LONDON J 
 
 G. NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, HART STREET, 
 COVENT GARDEN, 
 
 
 «- 
 
 *.'<A . 
 
MORAVIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 In his “ Institutes of Ecclesiastical History/’ when giving a brief 
 sketch of the eighteenth century^ the historian Mosheim indulges 
 in some ill-natured remarks upon those whom he calls “ Herrn- 
 huters.” “They tell us/’ he says, “they are descended of those 
 Bohemian and Moravian brethren who, in the fifteenth century, 
 .were excited by the preaching and example of John Huss to cast 
 off the Romish yoke. They might more correctly call themselves 
 imitators of those brethren, for it Is conceded by all, that only a 
 very small part of the new fraternity consists, of Bohemians and 
 Moravians •, and it Is very uncertain, also, whether those of them 
 who are Bohemians by descent are the posterity of those ancient 
 Bohemian brethren.” 
 
 For the insinuations of this ungracious paragraph there is not the 
 slightest foundation. Even Mosheim would have been conscious 
 of this had he known, or, knowing, had he carefully studied the 
 “ Acta Fratrum Unitatls in Anglia,” published in 1749. In that 
 valuable collection of documents he would have found the report of 
 the committee to whom the petition of the deputies of the United 
 Moravian Churches addressed to the British Government had been 
 referred, and an Act passed in the reign of George II, by the 
 Parliament of 1747? “for encouraging the people known by the 
 name of Unitas Fratrum or United Brethren to settle in his 
 Majesty’s Colonies in America.” In the appendix to the 
 committee’s report are printed some of the most material vouchers 
 and papers produced by the deputies in support of their claims. 
 They claimed for “ the United Brethren at Herrnhuth ” that they 
 are an ancient Church universally known to be such, and that they 
 have a right to be denominated the Protestant Episcopal Church of 
 
 J * 
 
2 
 
 the Unitds Fratrum. In support of these claims they adduced 
 documentary evidence at great length, and backed it up with the 
 testimony of those competent to adjudicate in such a matter. 
 Thus they were able to show that the question, “ Whether the 
 Moravian Church at Herrnhuth, retaining their three hundred 
 years’ old and well-known Constitution and Church-discipline, may 
 and ought at the same time to maintain their connection with the 
 Lutheran Church ? ” having been propounded to the divines of 
 Tubingen in i 733 > elicited from them an unhesitating affirmative j . 
 and they could produce sermons and letters of English divines 
 containing statements similar to this:—“ ’Tis well known and 
 universally acknowledged that these our brethren are descended 
 from those persons who forsook [‘ or, never admitted of,’ Interpolate 
 the deputies] the corruptions of the Church of Rome by the In¬ 
 fluence of those eminent saints and martyrs, yohn Huss and Jerome 
 of Prague, who received their doctrine (in a good measure) from 
 our truly famous countryman John WIckllff, to whom we are 
 obliged for the first dawnings of that Reformation, the first 
 glimmerings of that pure Gospel-light, which (blessed be God for 
 it!) does now shine so brightly in this land.” 
 
 When the claim of the Herrnhut brethren to be the hereditary 
 descendants and historical representatives of the Fraternal Unity of 
 the fifteenth century, is admitted to be valid, what an interesting 
 field opens up to view ! The wife of Richard II of England was a 
 Bohemian princess, and through her agency the writings of the proto¬ 
 reformer Wicklifte were introduced Into Bohemia and translated into 
 the Bohemian tongue. The English reformer’s words became good 
 seed in the heart when they fell into the hands of two men—Huss 
 and Jerome,—both belonging to Prague, and the former being an 
 eminent pastor In one of the churches of that city, and also rector 
 of the University there. The teacher Huss and the disciple 
 Jerome were declared to be heretics by the Council of Constance, 
 and both suffered martyrdom in the flames, one on the 6th of July, 
 1415, and the other on the 30th May, 1416. 
 
 Although only forty-two years of age when burned alive, John 
 Huss left a large number of followers in Bohemia and Moravia, 
 
3 
 
 % 
 
 and these^ before a century had run its course, were found to have 
 spread to not a few districts of Poland. In addition to the general 
 name of Hussites, these followers of the Bohemian martyr came to 
 be known by two names, that of Calixtines, from their distinguish¬ 
 ing tenet, which was pleading for the use of the chalice in the 
 Lord’s Supper, which a decree of Charles IV had attempted to 
 withhold from the laity, and that of Taborites, the origin of which 
 name. Inaccurately given by Moshelm and L’Infant, is thus 
 correctly stated by the historian of the wars of the Hussites:— 
 “ The Communion under both kinds met with great opposition 
 in the district of Bechin. The vicars and curates drove all who 
 befriended it out of their churches. Being deprived of divine 
 service, some of the pastors conducted their flocks to a neighbouring 
 mountain. There they erected a tent, in the form of a chapel, in 
 which they performed divine service, and administered the Com¬ 
 munion to the people in both elements. The service being ended, 
 they took down the tent, returned to their houses, and called the 
 mountain Tabor.” When the Calixtines, under the pressure of 
 terrible sufferings, resolved to have recourse to the sword in self- 
 defence, a minority of their number disapproved of the step, 
 withdrew from their fellowship, and. In 1457, retired to the barony 
 of Lititz, In the north-east of Bohemia. Here they were ministered 
 to in Word and Sacrament by pastors who had seceded from the 
 Church of Rome or from the Calixtines, and here they formed 
 congregations and established a Consistory. In the preface to a 
 document laid before the States-General, and which has become 
 one of the subordinate standards of the renewed Unity,^ an 
 explanation is given of the reason why they took to themselves 
 the name which has since become historical. “ With respect,” 
 say they, “to the name of the Fraternity, it was derived from the 
 circumstances of the case. These men were in truth the genuine 
 offspring of the holy martyr Huss 3 yet the Calixtines had fore¬ 
 stalled the denomination of Hussites; and, moreover, our people 
 
 * " Ratio disciplinse ordinisque ecclesiastici in unitate Fratrum Bohemo- 
 rum," drawn up in 1616, but not published till 1632, when it was printed 
 at Lissa in Poland. 
 
4 
 
 \vould not venture to take their title from men contrary to the 
 prohibition of the Holy Spirit. 'I'hey therefore called themselves 
 by the most commendable name of Brethren and Sisters, an 
 appellation most suitable for Christians. But in their public 
 apologies, and in their books, they termed themselves Brethren of the 
 Law (or rule) of Christ, with reference to the leading principle of 
 Huss, ‘that the law of Christ is sufficient for the government of 
 the Church militant, without the addition of human laws,’ and 
 being anxious to guard against a departure from this principle 
 either by themselves or their posterity. And because they had 
 established a settled order among themselves for the preservation of 
 unanimity in faith and charity, they designated their entire body 
 The Unity of the Brethren, as it Is applied at the present day 
 And as the churches were everywhere occupied by the Romanists, 
 or by the pseudo-HussItes, the brethren were under the necessity 
 of erecting oratories of their own in different towns 3 and their 
 pastors having no regular incomes, had to support themselves by 
 the labour of their own hands.” 
 
 The history of the Fraternal Unity, thus formed, was for two 
 long and dreary centuries a history of hardship and suffering. The 
 brethren and sisters resembled the Scripture worthies In that they 
 had “ trials of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds 
 and imprisonments. . . . They were tempted, they were slain 
 
 with the sword, being destitute, afflicted, evil-entreated.” What 
 privations they were subjected to by Austrian tyranny and priestly 
 bigotry is recorded in a narrative drawn up for the information of 
 friends in England, and published in London in 161^0, from which 
 it will suffice to make one extract: “ Many being dispersed among 
 the woods and mountains, did dwell in caves, where they were 
 scarce secure enough : wherefore they dressed not their meat, nor 
 made any fire, but in the night only, for fear the smoke ascending 
 should betray them 3 and in the extremity of the cold in winter 
 nights, sitting near the fire, they gave themselves to reading of the 
 Bible and holy discourses. When, in the depth of the snow, they 
 went forth to provide themselves necessaries, they went close 
 together, lest they should be discovered by their footsteps, and the 
 
5 
 
 hindermost did draw behind him a great bough of beech to covet 
 the print which their feet had made in the snow.” 
 
 Notwithstanding its being in so marked a degree a Church of 
 confessors, sufferers/and martyrs, the Unity was careful to be an 
 active, light-diffusing Church. The Brethren claim to be the first 
 who applied the art of printing to the publication of the Bible in 
 the vernacular tongue. Before the Reformation movement was 
 fairly launched they had established three printing-offices,—two In 
 Bohemia, and one in Moravia. These were for some time almost 
 entirely employed in printing Bohemian Bibles, and three editions 
 of what had hitherto been a sealed treasure were issued. The 
 sufferings of the Bohemian brethren reached their height under 
 the exterminating policy of Cardinal Dietrichstein, In the reign of 
 the bigoted Ferdinand II of Austria. Before that monarch of evil 
 notoriety died, in 1637, adherents of evangelical truth in the 
 Austrian provinces had been compelled to leave the country. Jan 
 Amos Komensky, better known as John Amos Comenlus—a 
 Moravian by birth, driven in 1621 from Fulneck, where he was 
 teacher and pastor, escaping In 1636 from LIssa, on the confines of 
 Silesia, in a state of nudity,—found for himself a place of refuge in 
 Amsterdam, where he ended his active, shifting life in 1671. 
 Regarding himself as the last bishop of the Bohemian branch of the 
 Fraternal Unity, Comenlus published in 1860, ‘"A Brief History of the 
 Slavonian Church.” The history is formally dedicated to Charles II, 
 with an address to the brethren of the Pmgllsh Church, the strain 
 and style of which may be judged from the following sentences: 
 
 I now close the doors of their remaining churches before your 
 very eyes, the last among the outlasting, for nearly the whole of 
 their ministers, bishops, and patrons have ended their course. As 
 in such cases it is customary to make a will, we hereby bequeath 
 to our enemies the things of which they can dispossess us, our 
 churches, schools, goods, and property, together, if it be the will of 
 the Lord, with the lives, too, of the remnant of our people. But 
 to you, our friends, we bequeath our mother, the Church of the 
 Brethren. Take her in charge. It may be God will again awaken 
 her In our country, or raise her up elsewhere if she be dead there. 
 
6 
 
 You ought to love the expiring Church which has given you, the 
 living, an example of faith and faithfulness, even from the third 
 century of our era.” 
 
 For half a century after the death of the last bishop of the old 
 Bohemian Unity, the Church of Christly confessors and martyrs 
 was the Church of God’s hidden ones—hidden in cellars, in dens 
 and caves of the earth, carefully hiding while diligently reading the 
 Word of Life. It was the renewed persecution of a merciless 
 priesthood that brought the hidden Church to light, and caused the 
 Unity of the Brethren to start upon her new era of existence—a 
 Missionary Church. In 1722 a remnant of the Moravian Church 
 were constrained to look out for a place where they could enjoy 
 fellowship and Protestant liberty of worship. Through one of their 
 number, Christian David, a journeyman mechanic, they were 
 directed to an estate situated about forty miles to the east of 
 Dresden, in the kingdom of Saxony, and proceeded to solicit the 
 protection and assistance of the owner of that estate, with whose 
 name the history of the renewed Unity and its missions will never 
 cease to be associated—Count Zinzendorf. 
 
 Nicholas Louis, Count and Lord of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf, 
 Was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable actors and propelling 
 forces in the religious life and activity of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Various circumstances have conspired to make him less known 
 and less appreciated in Great Britain than he ought to be. For one 
 thing, justice has never been done in the English language to his 
 remarkable and chequered career. The learned but dry and prolix 
 Bishop of the Unity, A. G. Spangenberg, may be said to have 
 burled the life In a biography of eight ponderous volumes, which 
 appeared at Intervals between the years 1772 and 177^5. Of this 
 work an abridged translation in English was brought out in 1838, 
 but In a form far from attractive } while the Enclyclopsedia notices 
 are meagre and untrustworthy. Then, unfortunately, Zlnzendorf’s 
 doctrinal tenets and ecclesiastical organization failed to commend 
 themselves to several theologians and Church statesmen of his own 
 century^ with a far wider repute than his own, so that he does not 
 appear to advantage in the biographies of these men of light and 
 
7 
 
 leading. This holds good in the case of the distinguished scholar 
 John Albert Bengel in Germany, of the two Wesleys, Whitfield, 
 and the Countess of Huntingdon in England, and of David Brainerd 
 and President Dickenson in America. And, so far from being 
 concealed, it ought to be frankly admitted that there was much in 
 the doings and writings of the Christian nobleman fitted to give an 
 impression of wrongheadedness, eccentricities, and love of domina¬ 
 tion. But much of this disappears when allowance is made for the 
 emotional and impulsive temperament of the man, and for the 
 exceptional relation in which the aristocratic landowner stood to the 
 poor expatriated artisans who found a home and a sanctuary upon 
 his estate. There must have been something attractive in a 
 controversialist of whom Bengel could write, I love that good 
 nobleman from my heart, and think often about him 3” and John 
 Wesley must have felt strongly drawn to the head-centre of the 
 community, when, after spending a fortnight in the society of the 
 Count, he said, on leaving Herrnhut, I would gladly have spent 
 my life here.” 
 
 No doubt there was much that was outre and extravagant 
 in the doings of Zinzendorf. But when every abatement that 
 can reasonably be demanded has been made, the character and 
 the labours of Nicholas Louis remain truly noble, altogether 
 Christly.* The entirety of his devotion to his Master’s 
 
 * An instance of the use of the lot, which is often referred to in the 
 history of Zinzendorf and of the Brethren’s Church, may interest our 
 readers; it explains the mode of procedure, and it throws light upon the 
 character of Zinzendorf. At one time the Count was exceedingly anxious 
 to get the elders at Herrnhut to abandon their old Moravian Constitution, 
 and become more avowedly Lutheran in polity: the brethren, on their part, 
 warmly resisted all his efforts in that direction. As neither party would 
 yield to the other, it was resolved to commit the matter to the decision of 
 the lot. Accordingly, two texts of Scripture were written on separate slips 
 of paper—one being i Cor. ix. 21, the other 2 Thess. ii. 15—the under¬ 
 standing being, that if the first were drawn that would be evidence of the 
 Lord’s will that the Lutheran Constitution be accepted ; but if the second 
 that the old historical standing be retained. Fervent prayer having been 
 offered, Christian Renatus, the Count’s son, not quite four years of age, 
 put his hand into the box containing the slips, and drew forth that which 
 contained the Thessalonian text: “Stand fast, and hold the traditions 
 
 2 
 
8 
 
 service is something wonderful. Accustomed from his birth 
 to move in courtly circles of society, the favourite of states¬ 
 men, titled dignitaries and sovereigns, with every prospect 
 before him which the world would count brilliant, and marks of 
 distinguishing regard conferred upon him fitted to dazzle a young 
 man’s vision, his highest ambition in life was to enter the Gospel 
 ministry, and be ordained to the charge of souls. When that wish 
 could no longer be withstood, he resigned his office of Government 
 Councillor, and renounced all prospects of worldly advancement, 
 made over his estates to his wife, and joyfully laid aside his sword, 
 with the determination never to wear it again. Once identified 
 with his beloved brethren, no sacrifice was too great for him to 
 make in the prosecution of the work he and they had at heart. 
 He was oftentimes wounded in the house of his friends, being 
 bitterly opposed, calumniated, and traduced by a party among those 
 who found shelter on his lands and bread at his table 3 and he 
 suffered persecution at the hands of the civil power, being ordered 
 by his Government to sell his estates, and, when that could not be 
 carried out in consequence of what he had already done, being 
 banished, the cancelling of the sentence being only procurable at 
 the price of his signature to a bond, rather than sign which he 
 submitted to a voluntary exile from Saxony, which lasted ten years. 
 With his like-minded wife he passed through poverty of such a 
 depth that one year the family lived chiefly upon the proceeds of 
 the sale of gold and silver ornaments. And yet Nicholas Louis, 
 the Moravian pastor, was one of the happiest and most sunny- 
 minded of Christ’s servants. Once free from the incumbrance of 
 property, he delighted to regard himself as a stranger upon the 
 earth, the Lord’s pilgrim in the world} he was jubilant in the 
 renunciation of all things 3 he deemed no service beneath him, 
 nothing too difficult in his endeavours to promote the temporal and 
 spiritual welfare of the poor brethren and sisters in Christ Jesus. 
 Lie experienced, as few men have ever done, “ the happiness of 
 
 which ye have been taught.” After this decision, adverse to his views and 
 wishes, the Count was requested to address the congregation, which he did, 
 says his biographer, “ with unusual effect.” 
 
9 
 
 being everywhere at home,” of “parting with everything for Jesus,” 
 and of being ready “at His beck to go to any part of the world.” 
 
 One of the remarkable things connected with this remarkable 
 
 man, is the very early period of life at which he came under 
 
 religious impressions, and gave evidence of an attachment to the 
 
 Saviour. If his biographer can be depended upon, the child had 
 
 apprehended the chief points of Christian doctrine, specially the 
 
 truths bearing upon the brotherhood and sacrifice of Christ, 
 
 before he was four years old. And he himself, in an address to 
 
 little children, given at Geneva, told them how, “ when still 
 
 very little,” he spoke for hours together to the Lord, like one 
 
 friend to another, and many times paced up and down the 
 
 room absorbed in meditation and how, on one day in particular, 
 
 he was so much affected with a sense of \vhat his Creator had 
 
 suffered for him that he shed tears abundantly, and attached 
 
 himself still more closely and tenderly to the Saviour. When 
 
 only a boy he employed writing materials in composing little 
 
 notes to the Saviour, and, in the hope that the Person to whom 
 
 they were addressed would find them, he threw them out of the 
 
 window 3 and, when no more appreciative auditors of what he 
 
 had to say about his dear Lord could be found, he gathered the 
 
 chairs of the room in a circle, and spoke to them of that with 
 
 which his heart was full to overflowing. On his going, in his 
 
 eleventh year, to the Royal School at Halle, the interest and 
 
 attachment of childhood showed no sign of abatement. Loving 
 
 the Saviour himself, he sought to bring others to participate in 
 
 the grace he had received, and, with this in view, began to hold 
 
 little meetings for prayer wdth school companions in retired places. 
 
 The step met, as it was certain to do, with ridicule and opposition, 
 
 but the meetings were continued for nearly six years with manifest 
 
 signs of blessing. Out of these schoolboy gatherings there 
 
 sprang two things which exercised a potent influence upon the 
 
 religious life of Europe, and even the world, the full amount of 
 
 which it would be difficult to estimate. From among the Halle 
 
 boys that attended the Count’s prayer-meetings there was formed 
 
 an association, the members of which sought, by closer connection 
 
 * 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 with each other, to increase in the knowledge of God and in the 
 desire for the salvation of souls. For years the existence of such 
 an-union was unknown to the outside world, but the members 
 of it, though subsequently dispersed among various countries, 
 continued, through correspondence, to maintain friendly and 
 helpful intercourse. And then, it was during the Halle days, 
 which came to a close when he was sixteen years of age, that 
 Count Zinzendorf entered into a covenant with his most 
 intimate and like-minded school-companion, Baron Frederick 
 Von Wattewille. The matter of the covenant was the conversion 
 of the heathen j the desire of the youthful covenant-makers was 
 that, if not allowed to labour personally in this cause, God would 
 direct them to suitable agents for such blessed work. How nobly 
 that covenant was kept by both the transacting parties, and what 
 splendid fruit resulted from it, can best be realized by those who 
 are most intimately acquainted with the story of missionary 
 enterprise, with which the names of Zinzendorf and Wattewille 
 will ever be associated. 
 
 From the slight sketch now given of Zinzendorf’s childhood 
 and boyhood, it can be imagined with what interest he heard, in 
 the summer of 172-2, that a company of exiles had arrived in 
 Upper Lusatia from Moravia, and were desirous of finding on his 
 estate a place where they might found a colony, and build for 
 themselves dwelling-places and a church. At that time the Count 
 was twenty-two years of age, held a Government appointment, 
 and had quite recently been married to the Countess Erdmuth 
 Dorothea, but the determination was at once formed to throw up 
 all secular pursuits, and to consecrate himself entirely to the 
 glory of God and the good of others. Permission having been 
 forwarded from Dresden, and Heitz the major-domo instructed 
 to give the refugees a cordial welcome, Christian David, the 
 carpenter, cut down the first tree, exelaiming as he did so, “ Here 
 hath the sparrow found a house, and the swallow a nest for 
 herself, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts!” On the 17th of 
 June, 1722, the brethren entered their new home, and on that day 
 the major-domo reported proceedings to his master, using the 
 
it 
 
 following words, which have now an historical slgnlhcance i 
 “ May God bless the work according to His loving kindness, 
 and grant that your Excellency may build a city on the Hiitbei'g 
 [Watchhill], which may not only stand under the Lord’s guardian¬ 
 ship, but where all the inhabitants may stand upon the Herrnhut 
 [Watch of the Lord].” Thus arose Herrnhut, the home of the 
 renewed Unity of the Brethren, whose name is as “ ointment 
 poured forth,” whose missions have elicited the admiration of 
 Christendom, whose is the unique distinction of enrolling the 
 majority of communicants from the fields of heathendom which 
 they have Christianized.'^ 
 
 The Renewed Unity stands before the world the Missionary 
 Church of Christ. Repeatedly since she entered upon the revived 
 period of her existence has the General Synod given forth the 
 noble declaration; There never will be a Unity of the Brethren 
 without a mission to the heathen, or a mission of the brethren 
 which is not the affair of the whole Church. In respect of 
 priority, of progress, and diffusion, palmary honours can be claimed 
 for the little missionary Church. For among Missionary Societies 
 and the missions of individual Churches she can vindicate her 
 right to be regarded among the earliest in the field. In 1882 she 
 celebrated the third jubilee of missions which were started in 
 1732. But 1732 is sixty years prior to the formation of the 
 Baptist Missionary Society, sixty-three years before the London 
 Missionary Society started on its noble career, sixty-seven before 
 the Church Missionary Society and the Religious Tract Society 
 were organized, and ninety-seven before the Church of Scotland, 
 
 * The following tabular statements may serve to confirm the above 
 statement, and at the same time to bring out a proportion between the 
 Home and Foreign statistics to which no other Church in Christendom 
 can lay claim :— 
 
 Home. 
 
 
 Foreign. 
 
 
 
 Ministers . 
 
 . ' 310 
 
 Missionaries 
 
 151 
 
 
 
 
 Female Helpers. 
 
 149 
 
 
 
 
 Native Workers 
 
 1524 
 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 1824 
 
 Communicants . 
 
 • 19.342 
 
 Communicants . 
 
 • 
 
 25,984 
 
 Total Membership 
 
 . 30.569 
 
 Total Membership 
 
 • 
 
 77.042 
 
clwakened from the long sleep of Moderatlsm, sent out Alexander 
 Duff to India.* 
 
 As regards the progress made in these hundred and fifty years, 
 it may be questioned if any agency can produce statistics to 
 equal those given in the “Retrospect of the Missionary Work of 
 the Moravian Church,” published last year on the occasion of 
 the third jubilee. Taking the three jubilees, with their periods of 
 fifty years, this is how the matter stands. The first period started 
 with the departure from Herrnhut of two men for St. Thomas, 
 in the Danish West Indies; and it closed with i6^ brethren and 
 sisters, occupying 27 stations. 
 
 The centenary jubilee called the Unity to thank God for 40,000 
 converts, at 41 stations, under the direction of 209 brethren and 
 sisters. The jubilee of August, 1882, shows the work to have 
 nearly doubled in the half-century, for the latest returns tell of 99 
 stations and 16 out-stations, making 1J5 centres of evangelistic 
 labour, of 312 missionaries (male and female), and of 76,646 
 souls under pastoral superintendence, of whom 26,000 are in full 
 communion with the Church. 
 
 Such, so far as figures can express it, is the missionary work 
 
 * The claim put forward by the Rev. B. LaTrobe on behalf of Moravian 
 Missions to be regarded as "the first in the field," is correct, if it be 
 limited to the action of an entire Christian community or Church, 
 directed solely to the welfare of the heathen. Among earlier isolated 
 missionary enterprises the following may be mentioned. In the year 1559 
 Gustavus Vasa, King of Sweden, sent a missionary to evangelize the 
 Laplanders, and in 1611 Gustavus Adolphus caused religious books to be 
 translated into the Lapponese language. In 1646 fohn Eliot preached to 
 the American Indians in the neighbourhood of Boston. In 1705 Ziegenbalg 
 and Plutscho sailed for India; and, in 1721, Hans Egede made his way 
 to Greenland with his wife, four children, and a number of Danish 
 settlers. 
 
 Then as regards Missionary Societies, the Society for the Promotion of 
 Christian Knowledge was founded in 1698, and if its claim to be considered 
 a missionary agency be called in question, that cannot be done in the case 
 of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which 
 was incorporated by royal charter in June, 1701, and which instructed 
 its first agents to do what they could for the education and religious 
 instruction of the slaves in the American colonies, 
 
13 
 
 which the Lord of the white fields of harvest permits the brethren’s 
 Church to carry on. And the work is so diffused over the surface 
 of the earth that there is no continent on which the Fraternal 
 Unity has not unfurled the banner of the Cross. The map which 
 shows the stations of the Moravian Missions is literally a map of 
 the world. 
 
 In Europe, Central Asia, South Africa, and the continent of 
 Australasia j in North, Central, an 3 South America j along the 
 ice-bound coasts of Greenland and I abrador ^ among the Indian 
 reserves of Canada and the United States 3 under the tropic sun of 
 the West Indian Islands and British and Dutch Guiana 3 and amid 
 the solitude of the lofty valleys of the Himalayas, is the Watch of 
 the Lord being kept. In no spirit of boastfulness, rather in that of 
 prophecy, as a cosmopolitan Christian giving expression to the 
 spirit that has breathed through the renewed Church in all stages 
 of her history, did Zinzendorf utter the memorable words, My 
 parish is the whole world.” 
 
 To take even a brief survey of the fields of evangelistic labour 
 under Moravian cultivation would be a formidable undertaking, in 
 the carrying out of which writers and readers might become 
 wearied with statistics and bewildered in details. It may, therefore, 
 be more interesting, as it will certainly be more easy, to state some 
 of the salient features in Moravian Missions, which give them a 
 unique position in the annals of doing and suffering for the exten¬ 
 sion of Christ’s kingdom. 
 
 I, And first there falls to be noted the splendid spirit of con¬ 
 secration in which the missionaries of the Unity have ever given 
 themselves to this work. 
 
 It would not be reasonable to expect that all the 2171 who have 
 gone out during the past hundred and fifty years should prove 
 equally worthy of their high calling, and be completely possessed 
 of the high qualifications it demands 3 it is only what might be 
 looked for when it is found that some have been lacking in the 
 needed gifts and graces of head and heart, that some have given 
 evidence that they never had a true call to engage in such work, and 
 so, after putting their hand to the plough, have been seen looking 
 
4 
 
 back, and thereafter drawing back. Let it be also admitted that, as 
 a body, the Moravian missionaries do not stand high in respect of 
 intellectual force, scholarly attainments, or wide culture. Up to a 
 date so recent as the year 1869 the Unity had no institute for the 
 training of missionary candidates, and such a thing as a curriculum 
 of study was unknown to, and would probably not have been highly 
 esteemed by, the veterans of the force. As one glances down the 
 long lists of names that constitute the muster-roll of the regiment, 
 the eye rests on no names that can take their place alongside of the 
 Triumvirate of the Serampore Mission, or that would be mentioned 
 as those of the compeers of Wilson of Bombay, Selwyn of New 
 Zealand, or Patterson of Melanesia. For the most part, the recruits 
 and volunteers in the service have been drawn from the humbler 
 ranks of life. Moravian peasants, weavers, and carpenters have 
 furnished a large contingent. Of the two with whom the work 
 started in 173^) was a potter, the other a carpenter. John 
 Christian Erhardt, the tirst to commence a mission among the 
 Eskimoes of Labrador, was a common sailor 3 and Schmidt, selected 
 to be the pioneer among the Hottentots, was a poor man, earning 
 his living as a day-labourer, and returning to his manual toil when 
 the mission was abandoned. Many others have followed callings 
 equally lowly, the very mention of which would have excited the 
 ridicule of the witty Dean of St. Paul’s, who expended so much of 
 his humour upon the absurdity of a consecrated cobbler converting 
 the people of India. With these things admitted—and the admis¬ 
 sion is most readily made by the brethren themselves—it remains 
 incontrovertible that for entire consecration of self, absolute 
 surrender of will, and inclination to the Master, the missionaries 
 of the Unity have never been surpassed, if indeed they have ever 
 been equalled. 
 
 The beginnings of two missions, one to the West Indies, the 
 other to Greenland, will furnish ample corroboration and illustration 
 of this statement. 
 
 In 173 I a baptized negro from St. Thomas, called Anton, whom 
 Zinzendorf had previously met at Copenhagen, had an opportunity 
 of placing the condition of his enslaved countrymen before the 
 
congregation at Herrnhut. His description of the spiritual destitu¬ 
 tion and the physical hardships of the negroes powerfully affected 
 two of his hearers, who, when they talked the matter over in the 
 field they were then cultivating, found to their surprise that a strong 
 impulse to go to St.'Thomas had simultaneously taken possession 
 of their minds. By the majority of their brethren the thought 
 was treated as a pretty imagination of young officious minds in . 
 a matter that would better bear good wishes than execution.” It 
 was represented to them that before they could gain access to the 
 slaves they would require to be themselves in the slave condition 5 
 but that did not move them from their purpose 3 they would 
 willingly enter servitude in order to make known Christ, the 
 Liberator of the bound, the Consoler of the oppressed. The 
 enterprise was then, in the case of one of the volunteers, referred 
 to the decision of the Lord through the lot, and the conclusion 
 come to was that he should not go. When his companion, Leon¬ 
 hard Dober, was asked if he would submit the matter to the same 
 arbitrament, his reply was, that so far as his own conviction was 
 concerned there was no necessity, but for the satisfaction of the 
 brethren they might do as they pleased. The process being 
 repeated, out of a number of slips there was drawn one with this 
 writing, “ Let the youth go, for the Lord is with him.” This put 
 an end to all hesitation and all delay. Asked by Dober to be his 
 companion, David Nitschman left his wife and three children, and 
 went with him, ‘^not knowing whither he went.” On the 21st of 
 August, 1732, they left Herrnhut for the island of St. Thomas, 
 taking with them the blessing of the little church, a few shillings 
 in their pockets, the clothes on their backs, and as their instructions 
 this one direction, that they were in all things to seek the guid¬ 
 ance of God’s Holy Spirit.” That was the beginning of a work 
 in the Danish islands of the West Indies which, when its centenary 
 was reached in 1832, could tell of between 9000 and 10,000 
 converts, with stations in St. Thomas, St. Croix (the largest of 
 the group, often called the garden of the West Indies), and the 
 mountainous island of St. Jan. Of late years, as is well known, 
 the Danish West Indies have lost much of their commercial 
 
 3 
 
i6 
 
 importance, and have suffered greatly from drought, hurricane, 
 repeated shocks of earthquake, the ravages of cholera, and insur¬ 
 rectionary movements. And yet the most recent statistics of the 
 mission are the following: Eight stations, 14 missionaries’ 
 62 j communicants j total in charge, 4314 persons. 
 
 The mission to Greenland was entered upon about five months 
 , after the departure of Dober and Nitschman for St. Thomas, and 
 in this case also two of the brethren, on conversing “ with sim¬ 
 plicity,” found an impulse in each other’s heart to go to Greenland. 
 They were at that time working with the spade at the formation of 
 the burying-ground at the Hutberg, and, retiring to a wood near at 
 hand, they kneeled down and begged the Lord to clear up their 
 minds and indicate to them His leadings. Having done this, their 
 hearts were filled with an uncommon joy, and they at once pro¬ 
 ceeded to place themselves at the disposal of the congregation, 
 indicating, in writing, a readiness to go to any part of heathendom, 
 with a preference, however, on their part for Greenland. No 
 encouragement was given to them at first, no reply being made to 
 their communication, and no brother speaking to them of their 
 project. Efforts were even made to dissuade them from entering 
 upon the work, on the part of some who could speak from personal 
 knowledge regarding the difficulties they would encounter in a 
 country where Hans Egede had been labouring for upwards of ten 
 years with no apparent spiritual fruit. But the volunteers were not 
 to be shaken in their resolve, and ultimately the Church gave its 
 sanction to the attempt. One of the labourers in the churchyard 
 being away on a long journey at the time the favourable decision 
 was given, Christian David, whose axe had felled the first tree for 
 the building of Herrnhut, offered to take his place alongside of 
 Matthew Stach, the other missionary-designate, and a cousin of the 
 same, Christian Stach by name, having been asked to accompany 
 them, accepted the call with joy, and made himself ready in haste.” 
 Solemnly set apart for the work to which they had given themselves 
 through the laying on of hands and prayer, they set out, January 19, 
 1733, accompanied with innumerable wishes of blessings by the 
 congregation.” These wishes constituted a large part of their 
 
17 
 
 outfit, for of clothes they had nothing but what was on their backs j 
 of money, a congregation of exiles could not be expected to give 
 much } while of information as to how they were to get to Green¬ 
 land, and how they were to live when once there, the supply was 
 the scantiest. “Nobody knew anything to tell us,” says M. Stach, 
 
 “ and we did not trouble our heads.” 
 
 Reaching their destination after a seven weeks’ voyage, they built 
 their sod hut, and set about the acquiring of the Greenland language. 
 But these uneducated men had probably never seen a grammar, and 
 the only person who could be their instructor was Egede the Dane 3 
 and so it was necessary for them to set about the acquiring of 
 Danish before they could understand their teacher, and be drilled in 
 the complex and uncouth speech of the country, which has often 
 as many as ten words for one thing. Such was the founding of 
 a mission to which we may afterwards have occasion to return, 
 regarding which we have only at present to state, that for patient, 
 persevering, self-denying labour, and for strong, simple, and 
 triumphant faith the story of the brethren’s Greenland mission 
 stands unsurpassed in the missionary records of any Church. 
 
 The only other field of the brethren’s mission work to which we 
 invite attention, as illustrating the spirit of perfect consecration 
 characterizing the w^orkers, is that which lay among the hunting- 
 fields of the North American Indians. While such names as those 
 of Count Zinzendorf, Spangenberg, Christian Henry Rauch, 
 Gottlobb, Buettner, and Martin Meek will always be honourably 
 associated by the brethren with the commencement of the enter¬ 
 prise, they justly regard David Zeisberger as the leading spirit of 
 the Indian mission. The son of parents wRo, for conscience’ 
 sake, had abandoned their possessions in Moravia, and found a 
 w^elcome refuge at Herrnhut, David had, when but a boy, given his 
 heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, and followed up that surrender by 
 giving himself wholly to the Lord’s work among the heathen. 
 For more than sixty years he shared with those gathered from the 
 red tribes, the wanderings, trials, and injustices of their hard lot, 
 and then died in their midst at the advanced age of eighty-seven, 
 quite blind, wasted, and feeble in body, but with a heart glowing to 
 
i8 
 
 the last with ardent love for the Indians whom he had watched over 
 with the solicitude of a parent, and cared for with the tenderness of 
 a nurse. No fewer than thirteen stations were formed by him in 
 the Indian settlements 3 the number of toilsome, dangerous journeys 
 undertaken by him in the interests of his spiritual children is 
 literally beyond enumeration. During the last forty years of his life 
 he was never more than six months absent from them. At Gnaden- 
 hutten (Tents of Grace), at Friedenshutten (Tents of Peace), at 
 Schonbrun (Beautiful Spring), in the country of the Shawanose— 
 most -savage of all the Indian tribes,—at Lichtenau, at Pilgerruh 
 (Pilgrim’s Rest), at New Salem, at Fairfield, and, finally, at 
 Goshen, the short but well-proportioned figure of Zeisberger is the 
 first to be seen, bearing his own share upon his back, or wielding 
 the axe with which he helps to clear a space in the new settlement. 
 And as he was “ in journeyings often,” so also was he frequently 
 in perils.” Upon one occasion a chief of the Shawanose, although 
 permitting him to continue his visit, gave him to understand that 
 he might expect some day or other to have his brains beat out—an 
 intimation that had no intimidating effect upon the missionary, 
 who went quietly on his way, sowing the Word ‘^‘with glad loving 
 aind.” When the War of Independence was coming to a close, 
 the Moravian mission fell under the suspicion of the English 
 Governor of Detroit, who groundlessly accused the brethren of 
 being spies, simply because they refused to take up arms them¬ 
 selves, or use influence with the Indians to do so. Resolved to rid 
 himself of the Indian congregation, he communicated with the 
 great council of the Iroquois at Niagara, and the Iroquois sent a 
 message to the Chippewas arrd Ottawas intimating that they made 
 a present of the Indian congregation to these tribes to inake soup 
 of.” This culinary offer having been declined by those to whom it 
 was first made, a similar proposal was sent to the Hurons, and 
 was by them accepted. On Sabbath, Sept. 3, 1781, Zeisberger, 
 who, with other two brethren, had been ordered to report himself 
 at Gnadenhutten, preached to the congregation, discoursing on 
 the great love of God towards men, and the pains He fakes to 
 bring sinners to repentance. In the afternoon the three- white men 
 
^9 
 
 were seized by a party of wild Harons, and marched off to the 
 camp of the Delawares, where the death-song was sung over them, 
 and they were stripped of nearly all their clothing. Secured in two 
 huts, which were nothing more than roofs of bark raised on poles, 
 leaving the sides and ends open, they sat through that long and 
 anxious night listening to the scalp-whoops of the parties who 
 had gone to Salem and Schonbrun to bring in such missionaries 
 and their wives as they might find there. First three yells, which 
 drew forth three in reply from the camp, announced that three 
 persons had fallen into the hands of the raiders at Salem, at which 
 place Zeisberger had left his wife on coming to Gnadenhutten j but 
 whether the victims of the midnight surprise were still alive, or had 
 been murdered, could not be known until the return of the party. 
 Then, as the first glimmerings of morning light became visible, the 
 sound of the scalp-whoop was again heard by those lying on the 
 bare, damp soil, first faintly, but soon with painful distinctness, as 
 it sounded and resounded in the close, calm air of that autumn 
 morning. This time the capture was of four persons,—a mis¬ 
 sionary and three women. One of the women had an infant at 
 her breast only three days’ old. She had been hurried out of bed, 
 and forced into the boat, on a dark night, thankful to do as directed, 
 as Instant death to mother and child would have been the sequel to 
 either unwillingness or inability to obey the bidding of their captors. 
 For four days the brethren and sisters were confined in the wretched 
 sheds, and were only released on the understanding that they would 
 emigrate with their people to the river Sandusky, where, after a 
 weary journey of four weeks, they found themselves, a bleak sterile 
 wilderness stretching all around them, which they set themselves 
 to cultivate as best they could. 
 
 All through his chequered, wandering life, Zeisberger encoun¬ 
 tered more opposition, suffered more ill-treatment at the hands of 
 the French, the British, and the Americans, than he did at those 
 of the Indians for whom he laboured, among whom he lived and 
 died. How he was regarded and treated by the red men can be 
 gathered from the reply of some Cajuga Indians when asked if 
 they knew him. So soon as his name was uttered they expressed 
 
20 
 
 much joy, and, placing two fingers together, said, “ We are one. 
 Are you also one with him ? ” the answer being, ‘‘We are 
 brethren.” Then, before he was seized at Gnadenhutten, a 
 Delaware Indian told him in private, that, being adopted as one 
 of their nation, and so flesh and bone with them, the Delaware 
 warriors were willing to protect him 3 only when Zeisberger 
 refused an offer wdiich did not include his companions, was he 
 declared a prisoner of war. And touching in the extreme must 
 have been the scene in the hut at Goshen, when, as the veteran of 
 nearly fourscore years lay dying, he w^elcomed with closed eyes, 
 but open arms, the very Huron chief who had, a quarter of a 
 century before, dragged him away as a prisoner, but who now, as an 
 earnest seeker after salvation, bowed humbly before the venerable 
 servant of Christy and when, on November 17, t8o8, his Indians 
 stood round his deathbed weeping, and gave him the assurance 
 in response to his last words of loving exhortation : “ Father, 
 we wall cleave to the Saviour, and live for Him alone.”* 
 
 II. A second feature of Moravian Missions, from the first until 
 now, can be best summed up and expressed in the word Heroism. 
 It is the heroism that appears in the Zinzendorf and Wattewille 
 covenant for the conversion of the heathen, hut only of such as 
 others would not trouble themselves with''' To that provision of the 
 covenant of 17the brethren have been loyally true. They have 
 always led the forlorn hope in missionary enterprise. Leaving to 
 a large extent the more cultivated and civilized nations to be 
 
 * In view of what has been stated on page 14, it is only an act of justice 
 to the Moravian missionaries, and to the memory of Zeisberger, to state 
 that, notwithstanding the nomadic life he led, the Indians’ friend made 
 himself master of two of the Indian languages; that of one of these he 
 composed two grammars—one in German, the other in English—while of 
 the Delaware or Lenape language he compiled a dictionary, and left behind 
 him a grammar in German, which has since been translated into English 
 for the American Philosophical Society. In addition to these larger and 
 scientific works, Zeisberger prepared a spelling book, which has passed 
 through two editions, a volume of sermons to children, and a hymn book, 
 containing upwards of five hundred hymns from the English and German 
 hymn books in use in the brethren’s worship—all these being in the Lenape 
 language. 
 
evangelized by Churches and Societies having at command a wider 
 culture and finer scholarship, the Unity has bestowed labour upon 
 fields most unpromising, upon races most sunken, upon classes 
 most degraded. For proof of this we point to the work among lepers 
 carried on by brethren and sisters of the Unity, in South Africa and 
 in Jerusalem. For forty years, impelled by love to Christ and 
 compassion for men, Moravian missionaries and their wives were 
 found willing to undertake self-denying work among the wretched 
 Hottentots stricken with this loathsome disease. In the year i8i8 
 the Colonial Government, fearing the spread of leprosy, erected a 
 temporary asylum in the valley of Hemel-en-Aarde (Heaven and 
 Earth), so called because far removed from human habitation, and 
 hemmed in by rocks with only a strip of sky above, and then made 
 application to the Mission Board of the brethren for some one to 
 instruct the unhappy inmates in the Christian faith. In response 
 to the appeal, brother Leitner and his English wife relinquished an 
 attractive field of labour, and the fellowship of congenial fellow- 
 labourers, to enter upon work depressing and repulsive in the 
 extreme. This was in June, 1822. For some time Mr. Leitner 
 preached in the open-air, thereafter in a temporary chapel con¬ 
 structed of stakes and unburnt bricks—the work of the patients— 
 and ultimately in a substantial church built at the expense of 
 Government. The fruit of his efforts for the social and sanitary 
 improvement of the afflicted people who formed his charge was 
 soon visible. Diligence superseded idleness ; tidiness and cleanli¬ 
 ness displaced slovenliness and filthiness ^ the hospital was ere 
 long surrounded by neat gardens j a large space of ground was 
 brought under cultivation j and an aqueduct constructed to supply 
 the shut-in colony with water for domestic use and garden irriga¬ 
 tion. And fruit of a directly spiritual nature was not wanting 
 to cheer the lonely, brave-hearted couple. Not a few whom 
 the world counted helpless and hopeless were led to Christ 
 the Healer, and a house of living stones, resting on the living 
 Foundation, was gradually reared to the glory of God in the 
 lonely valley. One after another of the poor lepers came to ask 
 of Mr. Leitner the one question of urgency for an unpardoned 
 
22 
 
 sinner: What must I do to be saved ? Many a wild and depraved 
 outcast received power to become a son of God by faith in Christ, 
 and was brought to submit with patient resignation, and even joy, 
 to the rod that chastened him for his profit. During his six years 
 of service among the lepers Leitner was privileged to baptize 95 
 adults. Well might the patients regard him and his devoted wife 
 as their father and mother 5 bereaved indeed must all have felt on 
 that Easter Day, 1829, when their spiritual parent was suddenly 
 removed by death in the act of baptizing a newly-gathered convert. 
 In 1846 the hospital was removed from Hemel-en-Aarde to Robben 
 Island, a low sandy islet surrounded by dangerous rocks, near the 
 entrance of Table Bay, seven miles from Cape Town, where 
 Government completed its range of buildings by erecting a lunatic 
 asylum and an infirmary for the poor. Thither the missionary 
 Lehman and his wife joyfully repaired, when the last company of 
 forty patients left their old quarters for the new home, and to that 
 island of lepers and lunatics brother John Taylor, leaving a 
 widowed mother, friends, and home comforts, betook himself, when 
 a teacher was wanted to take charge of the schools. For five years 
 the devoted teacher occupied the. post for which he volunteered, till 
 called to his eternal rest in 1866, all that is mortal of him lying 
 amid the shadows of the little church in Robben Island. 
 
 Only in 1867, when the Colonial Government resolved to appoint 
 a chaplain of the English Church, did the brethren and sisters of 
 the Unity sorrowfully retire from work among the lepers, earnestly 
 praying for a blessing on their successors. Leprosy still lingers in 
 its most aggravated form among the inhabitants of Palestine, and 
 when the door of usefulness was shut in Africa the Lord opened a 
 field in His own land. For, in May, 1867, the Rev. F. Tappe and 
 his wife, who had been thirteen years in the Labrador Mission, 
 arrived in Jerusalem, to become House Parents of the Leper 
 Hospital built outside the Jaffa Gate. When the Home was con¬ 
 secrated and formally opened, no lepers attended the service, owing 
 to national prejudice and Mohammedan misrepresentation, but by 
 the time it had been a year in existence there were twelve patients 
 and the Home was filled. In 187^ the building was enlarged by 
 
^3 
 
 the addition of two rooms ; and in 1876 a new wing was opened. 
 At the dedication service in connection with the opening, brother 
 Tappe was able to state: Since the opening of the Home in Sep¬ 
 tember, 1867, 48 patients have been admitted. Of these, ii have 
 died, 19 have left us, some of whom, after enjoying the benefits of our 
 asylum for years, have preferred to go back to their former miserable 
 life of begging and filth.” Mr. Tappe still occupies his post, and at 
 the close of 1881 there were in the Home 13 male and 6 female 
 patients. The prayer of the late Bishop Gobat, who from the 
 first took a deep interest in the heroic work, will evoke an Amen 
 from every Christian heart: O let us pray that the Lord may so 
 bless His Word, and the arduous work of dear brother Tappe, that 
 many of those poor sufferers may at last find the health and blessed¬ 
 ness in the kingdom of God, which they cannot enjoy on earth ! ” 
 In that branch of the negro race forming the aborigines of 
 Australia, called Austral negroes or Papoos, humanity would seem 
 to have touched the bottom of degradation. These savages had 
 no object to live for except to sustain animal life, and indulge 
 their sensual and cruel instincts. The unmarried women were 
 beasts of burden, and the married were slaves; the children, if 
 troublesome, w^ere speared, and when let alone, were left to shift 
 for themselves 3 the clothing was at best an opossum skin, generally 
 a bit of grass matting 5 the home a hut of branches, affording only 
 nominal shelter 5 the food the flesh of a kangaroo, wild dog, 
 lizards, snakes, rats, with that of a human foe for festival dainty. 
 In February, 1850, the brethren Taeger and Spieseke reached 
 Melbourne to enter upon a work which various Churches and 
 Societies had retired from, in consequence of the toilsome nature of 
 the field, and the lack of results to register. After six years of 
 hard and fruitless work, rendered all the harder, from 1831 to 1834 
 by the rush to the gold-fields of Victoria, the mission was aban¬ 
 doned, and the missionaries, three in number, returned home. But 
 the withdrawal did not meet with the approval of the Directing 
 Board at home, and in May, 1858, three Moravian missionaries 
 appeared at Melbourne. In 1860 first-fruit was reaped in the 
 conversion of a Papoo, who came to the white men with an anxious 
 
^4 
 
 inquiry touching the pardon of his sins_, and who was baptized 
 on the same day that the little church of the mission station was 
 opened for public worship. Slowly, and with much to try the 
 faith and steadfastness of the pioneers, did the work advance. So 
 encouraging did the aspect and the outlook become, that, in 1864, 
 four brethren were sent from Germany to penetrate the interior 
 of the continent in search of four or five tribes, which exploring 
 parties reported to number about 1200 souls. The journey of these 
 devoted men, after they left Adelaide, was one of adventure and 
 hardship. At every stage of advance the dangers and the difficulties 
 increased and intensified. The country was barren and desolate in 
 the extreme 3 hills of loose sand alternated with rough stony 
 plains 3 water was so scarce that the travellers were often glad to 
 slake their thirst in shallow, dirty pools surrounded by carcases of 
 animals in various stages of decay, while a burning sun, and 
 blinding sand-storms, aggravated the crave for water, and rendered 
 further exertion well-nigh impossible. Undaunted by the difficulties 
 encountered, they pressed on until they were able to establish a 
 first station at Lake Kopperamanna, where the vegetation and a 
 supply of fish promised the means of subsistence. A terrible 
 drought ensued, the lives of the missionaries were imperilled by 
 hostile natives, and the support of the mission at such a distance 
 from all supplies proved too costly for the Melbourne Society to 
 provide for. The effort had to be abandoned, and the missionaries 
 transferred to other fields of labour. At the other stations, social, 
 moral, and spiritual progress has been made greater than was 
 deemed possible at the outset. But the work has been from the 
 first, as the brethren knew it to be, one that will In the course of 
 a few years come to an end. The contact of black with white, 
 so fatal to the former, the inevitable results of vicious habits 
 maintained through successive generations, these are working to 
 the dwindling away of the aboriginal race of Australia, slowly at 
 the mission stations, rapidly everywhere else. Moravian statistics 
 for the year 1881 gave the number of converts at that date to be 
 118, of whom 23 are communicants. Deprived of the stimulus 
 that comes from increase and extension, the brethren of this 
 
forlorn hope movement have cheerfully and bravely persevered, 
 knowing that, humanly speaking, the end cannot now be distant. 
 When that is reached, and the last Papoo has passed away in death, 
 it will be in the power of the Church of the Unity to say : Our 
 mission in Australia was the visit of Christianity to the death-bed 
 of a nation, with this result that now and again the gloom of death 
 has given place to the radiance of heavenly glory, and from the 
 dying one there has been heard the victorious song of a sinner 
 pardoned and cleansed.” 
 
 III. Yet another distinctive feature of Moravian Missions is to 
 be found in the method of work most largely followed. That 
 method is propagation. Much and valuable mission work has 
 been accomplished by proclaiming, promulgating and preaching the 
 Gospel. European and American missionaries, after receiving a 
 special home training for the work, have been sent out as the 
 messengers of the Churches, have lived within the compound of 
 mission buildings, have gone out upon the heathenism around in 
 educational and evangelistic effort, and then, after a longer or 
 shorter period of service, have returned to the home country on 
 furlough or for good. Such a method suits admirably in certain 
 cases; among the more cultivated races of India and China it is 
 probably the only method that can be followed, so long as the 
 missions are in the hands of foreigners, and the staff of native 
 workers is not sufficiently strong to meet the requirements of the 
 field. But, with the brethren, preaching Christianity has ever 
 been subordinate to propagating it. In floriculture propagation is 
 a process of multiplying plants by fastening twigs into the ground, 
 thus causing them to take root in the soil, and become in turn 
 centres of vegetation. It is thus the brethren have endeavoured to 
 naturalize the plant of renown ” under all climates, and m all 
 soils, in order that its renown may go forth among the heathen. 
 They have not contented themselves with going to the heathen 
 and speaking to them as outsiders might do, keeping all the time 
 aloof from the life, unaflected by the habits, of the people whose 
 well-being and welfare they seek to further j they have alienated 
 themselves from kindred and from fatherland, become part of the 
 
i6 
 
 people to whom they have been sent, and have sought in every pos¬ 
 sible way to naturalize Christianity in the lands of their adoption. 
 
 This would seem to be the Biblical method set before the 
 Church when called upon to give herself to her Lord and His 
 service, for then the summons reaches her, “ Forget also thine 
 own people and thy father’s house;” it was certainly the method 
 practised by the great missionary of primitive Christianity, as his 
 own statement to the Corinthian brethren clearly shows : To the 
 Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to them that 
 are under the law, as under the law, not being myself under the 
 law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that 
 are without law, as without law, not being without law to God, 
 but under law to Christ, that I might gain them that are without 
 law; to the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak ; I 
 am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save 
 some.” That, we take it, is Church extension by propagation. 
 And for the brethren it is all the easier to adopt and practise this 
 method, seeing the missionaries that have gone forth from them 
 have been and still are men of simple habits and few wants, 
 men accustomed to manual toll and Inured to hardships, a large 
 proportion of them being artisans, husbandmen, and tradesmen. 
 The earlier missionaries of the renewed Church were almost all of 
 this order; and to such men, with a few shillings in their pockets 
 and the clothes on their backs for outfit, it gave little concern 
 whether the journey to be undertaken was long or short, by land 
 or sea, to torrid or to frigid zone, and whether, on reaching their 
 destination, they would require to wield the axe, handle the spade, 
 or cut sods, and so provide for themselves a dwelling. They were 
 ready to do anything, as well as suffer anything, if only they could 
 win souls for Christ, pluck brands from the burning. It was thus 
 a natural thing for such men to speak about the propagating of 
 the Gospel. They were not the first to do so, for the thought 
 must have been present to the minds of those members of the 
 Church of England who, in 1701, founded the Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; but the brethren have 
 always showm a partiality for the term as descriptive of their 
 
27 
 
 operations. And so the first Society established in America by 
 the brethren bore the term in its title. The first meeting was held 
 on the 2ist of September, 178/? at Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, 
 when it was resolved, ^^in the name of God,” that it should be 
 known by the name of ‘‘The Society of the United Brethren for 
 Propagating of the Gospel among the Heathen.” 
 
 In one of the tables appended to a publication to which reference 
 has already been made, a column will be found which* gives the 
 number of missionaries who have died in the mission or on the 
 journey. From that column it appears that out of 1201 brethren 
 who have been in missions attempted, suspended, abandoned, or 
 presently occupied, 469 have died at their posts 3 and that, out of 
 9/0 sisters, 313 have been removed by death 3 making, out of 2171 
 whose labours are finished, a total of 782 who have died in foreign 
 service in foreign lands. 
 
 In the absence of similar statistics from other Churches, it 
 would not be wise to do more than hazard a conjecture 3 but if 
 we may be allowed to do that, our conjecture is that more 
 Moravian missionaries have naturalized themselves in foreign 
 lands, and have died abroad, than is the case with any other 
 Church or with any Missionary Society, regard being had to 
 relative numerical strength and duration of existence. It is not 
 needful to magnify one mode of work by depreciating every other 
 method, and it is far from our thoughts to affirm that the 
 preaching of foreign missionaries, who continue to be foreigners 
 even to the close of their lives, ought not to have a place among 
 the evangelistic appliances of the Churches 3 but so far as one’s 
 vision carries him in the matter, it would seem as if by propaga¬ 
 tion rather than by promulgation, by the life and work of Christian 
 brethren and sisters rather than by the lips and words of aliens, 
 will the nations of earth be won for Christ. A new Gospel is 
 not needed. For a new method men do not need to look out. 
 The Gospel and the method are both to hand, for the Gospel is 
 that of the grace of God bringing salvation, and the method is 
 the Moravian one of propagation, 
 
28 
 
 IV. Our enumeration ot the distinctive features of Moravian 
 Missions would be unpardonably Incomplete did we not make 
 room in it for this—the prominence ever given in all the teaching 
 and preaching of the United Brethren to the atoning sufferings 
 and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Among them there has 
 never been a Christianity which, while passing itself off as evan¬ 
 gelical and claiming to be catholic, is found on examination to 
 be Christianity without Christ, because Christianity without the 
 Cross. The source and spring of Moravian zeal for Missions 
 will be found to be in the region of close clinging to the Lamb of 
 God, to the Cross of Christ, to salvation through the blood of the 
 Lamb shed upon the Cross. 
 
 By the brethren themselves this is readily recognized, em¬ 
 phatically proclaimed. Thus, in an address drawn up by a member 
 of the Directing Board for the jubilee celebration, in August, 1882, 
 it is claimed that the Head of the Church has stamped the Unity 
 with some special fitness for missionary service 3 and when it is 
 inquired what constitutes such fitness, the answer is given In 
 these words : Our leading characteristic feature is to preach the 
 Word of the Cross, the good tidings of a Saviour for sinners, with 
 simplicity and affectionate earnestness. For we are convinced, 
 and experience has proved it, that this Is the best and surest way 
 to save men, and make them holy.” 
 
 In this connection an outstanding page In the history of modern 
 missions is one that occurs in the annals of the brethren’s work 
 for the Greenlanders, and as that page has been sometimes 
 Incorrectly transcribed, it may be well to make a faithful tran¬ 
 script of what in itself must be ever memorable. The difficulties 
 and hardships with which the first Greenland missionaries from 
 Herrnhut w^ere called to contend were of no common order. They 
 were often face to face with absolute starvation. For one whole 
 year their stores consisted of a barrel and a half of oatmeal, half 
 a barrel of pease, and a small quantity of ship-biscuits. Old 
 tallow candles, seals’ flesh, train oil, shell-fish, and raw sea-weed, 
 were among the articles of diet to which they were forced to 
 
accustom themselves. They were frequently in danger of their 
 lives, now owing to the unseaworthiness of the only boat they had 
 —an old decayed hulk, the very sight of which made them shudder 
 —and now from the knives of the natives who gathered round 
 their tent. Sometimes they were without a tent, and then for 
 bed^room and bed they made a hole in the snow, where they lay 
 till the driving snow and intolerable cold forced them to rise and 
 seek warmth by running about. But Matthew Stach and his 
 comrades would have borne all these things cheerfully had another 
 discouragement not been added. And that was the heart-breaking, 
 spirit-sinking one of seeing no fruit of their labours. Year after 
 year they found few open ears and no opened hearts. The Green¬ 
 landers did everything they could think of to annoy, thwart, and 
 discourage them. They mocked, they mimicked, they taunted, and 
 they howled 3 they pelted them with stones, climbed upon their 
 shoulders, stole their property, and drove their rickety boat out 
 to sea. And let it not be thought that this persistent unwillingness 
 of the natives to listen to the Christian message and accept 
 the Christian faith was ov/ing to the missionaries failing to 
 proclaim a full Gospel, and to point to the Lamb of God 
 which taketh away the sins of the world. That is an impression 
 which the story, as it is sometimes told, is apt to create, but it 
 is a mistaken one. In the first letter to the Herrnhut congre¬ 
 gation the missionaries wrote in this strain; “ As to our own 
 persons, we are very happy, but our desire is to win souls, and we 
 cannot gratify it- yet. Yet by God’s grace we will not despond, 
 but keep the Lord’s watch. When He puts Himself in motion 
 we will move on with Him, and will not swerve from His 
 presence. Let but the time for the heathen come, and the 
 darkness in Greenland must give way to the light, the frigid zone 
 itself must kindle into a flame, and the ice-cold hearts of the people 
 must burn and melt. Jesus, whose heart is replete with faithful 
 love toward us and the poor heathen, knows all our ways, and 
 knew them before we were born. Our substance, life, and blood 
 are at His service. O that the death of our Lord Jesus might 
 bring all men to life, and that all might follow this faithful 
 
30 
 
 Shepherd! ” Then, at a later stage, we find the brethren in 
 Greenland, during one of their “ hours of examination,” which they 
 instituted for the invigorating and confirming of their faith, binding 
 themselves in a covenant of service, and of that covenant the 
 second matter of agreement is thus expressed : —“ The knowledge 
 of Christ, how He effected on the Cross the purification of our sins, 
 through His blood, and is the cause and source of eternal salvation 
 to all them that believe, shall he the principal doctrine among ns, 
 which we will confirm by our word and walk, according to the 
 ability God shall be pleased to give us, and hy this we will endeavour 
 to bring the heathen to the obedience of faith f Once more, when 
 bringing the third year of fruitless toil and unrequited sufferings to 
 an end, these servants of Christ give expression to the wish : “ May 
 only Jesus Christ, who is yesterday and to-day the same, never 
 withhold His grace from His poor and helpless creatures, but keep 
 us through His strength willing to serve the heathen at His beck, 
 and then in time all will issue to His praise.” 
 
 Surely these are not the words of men who would, in their 
 dealings with the hearts and consciences of those whose conversion 
 they desired, keep Christ in the background, and content themselves 
 with descanting upon the perfections of God, the constitution of 
 the Godhead, or the truths of natural religion. If, for a series of 
 years, the labours of such devoted Christians seemed productive of 
 no effect, we may well believe the explanation is to be found, not 
 in any lack of Gospel fulness in the presentation of the message, 
 but simply in the fact that the Saviour’s ‘‘set time” to favour 
 Greenland was not yet come. And when that time did come, ^^^e 
 see the brethren quite ready to meet its requirements. In the 
 fourth year of their labours, on the 7th of May, 1736, as they were 
 fishing for cat-fish with a prong, a Greenlander, who was a perfect 
 stranger to them, arrived at their tent, and indicated a desire to get 
 information regarding One called God, who had made heaven and 
 earth, and of whom he had heard something from the Danish 
 missionary Egede. Deeply impressed with the significance of such 
 a request, this is what the missionaries proceeded to do, as narrated 
 by themselves :—“ We told him, as V'ell as we could, of the 
 
31 
 
 creation of man and the Intent thereof of the fall and corruption 
 of nature 3 of the redemption effected by Christ 3 of the resurrection 
 of all men, and eternal happiness or damnation. He listened very 
 attentively to all that was said, stayed at our evening meeting, and 
 slept all night in our tent. Now, dear brethren, this is the first 
 Greenlander that has come to inquire of us concerning God and 
 divine things. Therefore bring your offerings and prayers before the 
 Lord, that He may arise and build His Zion even in this desert.” 
 
 That was the first streak of light in the dark night of Greenland, 
 but two years passed before these faithful labourers were permitted 
 to gather in their sheaf. For June 22, 1^38, the Word* was 
 Isaiah Ixv. 23 : “ They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth 
 for trouble: for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and 
 their offspring with them.” In the course of that day as John 
 Beck was engaged alone in writing out a fair copy of a 
 translation the missionaries were then making of the Gospels, 
 he was visited by a company of Southlanders, who manifested 
 considerable interest in his occupation. Availing himself of 
 their willingness to listen, the delighted brother spoke to them of 
 the Saviour of sinners, and read out of the New Testament that 
 lay on the table the story of the Garden Agony and the Golgotha 
 Crucifixion, the tears running down his cheeks as he did so. Then 
 the Lord opened the heart of one of his hearers, Kajarnak 
 by name. Stepping up to the table he said, with a voice unsteady 
 with the tremor of agitation and anxiety, How was that? Tell 
 
 * The " Text-Book ” of the U. F. is an interesting feature in the religious 
 life of the brethren. It was first issued in 1731, and so appears in 1883 for 
 the 153rd time. It consists of an Old Testament and a New Testament 
 text for each day of the year, with an appropriate verse from the hymn, 
 book under each text. The watchwords from the Old Testament are drawn 
 by lot from a selection of about 2000 passages. This takes place in the 
 Unity’s Elders’ Conference at Berthelsdorf, and is preceded by prayer. 
 The doctrinal texts are freely chosen, not drawn, from the New Testament. 
 The "Text-Book ’’ is printed to the extent of about 50,000 copies in the 
 German language, 4000 in English, and 8000 in French, besides a number 
 in Spanish, Bohemian, Dutch, Negro-English, and Eskimo. It takes 
 special notice of the peculiar festivals and memorial days of the Brethren’s 
 Unity. 
 
3 ^ 
 
 Hie that once more, for I would fain be saved too.” Subsequent 
 intercourse with him gave the brethren reason to hope that “ he had 
 got a hook in his heart,” to use their own expression, that would 
 hold him fast. And they were not disappointed. The startled 
 inquirer became a diligent catechumen, and he that had been led by 
 a way that he knew not, was the means of bringing the other 
 members of his family into the life and light of the Christian’s 
 faith. On Easter Day, 1739, six years from the date of commence¬ 
 ment, the first-fruits of the Greenland mission were sealed to Christ 
 in the persons of Kajarnak, his wife, son, and daughter, to whom 
 were given the baptismal names of Samuel, Anna, Matthew, and 
 Ann. Their “ beloved firstling,” as the missionaries were in the 
 habit of calling Samuel, proved in his after bright, though brief, 
 career, all that they could desire. His walk was consistent 3* his 
 endeavours to tell the story of the Cross were unwearied 3 his death¬ 
 bed testimony to his Saviour was touching and thrilling. To the 
 natives accustomed to regard death with terror, unaccustomed to 
 witness respect paid to the dead, it must have been an impressive 
 spectacle when the body, dressed in white, was carried to the 
 burying-ground by four Greenland boys, the favourite hymns of 
 the deceased being sung on the way from the mission-house, and 
 when, on the coffin being lowered into its place, the brethren 
 kneeled down on the snow and gave thanks to the Saviour for the 
 grace bestowed upon the first-fruits of their labour, now given up 
 to the Lord of the harvest. ' 
 
 The stimulus imparted, and the direction thus given to the 
 evangelical labours of the Greenland missionaries, have proved of 
 an abiding nature. The device upon the snow-white banner with 
 the red cross has ever since been, in the words of the brethren 
 themselves:— 
 
 " Lo, through ice and snow we press, 
 
 One poor soul for Christ to gain; 
 
 Glad we bear want and distress, 
 
 To set forth the Lamb once slain.” 
 
 * Invited on one occasion to be present at a sun-dance he declined, 
 Saying, ”1 have now another kind of joy, for another Sun, Jesus, has arisen 
 in my heart.” 
 
33 
 
 And the inference of that memorable experience can be traced in 
 the operations of many a missionary agency outside the Unity—the 
 conviction being borne in upon all the Churches that the effectual 
 method of winning souls is to tell the old, old story of God’s love 
 to sinners overflowing in the person and mission of His Son, who 
 emptied Himself, humbled Himself, and sacrificed Himself in order 
 to remove our sins, renovate our natures, and restore us to God. 
 That influence is, we doubt not, the one of all others which the 
 brethren give warmest thanks to God on account of. 
 
 Moravianism exercised a deep influence upon Methodism, as is 
 well known to all who have any acquaintance with the intercourse 
 of John Wesley, first with Spangenberg, the biographer of 
 Zinzendorf, and then with Peter Bohler. 
 
 In the ship that carried John and Charles Wesley to Georgia in 
 1735, were twenty-six Moravians, with David Nitschman, their 
 bishop. The bearing of these brethren and sisters made a powerful 
 impression on John Wesley. On one occasion, divine service 
 having been commenced with a hymn, a storm of such severity 
 arose as • created alarm and wild outcry among the English 
 passengers, but the Moravians calmly sang on. Wesley asked one 
 of them, Were you not afraid ? ” He answered, thank God, 
 no.” But were not your women and children afraid ? ” No,” 
 he mildly replied 3 our women and children are not afraid to die.” 
 Immediately upon landing at Savannah, John Wesley had an 
 interview with the Moravian bishop Spangenberg, in the course of 
 which the following remarkable conversation took place. Wishing 
 to profit by the experience of his senior, Wesley invited suggestions 
 regarding plans and methods of ministerial labour. “ My 
 brother,” interposed the Moravian, I must first ask you one 
 or two questions. Have you the witness in yourself—does the 
 Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child 
 of God ? ” Observing the embarrassment his question had caused, 
 he then asked, Do you know Jesus Christ ?” 1 know He is the 
 
 Saviour of the world,” was the evasive reply. True,” rejoined 
 the Moravian, but do you know that He has saved you?" I 
 hope,” was the answer, He has died to save me.” Do you know 
 
54 
 
 yourself r” was the last home-thrust, which elicited an I do 
 from Wesley, who, however, has the candour to add in his journal, 
 when recording the dialogue—I fear they were vain words.” 
 Then in 1738, soon after his return to England, John Wesley met 
 with the Moravian missionary Peter Bohler, then on his way to 
 the slaves in South Carolina, and the entries in his journal, which 
 record his conversations with the young German missionary, make 
 it abundantly clear that in his judgment Bohler was the instrument 
 of bringing light and peace both to his own mind and that of his 
 brother Charles. It is true that subsequent to this, Wesley 
 separated himself from the London Moravian Society in Fetter 
 Lane, and formed a Wesleyan Methodist at the Foundry in Moor- 
 fields } but in the very act of doing so, and ever afterwards, he 
 spoke of the brethren In terms of respect and affection. To have 
 thus influenced the founder of English Methodism, which has been 
 such a potent factor in the religious life of the world, is a matter 
 which the Unity may well make one of thankfulness, while very 
 certain not to make It one of boasting. 
 
 And Moravian piety has influenced some of the currents of 
 theological thought and religious tendency in Scotland, a country 
 never supposed to be peculiarly sensitive to emotional or devotional 
 influences from without. Readers of the Reminiscences and 
 Reflections and the Memorials of John M'Leod Campbell” will 
 remember some of the frequently-occurring references to and 
 quotations from the hymns of John Gambold, but all who do so 
 may not know that dear Gambold,” as Campbell styles him, was 
 a Moravian bishop. Admitted to holy orders by the Bishop of 
 Oxford while yet under age, Gambold was instituted to the vicarage 
 of Stanton Harcourt in May, 1737. He also came under the 
 influence of Peter Bohler, and thereafter was brought into contact 
 with Count Zinzendorf. The result was that in j 742 he resigned 
 his living in the Church of England, and was publicly received into 
 the Fraternal Unity in London. Shortly afterwards he became 
 minister of the brethren’s congregation in the metropolis, and served 
 in that capacity for twenty-four years. In 1732 he was chosen to 
 be bishop of the English branch of the Unity, and was consecrated 
 
by Bishop Johannes de Wattewllle. Seldom have ecclesiastical 
 honours been so meekly borne as by the Moravian bishop In 
 England, of whom it was said, One was even scarcely aware 
 that he was a bishop,” and who. In accepting an invitation to attend 
 a General Synod of the brethren, addresses his answer to his “very 
 dear brother Joseph,” and signs himself, “Your sincerely-minded 
 and loving poor child, J. Gambold.” He died on the 13th of 
 September, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, the first 
 
 Englishman who was a Moravian bishop.* Of this saintly man’s 
 
 * The Moravians claim to be an Ancient Episcopal Church. They 
 trace their Episcopal ordination to that of the Western or Romish Church, 
 through a small branch of the Waldensian Church in Austria, which had 
 received it through consecration by bishops of the Romish Church at the 
 Council of Basle in 1434—that Council being at open variance with the 
 Pope of Rome, The validity of the Moravian Orders was never questioned 
 by the bitterest enemies of the Ancient Brethren’s Church, and is 
 maintained by Drs. Palacky and Gindely, the two eminent historians of 
 Bohemia of the present day. From the authoritative utterance of the 
 General Synod of the Moravian Church, we quote the following: "The 
 Episcopal ordination, which we have received from the Ancient Church of 
 the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren, is to be prized by us as a valuable 
 inheritance, as the link which more immediately connects us with the 
 Ancient Brethren’s Church. Yet the Episcopal office in the Renewed 
 Church has from the very first had a different meaning or character from 
 that of the Ancient Church. In the latter the Church Government was in 
 the hands of bishops, who had their separate dioceses, and also had the 
 superintendence and direction of the whole Church in conjunction with the 
 Synods. In the Renewed Brethren’s Church, long before the introduction 
 of bishops, the direction of the whole had been placed in the hands of 
 Elders chosen by the Church ; and it was only the want of properly 
 ordained ministers that caused the introduction of Episcopal ordination, 
 which was not intended to lead to any change in the existing government of 
 the Church.” Moravian bishops have no dioceses; they are subordinate to 
 Synods and their executives, and have a seat and vote in General and 
 Provincial Synods. In the Ancient Church there were 54 bishops of the 
 Bohemian and Moravian branch between the years 1467 and 1632, of whom 
 the well-known Amos Comenius was the last. In the Polish branch the 
 episcopacy was continued without intermission; and when that too had 
 ceased to exist, the episcopacy was still maintained; in faith and hope that 
 a renewal of the Brethren’s Church would one day take place. David 
 Nitschman was the first bishop of the Renewed Church, having received 
 consecration at the hands of Bishop Daniel Ernst Jablonsky in the year 1735. 
 
 The bishop consecrated at Fulneck in Yorkshire is the i8ist since the 
 year 1467, 
 
36 
 
 works an edition was published at Glasgow, by Chalmers and 
 Collins, in 1822, with an introductory essay by Thomas Erskine, 
 and it was a copy of this issue which fell into the hands of the 
 minister of Row. To what extent the very subjective and shadowy 
 theology of John M‘Leod Campbell was influenced by the writings 
 of Gambold we do not profess ability to determine 5 but when 
 the brethren know that of him Dr. Norman Macleod testified he 
 was the best man without exception I have ever known j his 
 character was the most perfect embodiment I have ever seen of the 
 character of Jesus,” they may deem it no small honour to have it 
 on record that with that man their Gambold was the favourite 
 hymn-writer, and that of the hymn beginning with the lines :— 
 
 “ That I am Thine, my Lord and God ! 
 
 Sprinkled and ransom'd by Thy blood, 
 
 Repeat that word once more!" 
 
 John M‘^Leod Campbell declared it to be ^^one that I have found 
 often welling up in me as living water.”'^ 
 
 For the Church of the Unity, the “little sister” among the 
 Churches, so small in numbers, so limited in resources, so 
 
 * There is one poetical composition of Gambold, some of the lines of 
 which are well known to many who know nothing of their author. It 
 begins with the words, 
 
 " O tell me no more 
 
 Of this world's vain store ; 
 
 The time for such trifles with me now is o’er," 
 
 and contains these two oft-quoted verses: 
 
 “And when I’m to die, 
 
 ' Receive me,’ I’ll cry, 
 
 For Jesus hath loved me; I cannot tell why. 
 
 So closely in mind 
 
 To Jesus I’m join’d. 
 
 He’ll not live in glory and leave me behind.” 
 
 It is curiously indicative of the existence of a fashion in hymnology, as 
 in everything else, that not one hymn of Gambold has been inserted in 
 Sir Roundel Palmer’s “ Book of Praise,” nor, so far as our examination of 
 them enables us to certify, in any of the collections of hymns in use among 
 the Presbyterian Churches of Great Britain. 
 
31 
 
 largely recruited from the ranks of peasants and artisans, to 
 have given direction to Methodism In England, and to have 
 contributed to a new departure in Scottish theology, is something 
 not to be omitted when ecclesiastical honours are distributed and 
 counted. But our reading of Moravian character and in Moravian 
 literature has been to little purpose if we are not correct in the 
 surmise that dearer to the brethren than all other honours they can 
 rightfully claim is the honour spontaneously paid them when 
 Cowper, In his poem “Hope,” pronounced his noble panegyric 
 upon the brethren’s mission, and told his readers how— 
 
 “ Fired with a zeal peculiar, they defy 
 The rage and rigour of a Polar sky, 
 
 And plant successfully sweet Sharon's Rose 
 On icy plains, and in eternal snows." 
 
LONDON ASSOCIATION 
 
 IN AID OF 
 
 THE MORAVIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 ESTABLISHED 1817. 
 
 Patron. 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL CAIRNS. 
 Vice-Patrons. 
 
 THE MOST NOBLE THE MARQUIS OF CHOLMONDELEY. 
 THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. LORD EBURY. 
 
 President. 
 
 THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, Esq. 
 
 Treasurer. 
 
 SIR WALTER R. FARQUHAR, Bart. 
 Committee. 
 
 ARCHIBALD, W. F. A., Esq. 
 CAYFORD, E., Esq. 
 
 CHUBB. HAMMOND. Esq. 
 DASHWOOD, THOS., Esq. 
 DRURY, W. V., Esq., m.d. 
 FORTESCUE, J. F., Esq. 
 FREESE, F. W.. Esq. 
 
 CONNER, P. K, Esq. 
 HOWARD, D., Esq. 
 IRON, O. S., Esq. 
 JANSON, D., Esq. 
 ORTON, J. S., Esq. 
 PAYNE, G. W., Esq. 
 RHIND, JAMES, Esq. 
 
 WHYTE, R., JuN., Esq. 
 
 Hon. Secretaries. 
 
 REV. DANIEL MOORE, m.a., Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the Queen. 
 
 REV. J. STOUGHTON, d.d. 
 
 Clerical Secretsiry. 
 REV. JAMES HENRY. 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Mr. GEORGE E. ROBERTS. 
 
 Office—29, Ely Place, Holborn, E.C.