[Sidenote: The Ship “Candace.”]. We have learned in Chapter II of the
origin of the Hermannsburg Mission in the mind and heart of Louis Harms.
After a year or two, a number of German sailors, recently converted,
sought admission to the training school, and at their suggestion a ship
was built and named the ‘Candace.’ This ship was to carry the Gospel to
South Africa, and on October 8, 1853, she sailed from Hamburg. On board
were sailors, colonists and missionaries who were to found a missionary
colony. To each separate class Pastor Harms gave separate directions,
but upon all he urged the necessity for 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.”
The missionary colony hoped to settle among the Galla tribes, but were
driven away by the Mohammedans, therefore they returned to Natal. On the
19th of September, 1854, they established their first station near
Greytown, giving it the dear name of Hermannsburg. Each artisan began to
practice his trade, a house was built, and before three months had
passed the first converts of the Zulu church were baptized.
[Sidenote: A Truly Lutheran Mission.] No Lutheran mission has so intense
a Lutheran spirit as the Hermannsburg mission, whose founder wished all
the Lutheran symbols and especially the beautiful Lutheran liturgy to be
recognized and used by mission churches as well as by churches in the
fatherland.
The good ship “Candace,” one of the most famous and probably the first
of the missionary ships of the world, made many journeys. Not the least
interesting, at least to those concerned, was her second when she
carried to Natal reinforcements and additional colonists, among them a
wife for each of the missionaries who had made the pioneer journey.
The Hermannsburg mission has not lacked a baptism of blood. In 1883
thirteen stations were destroyed and Missionary _Schroeder_ met a
martyr’s death.
The _Hanover Free Evangelical Lutheran Church Missionary Society_,
branched off from the Hermannsburg Mission in 1892. It has six stations
in Natal and Zululand with about twenty-two thousand Christians, and
among the Bechunas in the Transvaal three stations with thirty-six
hundred Christians.
EAST AFRICA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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