Great Old Clippings

The National Library in Stockholm has recently made it possible to search old newspapers online. This is a great service as it is far easier and less time consuming to sit at home doing resarch, than at the library. (Though I truly love sitting in libraries and find the atmosphere to be most inspiring at the National Library in particular. It is a beautiful library from 1887).

But it is more comfortable and effective to be able to quickly look up a name and a year through the search engine, than have to save it all for one day when one has time to go there.

Today, I decided to have another go at looking for articles about my great grandfather Robert and his doings. I have done this search a few times at the library and thought I had found most of the clippings about him, so I was surprised to find this gem from 122 years ago. It has even got a drawed portrait of him, and gives us some insight into how devoted he was to his work.

Svenska Morgonbladet, 20th of April 1902.

Transcription of the above article
“Missionary R. Bergling.
As we have announced recently, several missionaries belonging to the Swedish Mission in China have departed for the mission field. Among them was also missionary Robert Bergling, who should be well known especially within religious circles in the capital, due to the diligent work he has carried out in the service of the gospel during his visit to the homeland, especially in Hagalund near Stockholm.

With warm interest, missionary Bergling took upon himself during his stay in the homeland to care for the neglected and downtrodden among the population in the mentioned community, providing them, as far as he could, with both physical and spiritual assistance. There are certainly many who remember him with gratitude and appreciation and who now wish him good luck on his journey back to his former field of activity.

Missionary Bergling first arrived in China in December 1892 and has since worked in the Swedish Mission in China’s field until 1899. He has been stationed at the mission station in Hancheng and has had a demanding and laborious but also fruitful activity there. In a letter to Sinims Land a few months before the outbreak of unrest, missionary Bergling wrote: “From our neighboring station in Kiancheo, complaints are made that everything there is so dead and cold. No guests come to visit during the week and very few, if any, on Sundays. Thank God we don’t have to bring this complaint in Hangcheng. My constant concern is how I will manage everything and everyone. The souls entrusted to me by the Lord are scattered in four districts: Hancheng, Uantsuen, Hotsin, and Iongho. A male missionary for each of these four places, not to mention the need for female missionaries, would be the very least required. Three or four individuals for each place would not be too much. And now I am left alone with everything. Oh my God, I sigh again and again, why are there no helpers coming? During my travels, I often think: As soon as I get home, I will write and inform friends at home of my feelings as well as the immense need that prevails, but I don’t get through the work awaiting me until I have to go out again. In this way, months and years disappear. You may wonder why I rarely write, but here you see the reason.”

It is not surprising that one who has once seen the great need in heathen lands, against which the condition in the homeland is infinitely better, cannot but return there! For where the need is greatest and most universal, where the need for Christian workers is most urgent, there they should also hurry, knowing themselves to be called by God.”

The article is signed “F.B. Meyer”. Curious as to who this could be, I searched for him online and found out that there was an F.B. Meyer, who was a well respected pastor at the time.

F.B. Meyer was a well known pastor, even in Sweden, with many of his books translated into Swedish. In 1900 he came for one of his visits to Stockholm. “Svenska Morgonbaldet” printed an article about him, with a drawed portrait.

On the “Specs fine books“-site, I found a letter från F.B. Meyer to a woman who was accepted to the China Inland Mission in 1898. In the letter, Meyer mentions Miss Soltau, a woman who offered missionary training at C.I.M in London, and who both Robert and Dagny got to know as they spent time in London before they left for China in the early 1890’s. Dagny trained at Miss Soltau’s, and Olga stayed with her as well in 1905. The connection between my great grandparents and Miss Soltau makes me think that it could be the very same F.B. Meyer who wrote about Robert. They had probably met in London, as the missionary community was very close knit and C.I.M London was a place where everybody came together, no matter what missionary society they belonged to.

I am not entirely sure that F.B. Meyer wrote the article about Robert though, as the short passage at the end of the article, under which F.B. Meyer’s name stands, has the heading “Obedience” and talks about bible texts referring to listening to God’s word. F.B. Meyer was a man who wrote a lot about the Bible and who wrote around 50 books on Christian themes. I found several articles by him in the Svenska Morgonbladet and he was not a stranger to Scandinavia in terms of holding lectures or such over here. Even though it’s possible that the main article was written by an unknown author, I find the fact that F.B. Meyer mentions Miss Soltau in a letter, and my great grandparents’ friendship with this same Miss Soltau to be a plausible explanation as to why F.B. Meyer could have written about Robert. Meyer was also very passionate about the mission in China.

Miss Soltau was also a well-known figure within the missionary movement at the time. Missionaries from all over Europe came to London before continuing on to China, and underwent Miss Soltau’s “missionary training” at the China Inland Mission. Both my great grandmothers – Olga and Dagny – trained with her.

Article describing Soltau’s visit to Sweden. Sinims Land, 1913.

I found another clipping from the 1st of March 1913, where Miss Soltau is mentioned. Here, it is described how she and an English missionary – Miss J. Gregg – visited the Swedish Mission in China in Stockholm. At the time, the article says that Miss Soltau had worked with educating missionaries for 23 years and that she, during those years had trained not less than 39 female missionaries from the Swedish Mission. In Stockholm, she held very popular lectures about her experiences.

Searching the papers from1913 I also found an ad, inviting everyone to come listen to Miss Gregg and Miss Soltau in Stockholm. Of course, they had an interpreter with them.

Stockholmstidningen 1913-02-15

On Wikipedia, one can read that Miss Soltau had first set up a home for missionary children in Tottenham. She was dedicated to the China Inland Mission in many ways.

In the digital archive, I found another article from 1907, describing the schedule at the training centre. It’s quite interesting to imagine my great grandparents’ life at Miss Soltau’s in London. But I will save that for another blog post 🙂

For now, I am simply very grateful for finding so many clippings in these old newspapers, that help med piece together the puzzle of my great grandparents’ lives, adding the dimension of their friendships with the religious figures of the time to the mix.

Photo of Henrietta Soltau, from the book “A Woman who Laughed”, written about her life in 1934.