Journal of a three years' residence in Abyssinia, in furtherance of the objects of the Church ...

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Preface To The Second Edition

The Author of the following Journal having been raised to an eminent station in the Churchy much interest has been excited in this record of his early Missionary labours^ and a considerable demand has arisen for this work, which has been long out of print.

Under these circumstances it has been determined to reprint the Journal^ and to prefix a brief notice of the Author^s Missionary history.

Samuel Gobat was born on the 26th of January^ 1799, at Cremine, in the parish of Orandval, in the beautiful valley of Moutier: it was then under the French Government, and now belongs to the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. He received his early education at a school in that neighbourhood.

At the age of nineteen, having first felt the power of the Gospel in his own soul, he conceived an earnest desire to make it known to others as a Missionary, and applied for admission into the Basle Missionary Institution, of which the Rev. T. Blumhardt was th

VI PREFACE.

Director. Beceiving a favourable reply^ he proceeded to Basle. But finding it necessary^ upon his arrival^ to perfect himself in the German language, in which the studies of the Institution were carried on, — French having been his vernacular language, — ^he entered into a Printer's establishment, till he could be received as a student of the Institution.

He pursued his studies in that Institution for three years, with so much assiduity, as to impair his health, and oblige him to retire for a time into the country. Upon his recovery, he was sent to Paris, to study Arabic at the Missionary Institution of Paris, then under the direction of the Bev. M. Galland. Here he attended the Arabic Lectures of the celebrated scholar Baron Silvestre de Sacy. After a residence of one year at Paris, he was selected by the Directors of the Basle Institution, as one of the students, to be employed by the Church Missionary Society. He therefore came to England, and resided for nine months in the Church Missionary College in Islington, devoting his attention chiefly to his oriental studies, under the instruction of Professor Lee, Arabic Professor of the University of Cambridge.

He was then appointed, in conjunction with the Bev. C. Kugler, by the Church Missionary Society, to the work of commencing a Mission in Abyssinia. Upon this he returned to the Continent, and received Lutheran Ordination and then proceeded to Malta, where he remained for a few months rendering very valuable assis-

PREFACE. Vll

tancetothe Rev. W. Jowett, in preparing Arabic Tracts for the Press. He arrived in Egypt, September 1826.

With the view of obtaining fuller information respecting Abyssinia and its languages, Messrs. Gobat and Kugler, were directed to visit Jerusalem, where it was known that a small company of Abyssinians were living in a monastery near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They accordingly spent about three months at Jerusalem in the summer of 1827, arriving there shortly before Easter.

The unsettled state of the civil affairs of Abyssinia, prevented the Missionaries from proceeding to that country, till the close of the year 1829, so that they had suffered a detention of three years since their first arrival in Egypt.

They arrived December 28, at Massowah — a seaport in the province of Tigr^. From hence they proceeded to Adigrate, in the same province, a journey of about a month to the south of Massowah. Here they were favourably received by Sebagadis, the Chief or Ras of Tigre. It was then determined that Mr. Kugler should remain at Adigrate, while Mr. Gobat went on a Missionary tour to Gondar, the capital of Amhara, another province of Abyssinia. From this period the journal of Mr. Gobat commences.

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The Journal closes with Mr. Grobat's arrival at Cairo, February 16, 1833, from whence he came to Europe. In the next year he returned to his Missionary labours in Abyssinia, in company with the Rev. C. W. Isenberg. Mr. Gobat had been previously united in marriage with Miss M. Zeller, a daughter of the excellent and devoted Superintendent of a training school at Beuggen in the grand Duchy of Baden.

The Missionaries arrived at Massowah in Abyssinia, December 20, 1834, and then proceeded to Adowah; Mr. Gobat^s health, however, soon failed ; and he was compelled to return to Europe at the close of the year 1836. The Mission was carried on in Abyssinia, by Mr. Isenberg, who was afterwards joined by the Rev. C. H. Blumhardt, and the Rev. J. L. Krapf ; but early in the year 1838, through the influence of certain members of the Church of Rome ; opposition was raised against the Missionaries by the Abyssinian priests, and they were compelled to quit the country and return to Egypt.

Messrs. Isenberg and Krapf succeeded in the course of the next year, in obtaining an entrance into the kingdom of Shoa, a province of Abyssinia, to the south of that from which they had been expelled, and they commenced their labours at Ankobar, the capital of that province.

But the hopes of access in this Mission were again disappointed. It pleased God to permit the evil in-

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fluence of the Church of Borne again to prevail, to the exclusion of Protestant Missionaries from Abyssinia, and to close the door against them.*

The state of Mr. Gobat^s health, after his visit to Europe in the year 1836, prevented his return to Abyssinia, and he was therefore associated with the Society^s Missionaries at Malta, from whence he made a visit in the year 1841, to Syria, to investigate the moral condition of the Druses, and the propriety of attempting a mission for their benefit.

Upon the establishment of a Protestant College at Malta, by a Committee in London, for the benefit of the youth of the Levant ; Mr. Oobat was appointed to the office of Vice President, on which occasion, he visited England in the summer of 1845, and was admitted to Deacon^s orders in the Church of England, by the Bishop of London.

Soon after his return to Malta in his new capacity, the Bishopric of the Anglican Church at Jerusalem, became vacant by the lamented death of Bishop Alexander, the first Bishop ; and the nomination of a successor being with the King of Prussia, according to the original foundation of the Bishopric, the following communication was made by his Excellency the Chevalier Bunsen, the Minister of His Prussian Majesty at the Court of London to Mr. Gobat.

* An interesting Journal of the labours of Messrs. Isenberg and Kntpf in Abyssinia during the period 1839— 42, has been published by Seeley, Bumside, and Seeley: 1844.

a 5

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London, March 7, 1846.

Dear Sir, — His Majesty the King of Prussia, my royal master, has commanded me to make to you the following communication. The lamented death of Bishop Alexander has imposed upon his Majesty the duty of nominating a successor to that honoured prelate, as Bishop of the Anglican Church at Jerusalem. This nomination requires, according to the arrangements of 1841, the canonical sanction of his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the approbation of the British Government.

In conformity with the same arrangements, and in consequence of the nature of the case, the bishop must have or receive English orders ; but it is not at all necessary that he should be a born or even a naturalized British subject, which indeed even Bishop Alexander, nominated by Her Majesty the Queen of England, was not.

The nature of the bishopric requires also that the bishop, if no Englishman by birth, should be able to preach in English, and if an Englishman, should have a sufficient knowledge of German to be able personally to superintend the German community at Jerusalem, which already at present constitutes the majority of that congregation.

Further, it may be expected, that he should b6 known to the Christian public, and in particular to that of England and Germany. His Majesty has besides conpreface; XI

sideredj that it would be highly desirable that the Bishop of the Anglican Church at Jerusalem should not be unacquainted with the language and manners of the country in which he is to reside.

Considering all these circumstances^ the King has fixed upon you, dear Sir, because not having in his choice anything in view but the honour of God, and the good of the Church of Christ, his Majesty finds the necessary or desirable circumstances eminently united in your person, in the success of your missionary labours, and in the course of events, which have finally led to the honourable and distinguished appointment you now hold.

You are no more a subject of the King of Prussia than of the Queen of England ; your fatherland is neither Prussia nor England ; but his Majesty considers you as having, as a tried messenger of the (jospel, a citizenship in the whole Christian worlds and as being, moreover, intimately connected with the Church of the Gospel among all German nations by the course of your theological studies, and by the truly Evangelical spirit in which you have taught the word of God and announced the faith in Christ amongst difierent nations of Africa and of Asia.

His Majesty, therefore, commands me to say, that he hopes you will be enabled to consider his choice of your person as a providential call, and accept a place in the Christian Church, for which the Christian monarch, in whose hands Providence has placed this nomination,

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after mature and anxious deliberation, considers you the fittest person.

His Majesty entertains the hope^ that this consideration will appear to you the more weighty from the circumstance that the King's choice has the full sanction of the Primate of the Church, in the service of which you have undertaken to preach the Gospel. His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury has authorised me to declare to you, that he is happy to give most cordially his canonical sanction to the King's presentation.

As flOODi as we have your consent, the Primate will take the necessary steps for the purpose of your nomination as a bishop of the Anglican Church by letters patent of Her Majesty. I will only add, that also on the side of the British Government I have found the greatest readiness to co-operate with the King, whose choice has their unconditional approbation.

I am aware, dear Sir, that you are at present in a sphere of activity, and in a situation^ which, in every respect, are satisfactory to you. But I am sure, that you appreciate duly the importance of Jerusalem for the Christian world, and in particular in the present epoch of the Church of the Gospel.

I will only add, that I have good grounds to believe that no difficulty will be made as to your giving up without delay the situation you now hold ; but that, on the contrary, every facility will be afforded for that object, as well by his Lordship the Bishop of Gibraltar, Principal of the College, as by the Committee in London

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The building of the Church has begun with the full and direct sanction of the Ottoman Forte : it will be accompanied by that of the College and the Hospice and of the residence of the bishop.

These circumstances and many others render it absolutely necessary that the see should be filled as soon as possible.

I remain^ with the highest consideration, Dear Sir, Your faithful servant and friend, (Signed) Bunsen*

The Rev. Samuel Gobat, Vice-Principal of the Protestant College of St. Paul, Malta.

Malta, March 16, 1846.

Sir, — Your honoured letter, dated March 7, arrived yesterday, and I hasten to acknowledge its receipt. The high honour which his Majesty the King of Prussia has deigned to confer upon me, in nominating me to the see of the Anglican Church at Jerusalem, the favourable disposition towards me of yourself and other personages whom I highly revere, and the weighty importance of the call addressed to me, compared with my utter unworthiness, have produced in me an emotion so deep, that I find it impossible, in the present moment, to do more than to express my gratitude towards his Majesty and the other high xiv PREFACE.

individaals^ who have thus honoured me with their confidence.

It has always heen my privilege, ever since God revealed his saving grace to me, to be thoroughly convinced that I was led by his gracious hand through the different stages of my life; and I hope and pray that he will shew me the same favour in this important juncture, though the call, altogether unexpected, is a matter which cannot be decided in one day.

My first impression on reading your letter was, that I was altogether unprepared to occupy so distinguished a situation in the Church of Christ, and from this clear view of my short-coming, together with my natural disposition to a more retired and restricted sphere of activity, there arose an almost decided No : but suspecting my own feelings, I cast myself down before the Head of the Church, and I trust, I could say, with a sincere heart, not my, but Thy will be done ; and since I have begun to weigh the reasons on both sides, I find that, on one hand, the more I examine myself, the more I feel disposed to say, " Lord, send whom thou wilt send.^^ But on the other hand, I cannot but sec weighty reasons in favour of my relying on the Lord and accepting the office, — so that, " to speak the truth as it is in my heart," I venture to say that there is more probability of my humbly accepting the office than to the contrary.

There is one point to be resolved, from the result of which a powerful reason will arise to decide either one

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way or the other, viz., I have but lately been appointed by a Committee of men, whom I highly esteem, to the situation which I now hold, and I conceive that I should not be justified in giving it up without the full consent of that Committee, of which Lord Ashley is Chairman. I shall therefore immediately write to his Lordship on the subject. With the Bishop of Gibraltar I do not expect to meet with any difficulty ; he will probably not be back from Egypt till the end of this month.

If Lord Ashley has the kindness to write to me without delay, I hope I shall be enabled to give a decided answer in a very short time.

I have the honour to be, With great respect, Sir, Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, (Signed) S. Gobat.

His Excellency Chevalier Bunsen, ^c. §-c. ^c.

St. Julians, Malta, March 26, 1846.

Sir, — On the sixteenth instant, I had the honour of acknowledging the receipt of your Excellency's letter, dated March 7, 1846, and I hope your Excellency appreciates the motives by which I was then prevented from giving a decided answer to the important proposition contained in your letter.

Now, after a mature consideration of the circumstances, which have led His Majesty, the King of Prussia, graciously to nominate me as the successor of

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the late Bishop Alexander to the vacant see of the Anglican Church at Jerasalem^ and after comparing such circumstances with many events of my life ; with fervent prayers, I have come to the conclusion that the important call addressed to me^ is a providential one, wherefore, relying entirely upon the gracious help of Him, who is the supreme Head of the Church, and praying for the graces of the Holy Spirit, I beg your Excellency to inform His Majesty, the King of Prussia, that I humbly accept the important office of a Bishop of the Anglican Church at Jerusalem, to which His Majesty has graciously been pleased to nominate me.

I beg at the same time, that you will have the kindness to convey to His Majesty, and to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, the humble expression of my heartfelt gratitude, for the undeserved confidence wherewith they have deigned to honour me. My earnest desire and prayer to God is, that His Majesty may never have any reason to repent of his choice, and that he may long live to forward the cause of the Gospel and to see the peace of Jerusalem.

I have the honour to be.

With great respect.

Sir, Your Excellency's most obedient humble servant, (Signed) S. Gobat.

His Excellency Chevalier Bunsen, ^c. ^c, ^c.

PREFACE. xvii

Soon after the nomination of Mr. Grobat to the see of the Anglican Church at Jerusalem, objections were raised by certain parties against the theological opinions which he was supposell to hold, upon several important points, in consequence of the statements contained in this Journal. These objections having been communicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, and by them to Mr. Gobat, he addressed the following explanatory vindication of his Journal to the Bishop of London : —

My Lord Bishop, I have read attentively the paper which your Lordship sent me the other day, containing extracts from my Journal, published by the Church Missionary Society in 1834 ; and stating that certain parties, in consequence of certain impressions, derived from my Journal, concur in the opinion, that unless an essential change has taken place in my views since that time, I am altogether disqualified for being the accredited representative of the Church of England, &c. Surely none can feel more deeply than I do myself, how far I am from possessing those qualifications which should characterize every Bishop in the Church of Christ ; but, at the same time, whilst acknowledging the calm and courteous manner in which the paper expresses the doubts entertained with respect to my orthodoxy, I protest against the inferences which the said parties draw from certain expressions of mine,

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made use of under circumstances, which they cannot fully appreciate, and in relation to opinions and practices current in Abyssinia, of which they appear to have no adequate idea. I will not, however, attribute any uncharitable motives to them. On the contrary, I will thankfully avail myself of this opportunity of explaining expressions, statements and silence, which, under different circumstances might appear objectionable.

Surely your Lordship will not expect me to enter into details concerning the points on which my orthodoxy has been suspected. In fact, I conceive that having last year cheerfully signed the articles, and expressed, in your presence, if I remember well, my entire concordance with the formularies of the Church of England, your Lordship can hardly, I trust, suspect me of heresy at the present time. But, in order to show to such as may still have doubts concerning my belief, that, when my Journal was written, my views agreed perfectly with the doctrine of the Church of England, as contained in her Articles and Creeds, I shall make a few remarks on the different heads of accusation, if the term be not too strong, as they occur in the above stated paper.

But before I enter into these particulars, I beg to state : —

1 . That my object, which I believe to have been the object of the Society by whom I was sent, was not so much to make the Abyssinian Church a branch of the Church of England, but much more to make the Abys-

PREFACE. XIX

sinians sensible of the need of reforming their Churchy and to help them in reforming her on the basis and principles of the Holy Scriptures ; and so far, I believe, I was a faithful representative of the Churches of the Reformation in that which is common to them all.

2, Knowing the prejudices of the Abyssinians against Europeans in general, ever since the Jesuits had been there, (your Lordship must be aware how cunning, treacherous, and blood-thirsty the Jesuits have been in Abyssinia) I was obliged to be exceedingly cautious, being convinced that I could have no influence with them, until I had gained their confidence. How far I succeeded in a short time, in gaining the general esteem and confidence, every traveller who has since been there will bear witness ; so much so, that I have been told that the Jesuit Abadie, on his return from Abyssinia, said, in Bome, that if I returned to that country, they (the Jesuits) could do nothing there ; but, if I was prevented from returning thither, he could vouch for the expulsion of other Protestant Missionaries. And such confidence was grounded on the general conviction that I sincerely sought to take the Word of God for my sole guide of faith and life.

3. Finding the Abyssinians sunk in superstitions of every kind, and those of superior talents and knowledge losing all their time, for several generations, in endless metaphysical discussions, to the utter neglect of the practical parts of the Word of God, and without any other aim but to gain the victory, I resolved from the

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beginning to avoids as mach as possible^ entering into such discussions. Wherefore I so repeatedly answered to their endless questions : ''I do not know :*' — the translator of my Journal has sometimes rendered it too strong by translating literally from the French, '' Je n^en sais rien :" — ^though I was not altogether without an opinion of my own.

4. The Abyssinians seemed to place the same reliance on all their religious books, which they placed in the Word of God; wherefore I found it necessary without rejecting what might be good in their books, to draw the most positive line of demarcation between the Word of God and the words of men, however excellent the latter may be. I thought also that the best way of making them sensible of the superior value of the Word of God in religious matters was, as far as practicable, to affirm nothing in matters of faith, except what is clearly revealed in the Holy Scriptures ; and to yield to no argument of theirs, unless it rested upon clear declarations of the Word of God. Moreover, I thought them unfit to reason on Creeds and Articles of belief, as long as they were unacquainted with the Word of God. I am convinced that your Lordship will understand that it was a matter of no small self-denial, to impose upon myself the necessity of abstaining so often from drawing inferences and proofs — from the comparison of different passages of Scripture — for fear of giving them (the Abyssinians) the same right, which I was sure they

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would have abused. I hope therefore that no one will eoilsider my forced silence^ or my evasive answers^ — either to avoid useless discussions^ or when I had no Word of God at command to support ultimately a direct answer, — to imply a nonrecognition of the Articles and Creeds. I may add that thus my conduct not only led a good number of people to search the Scriptures, but that in the very first year of my stay in Abyssinia many priests were led to introduce the habit of reading the New Testament every Lord's day to the people in the Churches, and in the vernacular language; which had never been done before ever since the Ethiopic had become a dead language, I may add, though Qot stated in my Journal, that I taught the Nicene Creed, the only one generally received in that country, to many Abyssinian youths.

5. I beg your Lordship to remember some of the circumstances in which I was placed, when I wrote my Journal. Surrounded with cunning people, some of whom had no other intention than to perplex me, in order to bring me out of patience, as they afterwards confessed, or to catch some unguarded expression ; I was obliged to hear their metaphysical distinctions, &c. ; sometimes a question was unexpectedly put to me, or an erroneous statement made, which I must answer the very moment ; so that if I did not always express myself in the best manner in a language, which was not my own, and which is itself poor and imperfect.

xxii PREFACE.

I think that on this^ ground alone I have a right to claim some allowance. Moreover, every reader of my Journal can perceive that frequently I had only short moments for writing, and that sometimes, for several days together, I had my house full of people from six in the morning, till eight p.m., so that it was impossible for me to give more than a sketch of the transactions of the day, and I could not state all the questions and observations at full length, to which my remarks alluded, much less the explanations of my own remarks which I frequently gave.

6. Lastly, it may be said that I ought to have digested my statements previous to their publication. To this I answer, that I did not write for the public, although I supposed, that the Committee of the Church Missionary Society might publish some extracts. My single aim was, to give a faithful account to the Society, by whom I was sent, of what I saw, heard, and did ; and especially to give them to understand how far it was practicable to discuss religious subjects, and contradict the Abyssinians' notions.

I now come to the items of observations, and, may I say, suspicions, contained in the paper sent to me by your Lordship.

PREFACE. XXIU

" I. — CREEDS AND ARTICLES GENERALLY/' *

From what I have already stated^ your Lordship will easily understand the reason why, — when I was asked, What my faith was, — I always answered : " We believe all that the Word of God says, nothing beyond that.'* So far from repudiating Creeds and Articles, I was accustomed to give, as an explanation, the very words of the sixth article. I further take this opportunity for stating, that I subscribe from my heart to the Thirty-Nine Articles and the three Creeds', called the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds, according to their natural and grammatical sense. And this I do, because I believe them to be in accordance with the Word of God ; which is exactly, in other words, what I meant by saying, ^^We believe all that the Word of God says.'' And this is precisely the ground on which the eighth Article places our belief in those Creeds. I must add, however, that when the Athanasian Creed says "Except every one do keep the Catholic faith whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly," I do not understand it to condemn the whole Greek Church and other Churches to everlasting perdition, for rejecting, ^^Filioqu^y^ — which would involve the condemnation of the Nicene Council for having omitted it. Though I myself fully maintain the state-

• These were the several beads of the objections against Mr. Gobat's theological opinions.

XXIV PREFACE.

ment^ that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son,

Having thus stated my acceptation of the Articles and Creeds^ — ^to which I add my cordial assent to the Liturgy, — I might be allowed to abstain from touching the other points contained in the above mentioned paper, on which my orthodoxy has been suspected, but still I venture to say a few words on them.

" II. — DOCTRINES CONCERNING THE SON.

(1.) — The eternal generation of the Son,"

When I said that " Jesus Christ was born (for begotten) before the creation of the world," I, of course, meant to say, as I firmly believe, that he was begotten before all worlds, before any creature or creation.

"(2.)— The Incarnation.'"

As the question raised on this subject, appears to arise from ignorance of the Abyssinian Creeds, though they are intimated, if not clearly stated in my Journal, I scarcely know how to answer it : for I conceive that my expressions, as cited viz : " Jesus Christ, the Almighty God, became (or was made) man," can leave no doubt on the subject ; for not being a Nestorian, I cannot conceive God becoming man at any other moment than the moment of his being conceived in the Virgin's womb. And thus, here again I perfectly agree with the second Article. If I was to explain why I did not give a positive answer at once to the ques-

PREFACE. XXV

tion, when the Divinity was united to the humanity of Christ, it would fill a book to give only an outline of the doctrines and disputes of the Abyssiuians, concerning the unction of Christ. — Some say that He was anointed by the Holy Sj)irit previous to His coming down from heaven, and they appear to believe that He took the germ of His manhood with Him from heaven. — Others believe that He was anointed at the moment of His being conceived. — Others affirm that He was anointed about the end of the fourth month after His being conceived. — Others say it was at His birth. --Others again say it was when He was baptized in Jordan ; and others, as in Tigre, that He was not anointed at all. I therefore thus framed my answer, in order to avoid ceaseless discussions about when and how and why Christ was anointed. I hope the last words of this paragraph, viz : " does he (Mr. Gobat) think it a matter of indifference .... whether the child bom, the Son given to us, was at his birth God and man, or only man ?^^— I hope, I say, these words were not intended to express any suspicion of Socinianism on, my part ; as such a suspicion would be opposed to other parts of my Journal ; for if there is anything repeatedly stated in various forms, in my Journal, it is the fact that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God : my God, my Lord, my Saviour, whom I worship, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit; in whom I trust, and whom I desire to serve faithfully, and to love supremely.