# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1926_S144 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 142 A Few Facts Concerning China Missions. — America has about 800 evangelistic missionaries in China. About 500 American missionaries are en- gaged in teaching, while about 250 doctors are serving American Protestant missions in the same country.—In a certain section of North China which had over 1,200 schools ten years ago there are at present only about 900; 300 of them have been closed for lack of funds and teachers. — Chinese Christians are doing almost as much to support mission-work in their country as we are. Over a large part of North China the people were giving twenty-four cents for every twenty-five which came from America.— Boys are still the thing in China, in spite of the fact that mission- schools have done much to stimulate the education of girls and to improve the condition of women generally. At present all China has about 400 middle schools for boys and only ten for girls. The enrolment for boys is about 70,000, while there are only about 600 girls in these schools, which corre- spond roughly to our high schools. China is said to have 75,000,000 boys of school age. Africa and Civilization. — “Civilization” has reached Africa to the extent that the women have “learned to add tomato-cans, bells, and safety-pins as articles of adornment to the polished stones which they wear in their elongated ear-lobes. But the white man has taken more than these question- able ornaments to Africa. He has brought the Africans his diseases and vices as well. Mission- aries say that fifty per cent. of the people are the victims of preventable diseases and declare that the physical and moral condition of the women is worse than it was in the days of unrestricted paganism and polygamy. A Fine Missionary Opportunity. —Ten thousand men and women from foreign countries attend schools and colleges in the United States and Canada. These thousands will here get an impres- sion of Christianity. Will it be favorable? A Missionary’s Anniversary.— Missionary Flierl, the founder of the Iowa Synod’s mission in Nev, Guinea, this year celebrates the fortieth anniversary _of his service in the Papuan Missions. After - serving among the aborigines of Australia for a number of years, he came to New Guinea in the summer of 1886. When he began his work at Finchhayen, New Guinea, all the people were heathen. For ten years he worked apparently in _ vain, and then came a great awakening. To-day - no less than 16,000 native baptized members are "5 anne at in various stations of the Iowa Synod’s THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. New Guinea Missions, and thousands are being prepared for baptism. A happy anniversary indeed it must be for the founder of this blessed work! China Inland Mission. — This mission now has 1,134 foreign missionaries, 1,515 paid Chinese helpers, and 2,328 volunteer Chinese helpers. The work of this mission is conducted at 260 stations and 1,927 outstations. Services are held in 1,755 chapels. The mission has 12 hospitals, 93 dispen- saries, and 609 native schools. Its annual income is about $840,000. The last annual report states that about 6,000 were baptized in one year. Its present communicant membership is over 67,000. What College Students are Doing.— We recently read somewhere that the students of Princeton University maintain a permanent mission staff of fourteen men in China and annually contribute $25,000 to the cause of missions. Where Great Patience is Demanded. We refer to the task which missionaries have in translating the Bible into a tongue that has no expressions for certain Biblical thoughts. We know what a task it was for Luther to find German words and expressions for Oriental customs, tools, plants, and the like. He tells us how he sometimes searched for weeks to find an adequate expression and how he listened to the people in the market- place and on the streets in order that he might possibly hear out of their mouths the word or expres- sion he was looking for. Below we give our readers a few instances of the difficulties modern missionaries haye in finding in the language of heathen, words to express Biblical thoughts. Chidzi or Ch’idzi? : In a certain provincial dialect the words for “wife” and “chicken” are practically the same. A chicken is chidzi; a wife is ch’idzi. The differ- ence in pronunciation is so slight that only the initiated can tell which is which. But all the Chinese are initiated, and woe unto the missionary who fails to get the distinction! But there are missionaries who have sadly failed. One time a missionary was traveling through the canals on a native houseboat. As he was talk- ing with the boatman one day, the man announced that he was going to kill a chicken for dinner. Later in the day the missionary was again having a conversation with the native.