The Unitas Fratrum. Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Missionary and Pastoral Service in Southern Africa (Western Region)

(Cape Town: Moravian Church in South Africa, 1987). Oblong 4to; original coarse cloth, lettered in gilt; pictorial dustwrapper; endpaper illustrations; pp. vii + (i) + 104; numerous illustrations of church personalities, settlements and architecture. Dustwrapper a little edgeworn, and very slightly rubbed; trace of foxing to endpapers, occasional fox spot elsewhere. Very good condition. "The Moravian Church in Southern Africa (Western Region) takes pleasure in publishing this photographic study of its missionary and pastoral work over the past two hundred and fifty years, during this jubilee year, 1987. The first missionary to South Africa, Georg Schmidt, arrived at the Cape on 9th July 1737 and was directed to the area near Riviersonderend where he could start his missionary activities. The very simple beginning in the Baviaanskloof, later named Genadendal, led Schmidt through the arduous task of teaching the indigenous Khoikhoin to understand the Dutch language and through this medium convert them to the christian faith. In 1741 Schmidt was ordained by letter and could, on the strength of his ordination, baptise the first five converts. ... During the nineteenth century Genadendal grew in size and in importance. It was regarded as an influential, exemplary mission settlement which served as a model for many other similar settlements which followed later. The Moravian missionaries accepted the challenge to start settlements at: Mamre (1808), Enon (1818), Elim (1824), Shiloh (1828), Clarkson (1839), Goedverwacht (1845), Wittewater (1859), and Pella ... (1869). In this photographic study the authors relate the story of the early beginnings and growth of the Moravian Church in the Western Cape Province from a small and simple mission field to a self-dependent, self-supporting church." .