Jacob Vonbrunn
This estimable brother is one of the missionaries of the
Board, and is located at Vonbrunnville, among the Bassas, on the
coast of Africa. He is a native Bassa, the son of one of the kings of
the country. When quite a youth, in one of the wars which have
swept with desolating power in that land, he was taken prisoner,
and removed far away from his home, remaining for a long time a
captive. He was at length redeemed and restored to his father.
Shortly after the colony of Liberia was commenced, this youth,
obtaining pennission of his father, went to Monrovia and placed
himself under the care of a missionary. Afterwards he proceeded
to Sierra Leone, where his advantages of education were superior;
and, under the care of a church missionary, he rapidly improved in
the acquisition of useful knowledge. Here he seems to have been
brought under the power of Divine truth, and joined the
Establishment as a Christian teacher.
After a few years he returned to Bassa. A writer in the
Liberia Herald thus notices his return to the home of his youth:
After remaining a few years in this important situation, he
became anxiously concerned about the civilization and Christianizing of
his father, and his people, and for that purpose he visited Bassa, his
native place, sometime in the year 1844, finding his father alive, we can
only imagine the joy of their meeting. The old king, indeed, was truly
delighted to see the good effects of religion in his beloved son, whose
eventful life had caused even that heathen father to notice some things
peculiar in the character of the boy, who, as he advanced in life, became
the favorite of his father, and now that he had returned to him in his old
age, not now the heathen boy, but the Christian man and teacher, his
attachment increased in proportion to the worth of his beloved son. This
gave the young Christian a decided advantage in bringing his heathen
parent to believe in the Christian's God, and he wrought so effectually
upon the old man, that he desired him to return speedily to Sierra Leone,
and bring his family, and come and live amongst them, and instruct him
and his people in the knowledge of the ever blessed God. And with the
solicitation of his father he forced himself away from his charge in Sierra
Leone, in the same year, and went to live in his father's dominions, and
became preacher and teacher to him and his people. Surely the hand of
the Lord must be seen in all this.
Having been thrown into association with Baptist
missionaries, who had commenced their work among the Bassas,
he was convinced of the duty of believers' baptism, after a careful