A History of the Moravian Church

by J. E. Hutton

The first step was taken by Christian Henry Rauch. As soon as he arrived in Pennsylvania he offered himself for the Indian Mission, went to the Indian town of Shekomeko {1740.}, and began to preach the Gospel in a manner which became famous in Moravian history. First, at a Conference in Bethlehem, the story was told by Tschoop, one of his earliest converts; and then it was officially quoted by Spangenberg, as a typical example of the Brethren's method of preaching. "Brethren," said Tschoop, "I have been a heathen, and grown old among the heathen; therefore I know how the heathen think. Once a preacher came and began to explain that there was a God. We answered, 'Dost thou think us so ignorant as not to know that? Go to the place whence thou camest!' Then, again, another preacher came, and began to teach us, and to say, 'You must not steal, nor lie, nor get drunk, and so forth.' We answered, 'Thou fool, dost thou think that we do not know that? Learn first thyself, and then teach the people to whom thou belongest to leave off these things. For who steal, or lie, or who are more drunken than thine own people?' And then we dismissed him."

But Rauch came with a very different message.

He told us of a Mighty One, the Lord of earth and sky, Who left His glory in the Heavens, for men to bleed and die; Who loved poor Indian sinners still, and longed to gain their love, And be their Saviour here and in His Father's house above.

And when his tale was ended—"My friends," he gently said, "I am weary with my journey, and would fain lay down my head; So beside our spears and arrows he laid him down to rest, And slept as sweetly as the babe upon its mother's breast.

Then we looked upon each other, and I whispered, "This is new; Yes, we have heard glad tidings, and that sleeper knows them true; He knows he has a Friend above, or would he slumber here, With men of war around him, and the war-whoop in his ear.?"

So we told him on the morrow that he need not journey on, But stay and tell us further of that loving, dying One; And thus we heard of Jesus first, and felt the wondrous power, Which makes His people willing, in His own accepted hour.

"Thus," added Tschoop, "through the grace of God an awakening took place among us. I say, therefore, Brethren, preach Christ our Saviour, and His sufferings and death, if you will have your words to gain entrance among the heathen."

As soon, therefore, as Rauch had struck this note, the Brethren boldly undertook the task of preaching to all the Red Indians in North America. The Count himself set off to spy the land, and undertook three dangerous missionary journeys. First, accompanied by his daughter Benigna, and an escort of fourteen, he visited the Long Valley beyond the Blue Mountains, met a delegation of the League of the Iroquois, and received from them, in solemn style, a fathom made of one hundred and sixty-eight strings of wampum {1742.}. The fathom was a sign of goodwill. If a missionary could only show the fathom he was sure of a kindly welcome. In his second journey Zinzendorf went to Shekomeko, organised the first Indian Mission Church, and baptized three converts as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In his third journey he visited the Wyoming Valley, and interviewed the chiefs of the Shawanese and Mohicans. He was here in deadly peril. As he sat one afternoon in his tent two hissing adders darted across his body; and a few days later some suspicious Indians plotted to take his life. But a government agent arrived on the scene, and Zinzendorf's scalp was saved.

And now the Brethren began the campaign in earnest. At Bethlehem Spangenberg had a Mission Conference and a Mission College. The great hero of the work was David Zeisberger. He was, like most of these early missionaries, a German. He was born at Zauchtenthal, in Moravia; had come with his parents to Herrnhut; had followed them later to Georgia; and was now a student at Spangenberg's College at Bethlehem. For sixty-three years he lived among the Indians, and his life was one continual series of thrilling adventures and escapes. He became almost an Indian. He was admitted a member of the Six Nations, received an Indian name, and became a member of an Indian family. He was an Iroquois to the Iroquois, a Delaware to the Delawares. He understood the hidden science of belts and strings of wampum; he could unriddle their mysterious messages and make speeches in their bombastic style; and he spoke in their speech and thought in their thoughts, and lived their life in their wigwams. He loved their majestic prairies, stretching beyond the Blue Mountains. He loved their mighty rivers and their deep clear lakes. Above all, he loved the red-brown Indians themselves. Full well he knew what trials awaited him. If the reader has formed his conception of the Indians from Fenimore Cooper's novels, he will probably think that Zeisberger spent his life among a race of gallant heroes. The reality was rather different. For the most part the Indians of North America were the reverse of heroic. They were bloodthirsty, drunken, lewd and treacherous. They spent their time in hunting buffaloes, smoking pipes, lolling in the sun, and scalping each other's heads. They wasted their nights in tipsy revels and dances by the light of the moon. They cowered in terror of evil spirits and vicious and angry gods. But Zeisberger never feared and never despaired. As long as he had such a grand Gospel to preach, he felt sure that he could make these savages sober, pure, wise, kind and brave, and that God would ever shield him with His wing. He has been called "The Apostle to the Indians." As the missionaries of the early Christian Church came to our rude fathers in England, and made us a Christian people, so Zeisberger desired to be an Augustine to the Indians, and found a Christian Indian kingdom stretching from Lake Michigan to the Ohio.

He began his work with the League of the Iroquois, commonly called the Six Nations {1745.}. At Onondaga, their headquarters, where he and Bishop Cammerhof had arranged to meet the Great Council, the meeting had to be postponed till the members had recovered from a state of intoxication. But Cammerhof addressed the chiefs, brought out the soothing pipe of tobacco, watched it pass from mouth to mouth, and received permission for two missionaries to come and settle down. From there, still accompanied by Cammerhof, Zeisberger went on to the Senecas. He was welcomed to a Pandemonium of revelry. The whole village was drunk. As he lay in his tent he could hear fiendish yells rend the air; he went out with a kettle, to get some water for Cammerhof, and the savages knocked the kettle out of his hand; and later, when the shades of evening fell, he had to defend himself with his fists against a bevy of lascivious women, whose long hair streamed in the night wind, and whose lips swelled with passion. For Cammerhof the journey was too much; in the bloom of youth he died (1751).