Work on the Borders of Abyssinia by Rev. Louis Meyer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 25, 1908

Work on the Borders of Abyssinia

By Rev. Louis Meyer

THOUGH Abyssinia proper has been closed to European missionaries (Protestant) since the year 1868, another effort to reach its inhabitants from its borders has been going on during the last years.

The Swedish Evangelical National Society sent out its missionaries at first to the heathen Cunamas, a tribe on the borders of Abyssinia. The work, at first quite promising, had to be abandoned on account of fever among the laborers and political difficulties in the country. Then the faithful missionaries settled west of Massowah in the small village of Ailet. A few years later a school for native boys was opened at Monkullu, a little farther west from Massowah. Its firstling was Onesimus, a heathen Galla slave, who was educated in Sweden, and proved a great help in missionary work.

The heat around Massowah was almost unbearable to these missionaries from the north of Europe. Fever caused the death of victim after victim. Yet faithfully they remained upon their post of duty fifteen long years, fresh soldiers of the cross taking the place of fallen ones at once, until at last they could enter the province of Eritrea [on the northeast border of Abyssinia. Map on the first page] which had become an Italian colony, after bloody battles. At last they were on the borders of coveted, firmly-closed Abyssinia, and in the very mountains to which they had often looked with ardent desire. Three stations have been founded in the province of Hamasen, which touches Tigre, the northern province of Abyssinia. Of these stations (Zarega, Belesa, and Asmara) Asmara is the most important, because the printing-house is located there, and much Christian literature has come from its presses already. It is said that the late Ras Makonnen ordered a copy of each product of these presses.

At first the Swedish missionaries intended to work from within the Abyssinian Church, like Heyling; but the opposition of the priests forced them to build churches, and to organize congregations. They are aided by native helpers, whom they educated for the work. The most prominent one of the native helpers is Tajelcny, an Abyssinian from the province of Amhara. He seems to enjoy the favor of the governor, and it is reported that the king said to him, “Be of good courage, and fear not. None who highly esteems the Bible is hated in my domain.”

Tokens of a spiritual awakening in the country reached by these Swedish missionaries, part of which country belonged to Abyssinia until a few years ago, are numerous. From many places comes the news that Abyssinian Christians begin to search the Bible; and in Schumanegos the evangelicals, thrown out of the church by the priests, have built a church of their own. Among the Gallas, south of Abyssinia, a few souls have been won to Christ by pupils of the Swedish missionaries in Eritrea.

The Swedish National Society has on the borders of Abyssinia ten stations and outstations; thirty-four missionaries, men and women; thirty-two native workers; fifteen schools; 356 scholars; a hospital and dispensary; a printing-house, and 566 professed Evangelical Christians, of whom 252 are communicants.

West of Abyssinia, in Omdurman, near the ruins of Khartum, the missionaries of the British Church Missionary Society have begun the preaching of the gospel, and the wonderfully prosperous Egyptian mission of the United Presbyterian Church of America is reaching farther and farther south from Egypt. Surely, it looks to the observer as if siege is being laid to dark Abyssinia with its decayed Christian church by Christian forces which surround it almost in a circle, and as if the time of its opening unto these forces can not be far away. Sooner or later, it must come, for the Lord has promised that the gospel shall triumph.—Rev. Louis Meyer, in Missionary Review of the World.