YH 
 
 NO. 159. 
 
 The Hermannsburg Mission. 
 
 Compiled from Missionary itevieAV. 
 
 The story of the conception of this mission, 
 the years of wonderful preparation and its final 
 accomplishment, reads like a fairy tale; or per¬ 
 haps better still, like one of our Lord’s miracles 
 It tells how a man prayed and the people be¬ 
 came interested. He and they continued to 
 pray, and interest became enthusiasm and the 
 people offered themselves and their means to 
 help carry out their pastor’s plans for amission 
 in Africa. 
 
 The Hermannsburg Mission had its beginning 
 literally in the soul of Louis Harms. The grace 
 of God in his heart was the impulse which gave 
 it power and carried it on to its great results. 
 To understand the character of the work, it is 
 necessary to know something of the life of the 
 man. 
 
 Louis Harms, the son of a Lutheran pastor 
 and the founder of the Hermannsburg Mission, 
 was born in Walsrode, Germany, in 1808. Even 
 
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as a child, he showed aptitude as a scholar. 
 At the age of eighteen, he entered the University 
 of Gottingen, where he remained three years. 
 The most unblushing unbelief prevailed here at 
 this time and its effect on young Harms was to 
 make him search for the truth. He traversed 
 the whole circle of the sciences, but found no 
 peace and came to the point when he said, 
 “There is no God.” But one night when study¬ 
 ing Christ’s intercessory prayer, God revealed 
 himself to the struggling youth and henceforth 
 he was one of his chosen vessels. Until 1843, he 
 was employed as tutor in two different families, 
 and even then was a witness for Christ, for 
 we read that his sermons and Bible classes were 
 much blessed. Two calls reached him curing 
 this period, one from the mission house at Ham¬ 
 burg where his services were desired as tutor, 
 and the other from New York, where he was in¬ 
 vited to serve as preacher. Both calls were de¬ 
 clined, as he believed, in deference to the Divine 
 will he was designed for Hermannsburg, and 
 kept waiting for it till the hour came. 
 
 In 1843, he went to Hermannsburg to assist his 
 father in his parish, and at his father’s death 
 in 1849, he became sole pastor there. Very soon 
 the zeal and earnestness and spirituality of the 
 new pastor began to yield rich returns. The at¬ 
 tendance at church increased; reverence for the 
 Bible grew; there was more conversation on 
 
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sacred things. And now the heart of the pastor 
 began to warm toward the millions in heathen¬ 
 dom, especially in Africa, and he often made it 
 the subject of his Sabbath discourse and very 
 often the subject of conversation in his visits 
 among his people. They soon caught his spirit 
 and began to talk of the work among themselves, 
 and then some began to give. Their first contri¬ 
 butions were a silver penny from a child, six 
 pence from a poor laborer, and six shillings 
 from a widow. This enthusiastic pastor then 
 urged his people to give themselves, personally 
 and practically, to the work, and in response, 
 twelve came forward and offered to go, one of 
 whom gave his farm as well as himself. With 
 the income from this, a training school was 
 opened for these twelve with a course of instruc¬ 
 tion extending over four years—both scholastic 
 and industrial. 
 
 The shaping of the mission may be said to 
 have been taken out of Harm’s hands just now. 
 He had not planned a mission of colonization , 
 but it was thus the Hermannsburg Mission took 
 form under God, and the circumstances which 
 developed it are as follows: After a year or 
 two had passed in the preparation of the twelve, 
 a number of German sailors, recently converted, 
 sought admission to the training school. Their 
 suggestion was to found a colony near Boney, 
 in Western Africa, and under the superin¬ 
 tendence of Christian missionaries, seek to sup- 
 
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press the slave trade. This resulted in peas¬ 
 ants, who had no missionary gifts, asking to be 
 sent as settlers, and some of the villagers as 
 tradesmen or mechanics. Of the sixty who thus 
 offered, eight were chosen. Of the sailors men¬ 
 tioned, only two endured the tedium and strain 
 of study. 
 
 .Tust here the pastor himself was greatly en¬ 
 couraged and at the suggestion of the sailors, 
 conceived the idea of building their own ship for 
 mission purposes. In course of time, by faith, 
 work and prayer, the ship Candace was built 
 and paid for and dedicated to the bearing of the 
 Gospel to the South Africans. A service was 
 held on board October 28th, 1853, at Hamburg 
 before sailing for Mombas and the Galla 
 country, via the Cape and Port Natal. To each 
 class,—sailors, colonists, officers, missionaries, 
 —Pastor Harms had something separate to say, 
 but to all he laid special emphasis on the neces¬ 
 sity of prayer. ‘‘Begin all your work with 
 prayer; when the storm rises, pray; when the 
 billows rage round the ship, pray; when sin 
 comes, pray; and when the devil tempts you, 
 pray. So long as you pray it will go well with 
 you body and soul.” 
 
 On reaching their destination their faith and 
 zeal were put to the first and severest test. The 
 Mohammedan powers at Mombas, jealous of all 
 foreign influence and especially opposed to the 
 incoming of Christian missionaries, compelled 
 
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the Hermannsburgers to depart. The Candace 
 then put back to Nata], where she had stopped a 
 few months before, and received a glad recep¬ 
 tion from some of their own countrymen, from 
 missionaries of other lands, and by the govern¬ 
 ment of the colony. Without renouncing the 
 hope of yet reaching the Gallas, on which their 
 hearts were deeply set, they settled down to 
 work where they were. On the 19tli of Septem¬ 
 ber, 1854, with five ox-teams, they reached the 
 seat of their first and central station, which 
 they called by the dear home-land name of 
 “Hennannsburg, on a large farm of six thous¬ 
 and acres, called Perseverance,” situated on a 
 branch of the Umvoti. Their purpose was to 
 strike out, as opportunity offered, in different 
 directions, especially into Zululand, even to the 
 Gallas. They had already entered on their 
 work by making tours of observation and by 
 studying the language with other missionaries, 
 and aiding them as best they could. 
 
 Their next work was to build a house in which 
 to live and a place in which to worship. To 
 this they devoted themselves at once and yet 
 kept up their study of the language and lost no 
 opportunity to teach the people whatever would 
 be helpful to them, both in this life and the 
 next. The carpenter with the best workers in 
 wood went to the “bush” for timber. The smith 
 made ready a smithy for work in iron. The 
 farmer gathered a native force to care for the 
 
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teams and help him in husbandry. The mason 
 with a few good helpers began to made brick. 
 The thatcher worked in the garden until he was 
 wanted on the roof. The cook, as yet without a 
 kitchen, had a laborious business to feed so 
 many hungry people. They planned to build a 
 house, 120 feet by 40 feet, with eight dwelling- 
 rooms and twelve bed rooms, a large dining and 
 sitting room, a large kitchen and a long hall 
 running through the centre. They took their 
 meals at one table in the common dining room. 
 Here, too, they.met, morning and evening for 
 family worship. Later, as the number increased 
 by new arrivals from the training school, they 
 built a similar house a half a mile away. 
 
 Before three months had passed, four natives, 
 a married couple and two others, who had been 
 under instruction, came to their teachers with 
 the desire to be baptized. After some weeks of 
 further instruction, they were examined before 
 the congregation, accepted, baptized, and made 
 the nucleus of a church-among the Zulus. 
 
 Meantime the frequent reports sent to friends 
 and pastor in the homeland, kept the missionary 
 zeal at high tide. The training school was kept 
 full, usually with about fifty. In 1856, a second 
 company, chiefly farmers and maids, was found 
 ready to go out: in 1857, still another company 
 of forty-six, of whom twelve were missionaries, 
 was sent out; and again in 1860, twenty-four set 
 
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sail, of whom four were missionaries, the rest 
 colonists. All this led to the frequent founding 
 of new stations, so that in six years from the 
 beginning of their work at Hermannsburg, they 
 had ten stations, four in Natal, three in ZuIn¬ 
 land and three among the Bechuana, and had \ 
 baptized fifty heathen. At the end of the first 
 decade, in 1864, they had founded twenty-four 
 stations and started two more and baptized 190 
 converts. How well founded, planned and 
 managed was Pastor Harms’mission enterprise 
 is seen in the fact that it lived and prospered 
 marvelously after his death, which occurred 
 November 14th, 1866. 
 
 At the Christmas festival, held in 1870. when 
 the pastor and people were accustomed to review 
 their year’s mission work, the report showed 
 thirty-seven stations in Africa, also five in India 
 and one in Australia. Two brethren were about 
 to leave for California to work among the 
 Chinese of that State. The South African sta¬ 
 tions continued to increase until they numbered 
 fifty, when twelve or fifteen of them were swept 
 away by war, some afterwards being rebuilt. 
 Prom a report of 1891 we learn that there were 
 at that time fifty-nine stations and fifty-nine 
 missionaries. The baptisms for the year num¬ 
 bered 2,380, and the membership was 18,284. 
 The entire amount subscribed for the mission 
 that year was about $62,500. 
 
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In 1897, the income was $80,325. The expenses 
 were heavy on account of the famine, the rinder¬ 
 pest and the plague in South Africa. 
 
 At the head of the mission at this time (1899) 
 is Pastor Egmont Harms, a nephew of the 
 founder, with an assistant, Pvev. G. Oepke. 
 They adhere to their early principle not to col¬ 
 lect or to gather funds through organized socie¬ 
 ties. The purity of Lutheran doctrine is em¬ 
 phasized more than in any other mission. 
 
 The Hermannsburg Mission is a transcription 
 of the Saviour’s charge, “Have faith in God.” 
 It is studded all over with answers to prayer 
 and glorious exploits of faith. Pastor Harms 
 was a man of faith. He made his work whether 
 at home or abroad, a work of faith. He had 
 faith in God and faith in his people. He 
 was a man of prayer. Of God he asked in 
 faith—the help he needed from God; of his peo¬ 
 ple he asked—in faith—the help he needed 
 from them. J* 
 
 Published by the General Literature Committee 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society or 
 the Lutheran Church 
 
 (General Synod.) 
 
 2319 Maryland Ave., Baltimore. Md. 
 
 1899. 
 
 2 CENTS A PIECE. 15 CENTS A DOZEN. 
 
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