Amazing Grace, John Newton (1779)

 Amazing Grace, John Newton (1779)

Most of us have heard the familiar words, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” The author of the hymn was, by his own admission, a “wretch.”  He was a slave trader, a blasphemer, a rebel, an immoral man, a torturer, and as far from grace as anyone could ever be. As a boy, John was captivated by the adventure and risk of life on the high seas. When he was eleven, young John Newton launched into that exciting life of voyaging, sailing, and living his dream. But the dream turned out to be a nightmare. Later in life he wrote, “I sinned with a high hand, and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.” Newton lived a hard life with hard consequences. God got his attention though. In 1748, Newton’s slave ship was nearly wrecked by an intense storm. In the tempest, surrounded by crashing waves, cutting winds, creaking timbers, and the cries of onboard slaves, John fell to his knees and pled for mercy, and for grace. God’s grace, which reaches anyone, anywhere, saved a wretch like John Newton. Newton wrote the song years later while serving as a pastor in Olney, England. During America’s Second Great Awakening, the song was paired with its familiar tune and was widely used in camp meetings and revival services. Today, its lyrics still inspire, encourage, and instruct people about the radical reality of God’s amazing grace.

Hermann Gundert

Hermann Gundert

Hermann Gundert (Stuttgart, 4 February 1814 – 25 April 1893 in Calw, Germany) was a German missionary, scholar, and linguist, as well as the maternal grandfather of German novelist and Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse. Gundert is chiefly known for his contributions as an Indologist, and compiled a Malayalam grammar book, Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam (1859), in which he developed and constricted the grammar spoken by the Malayalis, nowadays; a Malayalam-English dictionary (1872), and contributed to work on Bible translations into Malayalam. He worked primarily at Thalassery on the Malabar coast, in Kerala, India. Gundert also contributed to the fields of history, geography and astronomy.

Scholarly Works

During his stay in Illikunnu near Tellicherry (Thalassery), he published around thirteen books in Malayalam including a translation of the Bible, Old Testament from Hebrew and New Testament from Greek. The archives of information he collected from Tellicherry are kept in the University of Tübingen and were collected and compiled by the scholar Dr. Scaria Zacharia as Thalassery Rekhakal.

 

In Kerala, he took a deep interest in the local culture and the Malayalam language, attempting a systematic grammar of the language. This was one of the prominent non-Sanskrit-based approaches to Indic grammar. Gundert considered Malayalam to have diverged from Proto-Tamil–Malayalam, or Proto-Dravidian.

 

Apart from the early inscriptions found on copper and stone, Gundert traced Malayalam to the Rāma Charitam, a poem predating the Sanskrit alphabet. Gundert is highly regarded among linguistic experts and his dictionary has been described as "monumental" in a review of the work on Dravidian languages.

Publications 

Year published	Title	Description
1843	Keralolpathi	Origin of Kerala, translation from Malayalam Keralolpathi.
1845	Pazhancholmala	String of Malayalam proverbs for Christian theological idioms.
1851	Malayala Bhasha Viyakaranam	Malayalam Grammar
1860	Paathamala	First textbook in Malayalam
1868	Kerala pazhama	33 years of Malayali history, from Vasco da Gama's arrival in 1498
1871	Malayalam-English Dictionary
1879	Malayalarajyam	The land of Malayalam
1847 June	Rajyasamacharam (News of the Kingdom)	Newspaper
1847 October	Paschimodayam	"Rise of the West" or "Dawn of the West", a magazine

Other Contributions

1.      He was the one who introduced the punctuation marks – full stop, comma, semicolon, colon, and question mark – into the Malayalam language.

 

2.       Malayalam-English Dictionary. He returned to Germany in 1859. There he took ten more years to complete the dictionary. (1872)  A number of words in this dictionary are not in use these days. But this is a priceless treasure for those who study the development of Malayalam.

Years in Germany 

Due to poor health Gundert had to leave India in 1859. In Calw, the Black Forest, he joined the Calw Publishing House and became its director in 1862. He published many books and articles as well as several magazines, including a children’s magazine. Julie Gundert died in Calw on 18 September 1885, and Hermann Gundert on 25 April 1893. Both were buried on the Calw cemetery, where the family grave still exists. The Noble laureate, Hermann Hesse was his grandson through his daughter, Marie Gundert (1842-1902).

Though Gundert came to Kerala as a missionary, he is remembered today mainly for his literary contributions. In the city of Thalassery (Tellicherry), he has been honored with a statue. The bungalow in which he used to live is now the home of the Nettur Technical Training Foundation (NTTF).

Gundert's statue near Thalassery Stadium

Volbrecht Nagel

Volbrecht Nagel

Volbrecht Nagel (1867–1921) was a German missionary to the Malabar Coast of India. Initially associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church, he later joined the Open Brethren, and is remembered now as a pioneer of the Kerala Brethren movement.

Life

Volbrecht Nagel was born on 3 November 1867 in Florstadt-Stammheim (belonging to the German federal state of Hesse). He grew up in a religious family, but lost his parents at a young age. At the age of 18, Nagel claimed to have been born again after hearing the gospel from a cobbler turned itinerant preacher. With a desire to be a missionary, he moved to Basel, Switzerland, joined the Basel Mission Training Institute in 1886 and graduated in 1892. He was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Mission in 1893.

Nagel came to Cannanore on the Malabar Coast as a Reverend in December 1893. He became the head of the Basel Mission center in Vaniankulam. The burden of running the schools and the small-scale industries of the Basel Mission in Vaniankulam became a stumbling block in his goal of independent ministry. In 1896, he left the Lutheran Church and Vaniankulam and went south without an aim. On his trip, he saw a prayer center in Kunnamkulam and met Paramel Itoop, a new believer. He decided to start his work at Kunnamkulam, an ancient bastion of Christianity in India.

To be part of the local community, he learned Malayalam. The community in Kunnamkulam received him as one of their own, as he wrote and spoke in Malayalam. In April 1897, he married Harriet Mitchell, an Anglo-Indian who was a teacher at Kunnamkulam. They had five sons and two daughters. One son and one daughter died in early childhood. Harriet Nagel died on 27 January 1935.

A few months after their marriage, they went to the Nilgiris and met the English Open Brethren Missionary Handley Bird. The following June, Nagel was baptized by immersion by Bird at Coimbatore. In 1906, he started an orphanage and a home for widows at Nellikunnu near Thrissur City named Rehoboth, which still stands today.

In 1914, Nagel traveled back to his native Germany. His plan was to send his older children to England for education and return to India in six months, but the beginning of World War I prevented his return. As a national of the German Empire, he could not enter British-administered Malabar, so he moved to Switzerland. Harriet and three children were back in Malabar Coast, while the two older children were in England. The letter he sent to the assembly fellowship in Paravur in 1917 reflects the hunger in his heart for souls in Malabar. That letter contained the following words: “My sweetest treasures are in India. My heart belongs there". But his desire was not fulfilled. He suffered from palsy and became bedridden. While teaching at Wiedenest Bible School, Nagel had a stroke and died on 12 May 1921 and was buried there. Harriet had been able to reach Germany and take care of him.

Writings

In 1898, Nagel wrote a book called Christian Baptism. He wrote many songs and hymns in Malayalam that are sung even today by all Christian denominations. Nagel is regarded with great esteem by the Malayalee Christian community for all his work in bringing the Gospel to Kerala.

 

Malayalam hymns

Nagel's mother tongue was German. He became fluent in Malayalam and composed hymns in that language, which are still used in church services.

A few of the hymns in Malayalam and their translations in English are given below:

·         Snehathin Idayanam Yesuway; Wazhium sathyaum nee mathremay (Jesus, the loving shepherd, you are the only way and the truth)

·         Ninnodu Praarthyppan Priya Pithaway (Our dear father, we are coming for prayer) – Prayer song

·         Jayam jayam Kollum Naam, Jayam Kollum Naam (Victorious, victorious, we will be victorious) – Victory song

·         Deivathinte æka putren paapikale rakshippan (God's only son died on the cross to save the sinners) – Christ's passion and death

·         Maranam jayicha veera (Hero that won over death) – Resurrection

·         Yesu varum vegathil – Aswaasamay (Jesus will be coming soon) – Second Coming

·         Ente Jeevanam Yesuway (Jesus, my life) – Comfort

·         En Yesu En Sangeetham (My song shall be of Jesus)

·     Samayamam rathathil njaan swargayatra cheyyunu (I am traveling towards heaven on the chariot of time) – included by music director G. Devarajan in the 1970 movie Aranazhika Neram; since the time it was sung during Sathyan's funeral in June 1971 it has become the most popular song at funerals.

Nagel's translations include:

·         Papakadam theerkuvan (What can wash away my sins, by Robert Lowry)

·         Yeshu enn swanatham, Hallelujah (Blessed Assurance, by Fanny Crosby)

·       Yeshuvin thirupadathil irunnu kelka naam (Sing them over again to me, by Philip Bliss)

·    Kristhuvinte daanam ethra maduram (Like a river glorious, by Frances Ridley Havergal)

·         Yeshuvil en thozhane kande (I have found a friend in Jesus, by Charles William Fry

Samuel Hebich

Samuel Hebich 

Samuel Hebich (1803-1868) was one of the three pioneer Basel Mission missionaries to Southwestern India--Canara, Coorg, South Mahratta, Malabar, and Nilagiri. He, along with Johann Christoph Lehner and Christian Leonard Greiner commenced Basel Mission station, the first German mission station in India, at Mangalore.

 

He was born near Ulm, Württemberg in Germany. Having decided to set up institutions in parts of India that had not experienced German Protestant missionaries, the Basel Mission (BM) Society decided to send three missionaries to India. In 1834, he was one of the first three missionaries summoned by BM for missionary service in Southwestern India—BM Society became the second Continental Society other than the Tranqueba Mission to take up work in India - BM already had an institution to train missionaries. Although the institution didn't have plans to direct missionary work, yet they had trained people from the British and Dutch mission societies who were already engaged in evangelistic work. The largest number of trainees were supplied to Church Missionary Society and were sent to India to serve at their mission stations - Initially, East India Company didn't permit non-British missions to work in the territories occupied by them; however, with the revision of the Charter of 1833 removed that obstacle allowing non-British Missionary Societies to operate in Indian subcontinent—By 1821, the Basel Mission Society begun establishing mission stations of its own in Western Russia and Gold Coast in West Africa.

Johan Christopher Lehner, Christian Lenhard Greiner, and Samuel Hebich sailed to Malabar Coast boarding the ship "Malabar" on 15 July 1834, and they reached Kozhikode, also known as Calicut, on 14 October 1834. They were warmly received by Nelson, a British judge in Calicut. On hearing their mission to go Mangalore, Nelson wrote to his friend Findley Anderson, a Sub-collector of Mangalore, asking him to do all he could to help them. They finally arrived at Bokkapattana in Mangalore on 30 October 1834. With the help of Anderson, a house was bought from a Parsee for 4,900 rupees in Mangalore, that ultimately became the base for first German Basel Mission station in India.

Missionary work

The missionaries soon acquired the local tongues like Kannada, Konkani, Tulu, and Malayalam; later, they engaged themselves in their missionary activities like preaching, constructing prayer halls, and converting British and Indian soldiers, including natives to Christianity with the help of British officials of East India Company. Samuel Hebich was exceptionally successful in the conversion of young British officers, in spite of his autocratic inclination made him a difficult person to work with. 

Samuel established the mission stations at Mangalore and Cannanore, a unique Christian community base composed of British and Indian soldiers. By the middle of the 19th century, the mission had grown with stations expanded to Belma in 1845, Mulki in 1845, Udupi in 1854, and Santhoor in 1865. Basel missionaries received substantial assistance from several British officials and planters, also continued after Indian subcontinent officially became part of British Raj^.

Education mission 

The objectives of the commission[board] that sent first three missionaries to Southwestern India was to establish schools and institutions to train future catechists. The mission education was considered important; hence, wherever there was to be a congregation, the mission had decided to have an elementary Christian teacher. Besides elementary education, they began training people to be catechists as early as 1840^..

Agriculture mission

The field experience soon made the missionaries that they needed to involve themselves in creating some remunerative jobs rather than just educating people. The missionaries also felt that the best way to fellowship with the converts was to keep them busy in some productive work. When the government of East India Company presented some piece of land to Samuel Hebich, he tried coffee plantation, however, he gave up as it didn't prove that successful. They also made an attempt to make sugar out of toddy, which proved too expensive because of the huge fuel costs.

The missionaries then thought of farming as many of the missionaries came from farming families; accordingly, the mission bought some land for agriculture and gave it on lease for cultivation. As very few took interest in cultivating the lands as their own, the agriculture settlements proved a partial failure, eventually to be discarded in 1880.

Industrial mission

After the failure of Agriculture mission, the missionaries conceived of an Industrial establishment as an alternative for creating some remunerative jobs; accordingly, in 1846, the missionaries launched an Industrial school in Mangalore to train people in Weaving, Carpentry, Clock Making, and alike. In 1854, Watch and Clock making was given up as it was found not suitable to the requirements and capacity of the people.

Printing press with book binding department, another Industrial undertaking by missionaries, proved to be successful. After the Printing press started in 1841 at Mangalore, first Lithograph and later Kannada types[fonts] were introduced. In 1851, a printer with Kannada fonts came from the Basel for the press at Mangalore. The press printed Christian books and books related to Literature, Science, and The arts providing employment to several souls^.

After twenty-six years of missionary service, he returned to Germany in 1866 with failing health, and died in 1868.