# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1908_S63 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) : The Lutheran Pioneer. NOTES. He Is Our Neicuzor. — A Southern writer in one of our exchanges says: The white intelligent Christian people of the South cannot and dare not look with indifference on the colored man in his illiterate and immoral condition. Je ts our neigh- bor, and we owe him not only our sympathy, but our encouragement and assistance. ‘There is no doubt that the Church can and must give the best and safest training to the negro. What excuse have we to render that we have been and still are so slow to enter the great and effectual door open and inviting? I believe the only educational and mis- sionary work [by Lutherans] among the negroes of the South is what is done by the Missouri Synod [Synodical Conference]. These brethren deserve great credit for what they have undertaken and accomplished during the past quarter century. done Mission Scuoot 1x Porto Rico.— The mis- sionary of the General Council in Porto Rico re- ports that the Lutheran parochial school has proved a great blessing in the mission work. He writes: “¥special attention has been given to Christian in- struction, teaching thé children the Catechism, Bible History, morning and evening prayers, grace before and after meals in Spanish and English. It has been.a touching scene to see the children bow their heads and say their prayers. They have taken special: delight in the Bible stories, and it has given us great pleasure to hear the children recite these stories in their own characteristic way. Without doubt the children have spent their happiest hours in our Christian school, where they have been brought in touch with Christian love and sympathy. The Blessed Friend of children, the Good Shepherd, has been continually placed before their young minds, and thus the Gospel seed has been sown in their hearts. ‘The influence of the school has also been felt in the homes. Upon visiting the homes of the parents, one may hear the parents relate the Bible stories and Bible truths that the children have learned, and the brothers and sisters at home love to recite the Bible verses and sing the Chris- tian songs they have learned from those attending the school. Thus we sce that our school work is not in yain.” Missions in THE Pairrines.—A mission- ary in the Philippines writes that “the Gospel is making splendid progress in the islands. The Bible 63 Societies find increasingly large demands and ap- preciation for the Book of books. If the work ex- pands for fifty years as it has during the last seven, the islands will be predominantly - evangelical.” A CHance.— When the United States bought Alaska from Russia, in 1867, the natives around Point Barrow were so wild and lawless that ship- wrecked sailors trusted the mercy of the frozen sea rather than fall into the hands of these natives. But in about twenty-five years, through the labors of missionary teachers, such a change was brought about that when eight whaling ships were wrecked off the coast in the nineties of the past century, the rescue of 400 American seamen was made possible by a generous sacrifice on the part of these natives, who gave up their only reindeer herd to help the poor seamen. Mission Scuoors.— The latest reports show that more than a million pupils are yearly. enrolled in Protestant mission schools in foreign lands, and that the number of American schools is almost as great as that of all the rest of the world combined. EpucationaL Work IN JAPAN. — The impor- tance of the educational work done in Japan by missionaries from the United States is shown in a statement made by Dr. Griffis, an authority on things Japanese. He says: “Nine-tenths of the modern educated men and women of Japan before 1890, and a majority of those in influence and office to-day, received their first instruction from Ameri- can missionaries.” An Invatip’s Work ror Missions. — Miss Lizzie Johnson, a “shut-in,” who lives in Casey, IIl., is reported to have earned over $11,000 for. missions by the sale of bookmarks which she has made. THE BIBLE IN THE Kongo. — Twenty-five years ago, no Kongo language had been reduced to writing. Now parts of the Bible have been trans- lated into seven of these African languages. Nor a Lire or Ease. — One who has traveled much in the heathen countries of the East says of the life of the missionaries in those distant lands: “Theirs is not a life of ease; it is not a life of comfort and luxury. I don’t know whether you have experienced that sense of distance from home, that being surrounded -by an alien people, that im- pression that if you could only get into a streetcar.