Egedé

Egedé, HANS, the apostle of Greenland, was born in Norway in 1686, studied theology in Copenhagen, and was appointed pastor of Vagen in Norway in 1707. Having determined to proceed to Greenland to convert the natives, he resigned his curé in 1717, and four years later, after a preliminary study of the language, embarked for Greenland, with his wife, two sons, and some companions, in all forty-six persons. He remained fifteen years in Greenland, during which time he laboured zealously among the people, and by his preaching and teaching secured a permanent footing there for the Christian mission, which owed its origin to him. Latterly some Moravian missionaries invaded his province, with whom Egede failed to agree. The death of his devoted wife, Gertrude Rask, in 1736 drove him from Greenland, but at Copenhagen he was busy promoting the cause of the Greenland mission, of which in 1740 he became superintendent or bishop. He died 5th November 1758. He has described the course and success of his labours in Det gamle Grønland's nye Perlustration (Copenhagen, 1729 and 1741).—His son, POVEL EGEDE, born in Norway in 1708, succeeded his father in Greenland, and, as bishop, completed in 1766 the translation of the New Testament into the language of Greenland begun by his father, and prepared also a catechism (1756) and a prayer-book (1783) in the same tongue. He died at Copenhagen in 1789.