A.D. Wenger writes about Europe

Earlier this month I blogged about my new book (110 years old), Six months in Bible Lands by A. D. Wenger. Wengers are in my family tree, but I think he's a different branch--Christian Wenger, and I'm descended from Hans and Hannah. I've finished it now, and thoroughly enjoyed reliving the many places we visited this spring on our "Steps of Paul" tour. I have some more notes on this book at my other, other blog just in case you've been following that story. He was a premillenialist, Mennonite pacifist evangelist, so all his writing has that filter.

Brother Wenger finds medical care 110 years ago

A.D. (Amos Daniel) Wenger's 14 month trip around the world, with "Six months in Bible Lands," the title of his 1902 book has been a fascinating read. A widowed Mennonite evangelist and teacher, he relates everything he sees to scripture, theology, and modern (19th century) times. He must have been in extremely good condition, because although there was good train service in those days, probably better than today, for any distance they used a carriage, donkey, or went on foot. He believed in nonresistance, so wouldn't arm himself or hire armed guides. And it was very dangerous territory with many robberies and assaults. Sometimes he appears to be traveling alone except for his guides, other times he mentions people he meets--Europeans and Americans, some with children--and they go in groups. Since about 3/4 of our group got sick in March 2009, I did wonder about their medical care. On p. 332 he mentions it, and develops a sermon of sorts:

"Thinking there was a bug in my left ear I crossed the valley to the English Ophthalmic Hospital a short distance southwest of Jerusalem. The examination revealed the fact that I had taken a severe cold.

At this hospital as well as at several others in the city a great many persons are treated for diseases of the eye. In our country the proportion of blind is only about one in a thousand while in Palestin and Egypt there is one to every hundred. It seems to me that the dust, the rapid changes of temperature between day and night and the glare of the brilliant sun from the white limestone rocks and stones in all parts of the country have something to do with causing eye diseases and blindness; but the chief cause of the spread of eye disease is very likely through the medium of flies. Apparently, mothers never brush the pests from the faces of their babies and it is quite common to see the flies clinging in half dozens round the eyes of the children. Mothrs allow this when the babes are yet helpless in order to keep off the "evil eye." Thus the children become habituated to it in infance and do not resent it when they grow older. The diseases are spread by the insects carrying infection on their feet from one child to another. . .

Blindness is mentioned so many times in the Scriptures that we must conclude it was very prevalent in Bible times, especially in the time of Christ. (notes John 5:3, Luke 7:21) Everyone who will not see it to his best interests to prepare for a home in glory is awfully blind, but the case is not beyond the healing power of the great Physician, whenever employed..."

Here he notes a visit to some German colonists living near the hospital, members of a religious order called Templars, who do not believe in Jesus Christ, although they give him honor. He is grieved that some Mennonites from Germany and Russia have united with them, and tries to turn them from their error. From there he visits a leper's hospital built and maintained by the Moravians. He describes their hideous conditions, limbs rotting, and body sores. He thinks if marriage could be prevented the disease would be reduced, but many lepers refused to live at the hospital and preferred to beg on the streets, where their pitiful condition could support several people. Again, A.D. quotes the appropriate passages about lepers.

"Leprosy is a most striking type of the more deadly leprosy of sin. Often the children of leprous parents are just as pretty and as healthy looking as other children, but by and by some of the signs indicated in the 13th chapter of Leviticus make their appearance. There is no escape from it, every child born of such parents must fall a victime to the dread disease. It is just so with sin. . . The Lord alone can heal the leprosy of the soul. He who cleansed the leper with a word can forgive sin and save the soul. All are invited to come and be healed of the leprosy that eats as doth a canker and mars the beauty and loveliness of the soul." (p. 337-8)

As I noted before, I have been impressed with his readability--and he can even spell ophthalmic, one of the few words in English that has the "phth" and is even misspelled in medical journals! He's a lot easier to read than William Dean Howells, a prominent 19th century American writer just a few years his senior.

Brother Wenger explains how to bargain in the Middle East

6 months in Bible Lands

A.D. Wenger grows wiser by experience as the Mennonite evangelist travels through the middle east. He has several close calls, but always maintains his dignity and nonresistant stance, but not always his money. Everything he writes about is analyzed either from the teachings of Jesus, or stories from the Old Testament. When Abraham sought a suitable burial site for his wife Sarah, A.D. explains how it is done even thousands of years later. It made me remember our encounter with the camel jockey in Egypt who stole our 50 euros (I grabbed it back).

"To one who has witnessed how how bargains are now made in Palestine, it is exceedingly interesting to read the 23rd chapter of Genesis and observe the manner of the bargain when Abraham bought the Cave of Machpelah.

Whenever you wish to buy anything and ask the price of the article the owner first praises you. He calls you master, lord, prince and other like names and says that he is your servant and will gladly give you anything in his possession. If you want to buy a piece of goods worth fifty dollars he will tell you just to take it, he will charge you nothing. Even the carriage drivers will do likewise and offer to take you anywhere for othing and with the greatest of pleasure.

All this is a mere form of words preliminary to a sharp bargain. (Reminds me of our Congress.) The merchant would soon stop you if you should start away with his goods. The carriage driver would take you, but would charge you 3 or 4 prices afterward. Every time the price should be fixed beforehand. Finally you succeed in getting a price named which he will claim is so low that he is almost giving you the goods or hauling you for nothing as the case may be, but in reality is from two to five times the actual worth. The purchaser begins by offering a very small sum and then raises the offer as the dealer lowers the price. After much time and many words have been wasted they finish the bargain."

He goes on (p. 317) to explain how Abraham bought the cave from Ephron the Hittite. Abraham did not drive a hard bargain Brother A.D. says because he was in deep sorrow, but the price was agreed upon before burial.

Traveling the Holy Land with AD Wenger

As I noted 2 weeks ago, I bought a book recently for ten cents, “Six months in Bible Lands” by Amos Daniel Wenger (doesn't seem to be one of "my" Wengers), an account of his 14 months traveling through Europe, the Holy Land, and Asia in 1899-1900. Because we were on a “Steps of Paul” tour in March 2009, in Ireland and Italy in 2007 and 2008, in Finland and Russia in 2006, and Germany and Austria in 2005, many of his stops and descriptions whether of cathedrals in Europe or the waters of the Jordan are quite vivid, even though he experienced them 110 years ago.

My questions to AD and travelers of the 1890s are quite practical: first of all toilets, then shoes, clothing, traveling companions, arrangements for money and translators, food, medical care, suitcases, etc. But just as we know that there used to be a two-story outhouse attached to the hotel here at Lakeside (for men only) a hundred years ago, there is no photo of it in existence, because those necessities were just a way of life, and usually not recorded in guide books. So we are left to wonder what the women used, or who were the poor servant staff who emptied chamber pots from the hotel rooms of 19th century Methodists.

In our diversity-obsessed and PC academic culture, some academics or liberal Christians might find his descriptions of the people he meets and cultures he experiences “ethnocentric” or “xenophobic,” but I found his honesty and true compassion and love quite refreshing. When he sees a fierce, dark skinned, armed Bedouin he mentions his fear, but also is firm in his unwillingness to arm himself or even travel with an armed guard, because he is a “nonresistant” Mennonite. He thinks that nonresistant missionaries (I don’t think he uses the word pacifist) who hire armed guards are hypocrites. When he sees women doing the work of pack animals, he mentions how much better off and respected are women in America. When he observes lascivious, drunk women on the train in France, he makes note. When he compares the differences among the Turks (area was controlled by the Ottoman Empire), the Arabs, the native Palestinian tribes, Druses, native Christian groups, Palestinian Jews, European Jews and various European and American travelers either guides or missionaries who live and work there, it is with the eye of a Christian, American Mennonite evangelist who believes the living water of the gospel of Jesus more important than digging a local well for fresh water and moving on. And he is quite distressed and saves his harshest words for squabbling Christian sects.

He observes the irony and pain, as did we, of the various Christian sects--Armenians, Greeks, Roman Catholics and others--sharing worship space in churches build over holy places, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcre, and the Church of the nativity in Bethlehem. These places then and now are controlled by Moslems, and they, not the Christians who squabble and refuse to worship together, keep the peace. When AD was at these sites, he was told of killings and fightings among the Christians going back to the times of the Crusades, and he grieves that this is such a poor witness to both Jews and Moslems. I'm sure the Mennonites' squabbles back home over whether to use a pulpit or table, or whether Sunday Schools are an evil concession to the larger culture, paled by comparison, because he never mentions them.

His experience inside these holy shrines sounds very similar to ours. For instance, in Bethlehem:

“We went beneath the floor of the church into a chamber in the natural rock. A silver star is pointed out as the place of the birth, and a stone manger is shown, but it seems painful to see it all so changed and embellished by the hands of idolizing sects. It seems more painful however that the Christianity of the land has so degenerated since the Pentecostal shower of heavenly grace that Mohammedan soldiers must be kept on the spot to keep peace among the Christians--to keep even priests from flying at each other’s throats.” (p. 122)

Of course, you don’t have to read far into Paul’s letters to the New Testament churches to see the first thing Christians did was to start creating factions and disagreements, even in the first century. There is a 2,000 year history of squabbling over baptism, food, times of worship, end times prophecies, which holy days to observe, whether to marry or tarry, etc. And dear brother Wenger spends more than a few pages showing his readers why the Mennonites have the proper way to use water in baptism, using Scripture, archeology and his own observations.

Six months in Bible Lands by A.D. Wenger

This is one of the titles in my bag of books ($1.00) from the Women Club's Sunday. Because we recently returned from "Bible lands" I picked it up. What fun to read, and I'm still in Europe. He actually traveled for 14 months in 1899 and 1900.

Wengers are in my family tree, so I first looked up Amos Daniel Wenger on the internet, and learned through a genealogy that he is a descendant of Christian Wenger, not Hans and Hannah Wenger, my guys. Although it's not mentioned in the book, I learned that his wife of one year had died in 1898 and in January 1899 he began this around-the-world trip returning in 1900, to recover from his grief. He edited his notes with research about the areas, and published the book in 1902 (by then he had remarried and eventually had 8 children).

Today I was reading about his visit to the Cologne Cathedral. The amazing sites in Europe didn't impress him, although he mentioned them. As a Mennonite, he held to their basic values of the simple life and care for the poor and less fortunate. In England he notes the vast gap between the rich and poor in London; in Paris he is appalled by the promiscuity and fast life; in Holland (homeland of Menno Simons from whom they take their name) he is very disappointed by the Mennonite leaders he found who had been influenced by higher criticism and were living a very different life culture than those in the U.S. I know I'm making him sound like a crank, but his observations actually sound very fresh, 110 years later!

He relates the legend of the architect of Cologne Cathedral, and why no one knows his name. This gave me a chuckle because I'm researching homes here in Lakeside and no one here knows the names of the architects, builders or stone masons of 100 or 50 years ago.

"Just put your signature to this little bond," said the devil, "and the plan is yours." "Sign!" insisted satan.

When the bond was signed satan said: "Now, Mr. Architect, I have made a fair contract with you. You have sold your soul for fame,--a bauble, a worthless fancy, an immaterial substance. You are not the first fool, albeit, who has made such a barter; hell is lathed and plastered with the souls of ambitious idiots like you. Go, present your plan to the bishop; he will accept it and you will be famous."

Wenger says his name was carved on a stone that was worked in the wall. The building took from 1248 to 1880 to complete.

When I looked the legend up in Google, I found every version is different, but always the architect was frustrated with coming up with a good design, so he sold his soul to the devil! In one version, he has a church relic to fight Satan, who then declared that his punishment for going back on the agreement is to remain an unknown. In a Frank Leslie Monthly version, the grieving architect fearing hell wanders into the mountains where he meets a hermit priest who absolves him, but he has to choose between his soul and fame, so he chooses his soul.

This is a lot of book for ten cents. According to a description on the internet that matches the one in my hand (it's in very good condition), it's worth about $14.00.