Francke’s institution became a training school for Christian workers.
There was no specific instruction for such undertakings, but “in those
that came in near contact with him he stirred a spirit of absolute
devotion to divine service, such as he himself possessed in highest
measure, and which made them ready to go wherever there was need of
them.” There came into the school later, as a lad, the Moravian
Zinzendorf, afterwards a zealous missionary, who describes thus the
effect of the surroundings upon him: “The daily opportunity in Professor
Francke’s house of hearing edifying tidings of the kingdom of Christ, of
speaking with witnesses from all lands, of making acquaintance with
missionaries, of seeing men who had been banished and imprisoned, as
also the institutions then in their bloom, and the cheerfulness of the
pious man himself in the work of the Lord ... mightily strengthened
within me zeal for the things of the Lord.”
From Halle there went forth during the following century about sixty
missionaries, among them Ziegenbalg, Fabricius, Jaenicke, Gericke and
Schwartz, whose careers we shall study. Here also was trained
Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America, who
intended first to go as a missionary to India. Here were published in
1710 the earliest missionary reports in a little periodical which was
continued under different titles until 1880, one hundred and seventy
years. Among those for whom the heart of Francke yearned were the Jews,
in whose interest he founded the Institua Judiaca. From Halle there
spread an influence not only through Germany but through the world which
is difficult to estimate but almost impossible to exaggerate. By no
means the least of the missionary activities which had there their
inspiration was that of the Moravian Church, the most ardent in
missionary work of all Churches.
The missionary influence did not have any means free course. The
opposition shown to the theories of Justinian von Welz continued.
Francke was considered no less of a fanatic. This contrary spirit may be
shown by the expression of a deeply pious clergyman who concluded an
Ascension sermon with the following couplet:
“‘Go into all the world,’ the Lord of old did say;
But now ‘Where God has placed thee, there He would have thee stay.’”
[Sidenote: The First Missionary Hymn.] But even in poetic form
missionary activity was soon to find an expression. In Halle a Lutheran
_Karl Heinrich von Bogatsky_ wrote in 1750 the first Protestant
missionary hymn.
“Awake, Thou Spirit, who didst fire
The watchmen of the Church’s youth,
Who faced the foe’s envenomed ire,
Who witnessed day and night Thy truth,
Whose voices loud are ringing still,
And bringing hosts to know Thy will.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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