# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1896_S40 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 40) The Lutheran Pioneer. The Outlook from the Editor’s Window. —Os the 18th and 14th of September our Lutheran Seminary at Springfield, IIl., cele- brated the fiftieth anniversary of its founda- tion. Thousands of Lutherans assembled and gave thanks to God for the great blessing be- stowed upon the church through the work of our Seminary. On the second day there was a reunion of the alumni of the institution, which was attended by a large number of clergymen from different parts of the country, and which The speak- ers gave interesting accounts of the work of May God con- was a decidedly pleasant affair. the Seminary by decades. tinue to bless Concordia Seminary ! —A CORRESPONDENT of the New York Ob- ? server claims that since the introduction of the International system of lessons into the Sun- day schools of the land, the memorizing of the Scripture by the scholars has very largely gone out of practice. In the days when the catechism was more generally taught, nearly all scholars were urged to memorize the entire r Scripture lesson of the day—a practice of 5 which many now in middle life, whose minds are treasure houses of Bible thoughts and phrases, have felt the benefit. In some char- itable institutions, the memorization of the Scriptures is still an important part of each day’s drill. To put the Bible into the mind is the first step toward putting it into the heart and life. —Iws the year of 1842, which is indelibly imprinted in Chinese memory as the time of | the disgraceful ‘‘Opium War’’ with England, t there were only six native Christians in all t China; in 1853 not more than 350; in 1864 f there were 2000, and in 1890 already 37,300 | communicant members of 522 congregations, 94 of which had become self-supporting. The : number of ordained missionaries was 589; of t single female white helpers, 316; of ordained native pastors, 211; of pupils, 16,836; of hos- pitals, 61. Seven thousand of the 77,000 Prot- estant Chinese Christians are members of the Lutheran Church. —Wuart a change! Rey. F. Ramseyer, a veteran Lutheran missionary on the Gold Coast of West Africa, together with his wife and child, and his fellow-missionary, Rey. J. Kuehne, had been taken captives by the Ashantee warriors in 1869 and kept prisoner until 1874, when he was released by the Brit- ish forces, has lately returned to Koomasee, the capital of Ashantee, whose dethroned king had been exiled to St. Helena, to establish a missionary station, under very favorable auspi- ces. The new British governor has publicly an- ‘nounced that the missionary is under his pro- * tection, and the chieftains, ‘‘kings’’ (!) of the subdued tribes, are anxious to call their for- _ mer Captive their best friend and to do him all honor! _ Tne New Hebrides, one of the Melane- are Christians ; the Scriptures are read in 13 of the 25 native dialects. The names of John Williams and R. Paton will always be revered by friends of the kingdom. The island of Amityum now is entirely Christian, but there was a time, only 50 years ago, when its in- habitants were cannibals and its customs most ferocious. The substitute for the Christian marriage ring was the ‘‘marriage rope,’’ put around the neck of the bride. This she wore all her life, and when her husband died she was strangled with it by his nearest relative. The Rey. John Inglis, who began his work there in 1852, reported that there was not a widow on the island, nor any word in the lan- guage for widow. ‘The unwritten law de- manded that on the death of her husband the wife be strangled, and her body cast into the sea with his. — Tue Lutheran churches in France—mem- bership, 80,000— have decided to support the. Norwegian Lutheran missions in Madagascar, since the island has become a French colony. —A Panis correspondent says: ‘‘The Nor- wegian Lutheran Missions in Madagascar wish to put a stop to the attacks made on them by so-called French Catholic patriots. To this end they have invited French schoolmasters intending to go to Madagascar to make first a sojourn at the missionary training-school at Stavanger, where they will be kept for noth- ing, taught the Norse tongue, and enabled to understand the religious teaching the mission- aries are to give. This the Norwegians hope will clear away all misunderstanding and en- able French and Norse teachers to go hand in hand. The Norwegian missions have fully ac- cepted the French conquest of the Island. All they want is to be allowed to continue peacefully the work they have begun among the natives.’’ —A very striking incident reported from Turkey is that of an aged mother, 110 years of age, whose son was nearly ready to give up in despair in view of the terrible experience through which they were passing. But the mother told the ruffians who were assaulting them that she was too old to change her faith. “I know only Christ,” she said, and they took the dear old lady’s Bible and tore it up and burned it before her eyes. ‘But thank God,”’ adds the reporter, ‘they could not tear the Word out of her heart.’’ — Oss of the things which renders mission- ary work difficult is the strangeness of the surroundings in which the Christian worker must labor.