were law-abiding citizens themselves, and taught their converts to be the same; and thus they enjoyed the esteem and support of every great Power in Europe.

And this in turn had another grand result. It prepared the way for Negro Emancipation. We must not, however, give the missionaries too much credit. As Zinzendorf himself was a firm believer in slavery, we need not be surprised to find that the Brethren never came forward as champions of liberty. They never pleaded for emancipation. They never encouraged their converts to expect it. They never talked about the horrors of slavery. They never appealed, like Wilberforce, to Parliament. And yet it was just these modest Brethren who did the most to make emancipation possible. Instead of delivering inflamatory speeches, and stirring up the hot-blooded negroes to rebellion, they taught them rather to be industrious, orderly, and loyal, and thus show that they were fit for liberty. If a slave disobeyed his master they punished him. They acted wisely. If the Brethren had preached emancipation they would simply have made their converts restive; and these converts, by rebelling, would only have cut their own throats. Again and again, in Jamaica and Antigua, the negroes rose in revolt; and again and again the Governors noticed that the Moravian converts took no part in the rebellion.

At last the news of these triumphs arrived in England; and the Privy Council appointed a Committee to inquire into the state of the slave trade in our West Indian possessions {1787.}. The Committee appealed to the Brethren for information. The reply was drafted by Christian Ignatius La Trobe. As La Trobe was then the English Secretary for the Brethren's missions, he was well qualified to give the required information. He described the Brethren's methods of work, pointed out its results in the conduct of the negroes, and declared that all the Brethren desired was liberty to preach the Gospel. "The Brethren," he said, "never wish to interfere between masters and slaves." The ball was now set fairly rolling. Dr. Porteous, Bishop of London, replied on behalf of the Committee. He was an ardent champion of emancipation. He thanked the Brethren for their information. He informed them how pleased the Committee were with the Brethren's methods of work. At this very time Wilberforce formed his resolution to devote his life to the emancipation of the slaves. He opened his campaign in Parliament two years later. He was a personal friend of La Trobe; he read his report; and he backed up his arguments in Parliament by describing the good results of Moravian work among the slaves. And thus the part played by the Brethren was alike modest and effective. They taught the slaves to be good; they taught them to be genuine lovers of law and order; they made them fit for the great gift of liberty; and thus, by destroying the stale old argument that emancipation was dangerous they removed the greatest obstacle in Wilberforce's way.[90] Again, this work of the Brethren was important in its influence on several great English missionary pioneers. At missionary gatherings held in England the statement is often made to-day that the first Englishman to go out as a foreign missionary was William Carey, the leader of the immortal "Serampore Three." It is time to explode that fiction. For some years before William Carey was heard of a number of English Moravian Brethren had gone out from these shores as foreign missionaries. In Antigua laboured Samuel Isles, Joseph Newby, and Samuel Watson; in Jamaica, George Caries and John Bowen; in St. Kitts and St. Croix, James Birkby; in Barbados, Benjamin Brookshaw; in Labrador, William Turner, James Rhodes, and Lister; and in Tobago, John Montgomery, the father of James Montgomery, the well-known Moravian hymn-writer and poet. With the single exception of George Caries, who seems to have had some Irish blood in his veins, these early missionaries were as English as Carey himself; and the greater number, as we can see from the names, were natives of Yorkshire. Moreover, William Carey knew of their work. He owed his inspiration partly to them; he referred to their work in his famous pamphlet, "Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens"; and finally, at the house of Mrs. Beely Wallis, in Kettering, he threw down upon the table some numbers of the first English missionary magazine,[91] "Periodical Accounts relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren," and, addressing his fellow Baptist ministers, exclaimed: "See what the Moravians have done! Can we not follow their example, and in obedience to our heavenly Master go out into the world and preach the Gospel to the heathen." The result was the foundation of the Baptist Missionary Society.

His companion, Marshman, also confessed his obligations to the Brethren {1792.}.