In 1807, some of the Brethren undertook a mission to the Creek Indians, and with this view fixed their residence on the river Flint, about sixty American miles from the seat of the government of Georgia.* This nation is said to consist of between seventy and eighty thousand persons; and it appears that, through the unremitting exertions of government, some of them have been prevailed on to attend to agriculture and a few manufactures. For several years past they have raised corn, pigs, black cattle; planted cotton, wove cloth, and also established a pottery.† These circumstances, we hope, will facilitate the introduction of Christianity among them. From this statement it appears that the Brethren have at present five missionary settlements among the Indians in North America, Fairfield in Canada, Goshen on the Muskingum, Spring Place in the country of the Cherokees, Sandusky in the neighbourhood of the Wyandots and Mingoes, and at Flint river among the Creeks. In these several settlements, however, the number of christian Indians is small: in the three last no converts, so far as we know have yet been made; and in the other two, there are not more, we suppose, than two hundred. What has been the total number of Indians who have been baptized by the Brethren since the commencement of the mission, it is now impossible to ascertain. From a register of the congregation, dated 1772, we learn, that in that year they amounted to seven hundred and twenty: But as the church books and all the other writings of the missionaries were burnt, when they were taken prisoners on the Muskingum in 1781, we do not know the num ber who have been baptized since that time; but for upwards of twenty years past it has been very small. The mission, indeed, has never recovered the dreadful stroke which it received at that period. * Period. Accounts, vol. v. p. 9, 380. Ibid. vol. iv. p. 482, 486, 490. t Ibid. vol. iv. p. 259, 380 Loskiel, Part III. p.226. Before we close the history of this eventful mission, we must notice the death of that venerable servant of Christ, David Zeisberger. After having laboured upwards of sixty years among the Indians,* he died at the settlement of Goshen on the Muskingum, November 17, 1808, in the eightyeighth year of his age. To his latest breath, he retained the same ardent zeal for the conversion of the heathen, the same unaffected serenity of mind, the same unbounded confidence in God, which had distinguished his earlier years. When old age began to creep upon him, so that he could no longer travel about as formerly among the pagan Indians, he devo ted all his time to the instruction of the congregation at Go, shen, sparing no pains both with the old and the young, in promoting their everlasting interests. When he became al most blind with age, a few months before his death, and his exertions were confined within still narrower limits, he did not lose his usual cheerfulness; he took particular delight in hearing accounts of the success of the gospel, and was perfectly resigned to the will of God as to the declension of his own powers. He had a serious yet animated look; and though his body was worn almost to a skeleton, yet his judg ment still remained sound, and from his long experience as a missionary, his observations were considered as invaluable. Were men to obtain that honour in the world to which their merit entitles them, he would certainly hold a distinguished place in the annals of fame. Perhaps, indeed, since the days of St. Paul himself, no man has made greater exertions, no man has performed more eminent services, no man has endured more numerous trials in propagating the gospel among the heathen, than David Zeisberger. Justly may he receive the honourable yet well-earned title of THE APOSTLE OF THE INDIANS. Loskiel Part II. p. 91. † Period. Accounts, vol. iv. p. $77, 308, 481 SECTION. IV. SOUTH AMERICA. ARTICLE I. RIO DE BERBICE. In 1738, two of the Brethren, John Guettner and Lewis Christopher Dehne were sent as missionaries to Rio de Berbice, a Dutch settlement near Surinam in South America. After working for some time in the company's plantation, they took a piece of land on the borders of the colony, and cultivated it on their own account, in the hope of at length finding an opportunity to make known the gospel among the pagan inhabitants. Here they lived in great poverty, working their plantations with their own hands. Among the Indians who resided in their neighbourhood, and who understood some Dutch, they found no admission for the gospel; and as for those who lived at a distance, they could not speak their language. In 1741, however, they took a boy under their charge, from whom, in the course of a few years, they learned so much of the Arawack language, that they wrote in it a summary of the principles of Christianity, for the use of the Indians. With this short compendium of religion, one of the Brethren ventured to go, from time to time, among the heathen; sought them out, scattered as they were, over a vast wilderness, three hundred miles in extent; and after saluting them in a friendly manner, read it to them, spoke upon it as well as he was able, and watered all his labours with his prayers and tears. In these excursions they frequently encountered no small difficulties and hardships. They were obliged to carry their provisions on their backs, to hang their hammocks on the trees in the wilderness, and sleep in this singular situation, to wade through the streams and rivers, and often to travel immense distances without meeting with a house or a human being. The success, however, which crowned their labours, was a rich reward for all their toils. Pleased with the gentleness and affability of the Brethren's manners, the Indians wished to be further acquainted with them, and with this view they came to visit them in their own habitation at Pilgerrhut. Here the youth, from whom the missionaries had learned the language, declared the gospel to them in so striking a manner, and with so powerful an effect, that they not only spread the word abroad among their countrymen, but some of them at length, erected huts for themselves in the neighbourhood. In the spring of 1748, several of their very aged people were baptized as the first fruits of their mission, and in the course of a few months no less than forty were admitted to the same privilege.* The settlement of the Indians with the Brethren, however, was attended with considerable difficulties. They were not only obliged to leave their houses and their friends; but, on their arrival, they had to clear the ground of wood, to plant it with cassabi, a root on which they chiefly depend for subsistence, and to make a hard shift during the first year until it came to maturity. Besides these difficulties, some malicious persons endeavoured to seduce the Indians; and when they failed in this attempt, they laboured to infuse suspicions into their minds, as if the missionaries, under the pretence of instructing them, designed only to make them slaves. They, at the same time, complained to the governor, of the concourse of Indians to the Brethren, as likely to terminate in a rebellion; and when this trick also failed of its effect, a clergymen in the colony was so base as to become their tool, in transmitting to Holland various accusations against the missionaries, with a view of putting a period to their benevolent labours.† Unhappily the machinations of their enemies at last prevailed, and gave rise to measures which threatened the total *Crantz's History of the United Brethren. † Ibid. subversion of the mission. The Brethren were required by government to take an oath and carry arms, though hitherto they had been exempted from all such demands; they were ordered not to draw the Indians to them, nor to withhold them from the service of the compan,y though, in fact, the poor creatures came for the most part of their own accord from a distant part of the country; and they are further enjoined, to urge the baptized to assist in the fisheries and the other labours of the colony. On this subject the Brethren were several times summoned before the council, and though their answers were very satisfactory, and the purity of their designs was evinced in the clearest manner, yet they were told, that unless they complied with these and other requisitions, they must quit the country; and, in fact, Christopher Dehne, on returning two years afterwards from a visit to Europe, was sent back with the same vessel in which he came. Besides these disagreeable occurrences, the mission met with various other impediments. Owing to the failure of the crops, the Dutch soldiers came to buy cassabi from the Christian Indians, and though these were in want themselves, the villains not only took their roots from them by force, but wantonly destroyed such as were still unripe in the ground. These outrages the Indians bore at first with patience, but being several times repeated in the course of three years, they at last betook themselves to places in the wilderness, where they might plant their cassabi without being exposed to the same base ungenerous treatment.* But though these circumstances were in many respects highly prejudicial to the interests of the mission, they were not altogether without their use. Though the Brethren were prohibited from travelling through the country, yet the dispersion of the christian Indians spread the knowledge of the gospel farther than it had ever been preached by them. The * Crantz's Hist. of the United Brethren. |