Topic: CRS Version
The first time the resilience and adaptability of Melvin Blake were tested was 1940 when he entered Drew Seminary in Madison, New Jersey. Beyond the cultural differences between the Midwest and the East Coast, he entered a school where Holiness theology was not accepted. [1] Since he hadn’t majored in religion at Taylor University, he may not have been committed to the ideas of Phoebe Palmer, but it was the tradition in which he was raised.
He married a woman he met at Taylor in 1941, and continued in school when the United States entered World War II in December. After Blake graduated in 1943, [2] he was assigned some small churches in Milford Township, Indiana. [3] If he sent his high school students to Epworth Forest, this would have been his first opportunity to meet Varner Chance, who was hired by the Methodist camp in 1946. [4]
As soon as the Methodist church could resume its missionary efforts following World War II, Blake and his wife applied. [5] When they completed training in 1947 at The Kennedy School of Missions in Hartford, Connecticut, [6] there were part of “the largest group of missionaries and deaconesses commissioned by the Board since pre-war days.” [7] The Blakes were assigned to Angola, and spent the next year in Lisbon learning Portuguese. [8]
Blake arrived in Luanda in 1948 where most of his work was administrative. [9] He inherited an established organization that required constant attention. He later used the words “frontier” and “pioneer” to contrast the existing missions with the first missionary efforts. [10]
The Angolan mission was established by William Taylor, without financial support from the Methodist Episcopal Church. He and his group of recruits landed in Luanda and, after their supplies arrived, move inland along the Kwanza river. The band then went by foot to Malanje in 1885. [11] There they learned the native Kimbundu language [12] and established an orphanage at Quéssua. [13] Soon after, in 1889, a Portuguese company began building a railway along the river. [14]
When Taylor retired in 1896, the church took over the missions and regularized their operations. [15] Quéssua expanded to include a hospital, boarding school, and seminary to train future leaders of the colony. [16] By 1954, the Angolan church had 34 missionaries, 98 native pastors, and 20,567 members. [17]
This was not the time Blake learned some version of “Come by Here.” His family says “he had no particular interest in folk songs.” He organized a men’s chorus that “sang traditional religious music from the hymnal Divulu dia Mimbu and did not sing Angolan folk songs or any other folk songs as far as we can remember.” [18]
The Hinário Evangélico was published in 1950 by an anonymous committee as “an attempt to collect the hymns in Kimbundu that previously appeared in the two editions of ‘Divulu DIA Mimbu’ and in ‘Barraca’, and some recently translated. Many of the Portuguese hymns have been extracted from the book ‘Hymns and Songs’, and some from ‘Christian Singer’. The rest are old and favorite hymns which have been published in several hymnals since 1906.” [19]
The Portuguese lyrics came from hymnals published in Brazil. Hinos e Cânticos was introduced by the Plymouth Brethren in 1876 by Robert Holden. Stuart Edmund McNair and George Howes expanded it to 205 hymns in 1898, and McNair printed a version with music in 1939. [20] Salomão Luiz Ginsburg released the first edition Cantor Cristão in 1891. A larger version with music was issued by Ricardo Pitrowsky in 1924. [21]
The Methodist contributions came from three men. George Nind, who spent time in Madeira, [22] edited a hymnal [23] for the Portuguese immigrant community in New Bedford, Massachusetts, [24] in 1906. John Christman Wengatz served in Angola from 1910 to 1931. In addition to his poetry, his wife, Susan Talbott Wengatz, translated more than fifty songs into Kimbundu before her death in 1929. [25]
The most important work was done by Herbert Withey. His parents had joined Taylor’s expedition when he was twelve years old. [26] He translated hymns into Kimbundu in 1901, [27] and was working on the New Testament when Portugal decreed all mission education be done in Portuguese in 1921. He told Ralph Dodge he ignored the order because Kimbundu “is the language which reaches their hearts, and we do not hesitate to predict that it will continue to be used, and hold its own, long after all the present day actors will have passed away.” [28]
Signatories of the 1885 Treaty of Berlin insisted Portugal allow Protestant missionaries into its colonies; they could not force the colony to welcome them. [29] Colonial authorities were constantly watching for acts of defiance like that of Withey’s. [30]
A hymnal published in 1950 had to pass rigid standards, often monitored by Roman Catholic priests. It was as bilingual as possible, with Portuguese and Kimbundu versions of facing pages, or equivalent texts when dual translations didn’t exist. [31] Following the lead of Cantor Cristão, it was divided into three major sections. [32] The first, labeled “Worship and Praise” began with the familiar and very safe Doxology and Gloria Patri. The next group of hymns were related to the trinity, and the final was the usual miscellany found in any church book: the ones for special occasions and for the young.
The book probably was not intended to be widely distributed: most Methodist converts, even at Quéssua, probably couldn’t read both languages. Instead, it likely was intended for song leaders who could teach the lyrics, and use familiar tunes or those indicated in the headings. In many ways, it was like the early hymnals produced in this country for the same technical and sociological reasons. [33]
In December 1955, Blake was transferred to a plantation near Mufuque, [34] where Dodge had become active 1948. [35] Angola had changed since Taylor’s arrival. After a military coup in Portugal in 1926, [36] the colonies were reordered as suppliers of basic goods in 1930. [37] The watershed between the coast and Congo basin, including Mufuque, grew coffee, while the highlands around Quéssua raised cotton.
The native population was turned into a labor pool controlled by the colony, with work requirements enforced by taxes. [38] Families and villages sent young men to Luanda for short periods to earn cash to pay taxes. When Dodge arrived in the capital in 1936, he discovered Methodist converts had developed their own centers that evangelized new arrivals. Some were from the Dembo sub-group of Kimbundu speakers, [39] who asked him to send them a missionary. [40] Blake’s arrival made it possible for Dodge to move to Mufuque. [41]
Graphics
1. Base map: Inisheer. “Angola Ethnic Groups.” Wikimedia Commons. 9 September 2006. Based on a map in the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas. The Kimbundu live in the yellow area, and the Bakongo in the dark green. All locations are approximate.
2. Photographs of Blake appear on the Photos K tab, with the post for 28 February 2021, and with the version of the Voices article uploaded to the Academia.edu website.
End Notes
World Outlook was published by The Methodist Church, Board of Mission.
1. Ralph Dodge graduated from Taylor in 1931. He remembered “the conservative theological position at Taylor with its emphasis upon personal salvation differed from the more liberal theology at Boston. I wanted to know the Scriptural and theological basis for the strong emphasis upon the social application of the Gospel following the Walter Rauschenbusch tradition.” [42]
2. “Charles Melvin Blake.” Obituary. The New York Times. 21 March 2011.
3. “Blake, C Melvin.” Obituary. United Methodist Church, Indiana Annual Conference. Official Journal. 2011. 251. “Melvin served in ministry at Flanders/Calverton, Arena/Union Grove/Pleasant, South Milford.” The map that appeared in the post for 28 February 2021 has the locations of South Milford and Epworth Forest.
4. William B. Freeland. Epworth Forest. 1949. 1–51 in Freeland and Orrin Manifold. Epworth Forest: The First Fifty Years. Winona Lake, Indiana: Light and Life Press, 1974. 49. Chance is discussed in the post for 21 March 2021.
5. “C. M. Blake to Be Africa Secretary.” World Outlook. March 1957. 49, 51. He and his wife were accepted in 1946.
6. The Kennedy School was named for John Stewart Kennedy, husband of Emma Baker Kennedy. It then was separate from the Hartford Seminary where May Titus was educated. [43] The two institutions merged into the Hartford Seminary Foundation in 1961. [44]
7. “Forty-nine Commissioned Missionaries, Deaconesses.” World Outlook. December 1947. 44. The women wore white dresses for the ceremony.
8. Blake, New York Times obituary.
9. One of his sons recalls: “As a child, it was all a blur to me--but I knew that he worked very hard and at all hours, including weekends and evenings. He was often under great stress, especially because he felt the weight of having so many people depending on him. When I asked him in later years why he didn’t just stop working at 5 PM and let the rest go, he said that if he did that people would suffer--projects would not get funded, kids would not get scholarships, problems would go unresolved and continue to fester.” [45]
10. C. Melvin Blake. “New Frontiers for the Missionary.” World Outlook. May 1959. 8–11. I don’t know how much of his mother’s family’s history he knew when he wrote “It was not easy on the frontiers, and those pioneers, courageous enough to strike out into the unknown, have become national heroes.” [page 8] His immigrant ancestor and most of his family were slaughtered by Indians in Virginia in 1764. [46]
11. William Taylor. William Taylor of California, Bishop of Africa: An Autobiography. Revised by C. G. Moore. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897. 390.
12. Taylor. 391.
13. Dorothy McConnell. Along the African Path. New York: Methodist Church, Board of Missions, 1952. 30. The spelling of Angolan names has changed since independence, with the “K” replacing the “Q” and hard “C.” I’m using the name used in the 1950s for the mission, since it is different from the modern day Keswa.
14. Wikipedia. “Luanda Railway.”
15. David Birmingham. “Merchants and Missionaries in Angola.” Lusotopie 5:345–355:1998. 350.
16. “Quessua Methodist Mission Station — Angola.” United Methodist Church, Yellowstone Conference website. 3 October 2014.
17. Board of Missions of The Methodist Church. “The World Parish—Overseas Missions Summary.” World Outlook. March 1954. 13.
18. Paul Blake. Email. 16 October 2020. As was mentioned in the post for 16 August 2020, the use of vernacular music in services did not begin until the Vatican pronouncements in 1964 that set off attempts to create new liturgical forms. Until then, any attempt to diverge from the official Portuguese policy of assimilation would have brought retribution.
19. Hinário Divulu Dia Mumbu. Edited by O Comité de Música da Igreja de Cristo em Angola (Ramo Metodista). Luanda, Angola: Missão Evangélica, 1959 edition. Preface to 1950 edition; translated by Google.
20. Portuguese Wikipedia. “Hinos e Cânticos.” The Brethren in Argentina and the founder of the Plymouth Brethren, John Nelson Darby, are discussed in the post for 25 December 2017.
21. Joaquim Júnior. “Cantor Cristão (CC).” Hinologia website. Baptists activities are described in the post for 28 October 2018.
22. “Portuguese Work.” Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Annual Report for 1906. New York: Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1907. 62.
23. Hymnario da Egreja Methodista Episcopal. Compiled by George B. Nind. New York: Eaton and Mains, 1906. [47] This work was directed by Joseph Crane Hartzell, the man who succeeded Taylor as bishop for Africa. [48]
24. “New England Southern Conference.” Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Annual Report for 1899. New York: 1900. 310.
25. Evan Smith and Mark C. Shenise. “Guide to the John Christman Wengatz Slides.” The United Methodist Church archives website. Wengatz remarried and served again in Angola between 1949 and 1951.
26. “Guide to the Herbert Cookman Withey Papers.” The United Methodist Church archives website.
27. Herbert Cookman Withey. Mimbu in Kimbundu. New York: 1901. [49]
28. Samuel Dzobo. “Toward a New Church in a New Africa: A Biographical Study of Bishop Ralph Edward Dodge 1907 – 2008.” PhD dissertation. Asbury Theological Seminary, April 2017. 46.
29. Dzobo. 60. As discussed in the post for 23 November 2017, European powers met in Berlin in 1884 and 1885 to define their spheres of influence. The resulting map appears in the rightmost column toward the bottom.
30. Thomas Collelo. “Angola a Country Study.” United States, Department of the Army. February 1989, third edition, 1991. 22. In the 1950s, “the authoritarian Salazar regime frequently used African informants to ferret out signs of political dissidence. Censorship, border control, police action, and control of education all retarded the development of African leadership. Africans studying in Portugal — and therefore exposed to ‘progressive’ ideas — were sometimes prevented from returning home.” According to Dodge, Methodists passed on the tale of “a young Methodist Missionary who had written a letter to his mother in the Dakotas, mildly criticizing the labor conditions in Angola. He was given three days to leave the country, never to return.” [50]
31. Preface, Hinário Divulu Dia Mumbu.
32. Portuguese Wiki Source. “Cantor Cristão.”
33. As mentioned in the post for 23 August 2017, early English Protestants treated texts and tunes as separate items which could be combined by the song leader. When money became available to support the publication of hymnals, only the text was published. Until improvements in lithography in the 1840s, [51] it was too expensive to reproduce music. Then, it was necessary to teach individuals to read music as it was represented by western conventions.
34. Paul Blake. Email. 30 November 2020.
35. Dzobo. 113.
36. Collelo. 20. António de Oliveira Salazar became prime minister in 1932.
37. Collelo. 20. The Colonial Act of 1930.
38. Collelo. 22. “Male indigenas were required to pay a head tax. If they could not raise the money, they were obligated to work for the government for half of each year without wages.”
39. Before the Portuguese, the Congo basin had not developed the kinds of centralized power structures that appeared along trans-Saharan trade routes. Kingdoms arose in response to the Europeans. Smaller groups became affiliated but not assimilated. The lack of hegemony is one reason I refer to groups like the Bakongo and Ovimbundu by ethnic-group names, but refer to Methodist converts as Kimbundu speakers. The Dembo have been described as a clan of the Mbundu [52], and a conservative community within the Mbundu. [53]
40. Dzobo. 54–55.
41. Dzobo. 113–114.
42. Dzobo. 94.
43. Titus is mentioned in the posts for 1 November 2020 and 4 November 2020.
44. “Our History.” Hartford Seminary Foundation website.
45. Paul Blake, 30 November 2020.
46. Audrey. “Rev John Hans Roads.” Find a Grave website. 24 May 2007; last updated by ; ). They are mentioned in the post for 28 February 2021.
47. WorldCat entry.
48. Wikipedia. “Joseph Crane Hartzell.”
49. “Catalogue of Linguistic Works in the Library of the African Society, Part II.” Journal of the African Society 7:410–429:1906. 416. The WorldCat entry is Kimbundu Hymns. New York: Eaton and Mains, 1901.
50. Ralph E. Dodge. The Revolutionary Bishop Who Saw God at Work in Africa. Pasadena, California: William Carey, 1986. 72. Quotation from Dzobo. 94.
51. “Background of Music Publishing in the United States.” Duke University, library website.
52. “Kimbundu.” Pamphlet available on Indiana University, National African Language Resource Center website.
53. “Mbundu.” Encyclopædia Britannica website. 20 July 1998; revised by Elizabeth Prine Pauls on 9 February 2007; last updated by Kokila Manchanda on 15 February 2007. “The Mbundu include many acculturated persons in the Luanda area as well as the staunchly conservative Dembo (Ndembo) of the interior.”
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