# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1896_S26 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 26 The Lutheran Pioneer. Opening up Africa. How strangely, yet how rapidly God has opened the doors of Africa. Only a few years ago, the map of the vast district in the interior was marked “‘unexplored.’’ Little was known of the country, except its 6000 miles of sea- coast and its great desert, and that narrow border of country which lay next the ocean or lined the Nile. The heroic Livingstone, entering from the south, seeking to know something of the unknown, and open a path for the missionary, died of fever, amid the swamps of Lake Bangueolo, in 1873. His death set in motion many agencies for the evangelization of Africa, and among them all none is to be more emphasized than his influence onStanley. H. Stanley says, ‘What has been wanted and what I have been endeay- oring to ask for the poor Africans has been the good offices of Christians eyer since Livingstone taught me during those four months that I was with him. In 1871, I went to him as prejudiced as the biggest athe- .istin London. But there came for me a long time for re- flection. I was out there, away from a worldly world. I saw this old man there, and asked myself, ‘How on earth does he stay here? Is he insane? What is it that inspires him?’ “For months after we met, I simply found myself listening to him, wondering at the old man carrying out all that was said in the Bible, ‘Leave all things and follow Me.’ But little by little his sympathy for others became ‘contagious; my sympathy was aroused; sec- ing his piety, his gentleness, his zeal, his earnestness, and how he went quietly about his business, I was converted by him.” No sooner had Livingstone’s death become known, than Stanley determined to become his successor in opening up Africa to civilization. Entering at Zanzibar in 1874, he emerged at the month of the Congo in 1877, and the _ greatest step in the exploration of equatorial Africa was thus taken. The next ship that sailed from England after hearing this news bore missionaries. They began to plant sta- tions from the Congo’s mouth to the Equator, vell as about-the great lakes of the East. this is a wide door of opportunity, what shall be said of the obligation? In Stanley’s journey of seven thousand miles, from Zan- zibar to the mouth of the Congo, he saw neither a Christian disciple nor a man who had ever even heard the Gospel message. —s +o oe Curing Sick Children. Not far from my house in Sivas, Turkey, writes a missionary, was the tomb of some reputed holy man, and on pleasant days I have seen quite a procession of Oriental women, wrapped in sheets, carrying babes or leading little children who could walk, passing round and round his tomb. Some of the infants PLOWING IN INDIA. were very feeble, and the other children were often lame and deformed. It was a pitiable sight, these mothers with their sick little ones, seeking to cure them at the dead saint’s shrine. The path was worn hard by their constant coming. “Do the children get better??? we asked one day. **Inshallah!’’? (By God’s grace) was the characteristic answer. ‘Do they all find a cure?’’ “Some are left too long before they are brought. Some are fated to die!”’ As a matter of fact, the children who had no incurable disease were often benefited by the daily walk in the open air. The tomb was just by the city’s limits, and beyond lay the open fields and the mountains. The old saint’s dust received credit for the health-giving power of fresh air and mountain breezes! One day I saw by the roadside a large, thorny bush. It was thickly hung with rags of every imaginable color. The older mis- sionary, who was riding with me, explained: ‘Some pilgrim once rested in that bush, and, departing, hung on it a strip of his garment. Now many who pass leave a like token, that they may share in the benefit of the pilgrim’s prayers.’’ Just then a traveler paused at the curiously decorated bush, and bowed for a moment in silent prayer. ‘‘He is praying,’’ I said, ‘‘for those who have left these strips of their garments to re- quest those who pass to remember the wearers. That bush is a call for us to pray for the sick, burdened, superstitious, but pleading, multi- tudes who pass along this road !’’ Such silent calls everywhere witness to the need of men, and to their blind search for a source of help. — << He saved his Bible. Those who go away from home on their summer . vacations and leave their Bible behind may find a helpful lesson in the following. The steamer Scotia, it is said, once picked up a dozen shipwrecked sailors in mid-ocean, among them a boy twelve years old. ‘‘Who are you?” said the captain. The answer was, “I’m a Scotch boy. My father and my mother are dead, and I am on my way to America.” ‘What have you here?’ said the captain as he opened the boys jacket and took hold of a rope around the boy’s body. “It’s a rope,” said the boy. “But what is that tied by this rope under your arm?’ “That, sir, is my mother’s Bible. She told me never to lose that.’’ ‘Could you not have saved something else?” “Not and save that.’’ “Did you expect to drown?’’ “Yes, sir; but I meant to take my Bible down with me.” << 0