# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1927_S22 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 22, THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. done before in Little Rock, to continue the good work until a resident missionary might be secured to take permanent charge of the promising mission. Doescher next proceeded to Mobile, Ala. Here he also opened a mission, which soon gave promise of good success. With the help of an advisory board he, in a short time, had a Sunday-school of over 200 pupils, of whom one-third were grown people. The bright prospects seemed to demand the speedy call of a missionary and a teacher for the field. A short visit to Florida convinced Doescher that this State was no less promising as a mission-field than the others which he had so far visited. At the End of the First Year. The Colored Missions, at the expiration of scarcely a year, had already made fine progress. Four stations, Little Rock, New Orleans (two), and Mobile, had been opened, and promising prospects warranted the opening of several more at once. There was work for at least six missionaries besides Doescher. After reviewing the first year’s work the secre- tary of the Board, the venerable Pastor Sapper, thus closed his report to the Synodical Conference: ‘We, therefore, have every reason to thank the Lord for what He has permitted us to do and mu- tually to encourage one another to continue in the work begun. If others work among the heathen thousands of miles away, in regions difficult to reach, and if the reader of their reports often vainly waits for years to hear of but one person who has been brought to Christ, how much more should we be ready to help the poor Negro, brought here by the avarice of the white man, who can be so easily reached by us and who seems so anxious to have us come to his rescue! If we refuse to help him, shall we not be like the unfaithful servant who tied his talent in a napkin and buried it?” F.J.L. Two ‘Letters. The Editor wants his readers to share with him parts of two letters which came to his desk about the same time. Both letters were written with reference to an article that had appeared in our columns under the title “Pastors as Missionary Leaders.” The first letter came from a layman, an old friend of the Editor’s boyhood days. Here are por- tions of his letter: “I just now read your article in the PrionzER, ‘Pastors as Missionary Leaders.’ I say, you are right about it. If our pastors don’t talk missions and our people don’t read mission- papers, well, then one may say ignorance will pre- vail. What you say I am noticing right along. I have read the ProNEER ever since its editor had his ‘window’ in Bingen, good old Bingen. “T believe the PronEER is read by more non- Lutherans in my county than by our own people. How is that accounted for? Well, it’s this way. For many years I have placed the Lutheran Witness, the LuTHERAN PIONEER, and the Colored Lutheran on the news-stand of the public library in B. B. is a well-churched town, but all are non-Lutherans. The Lutheran papers are a fine ornament on that news-stand. The librarian says that they are read very much. She also told me that she takes the PIoNEER to the Women’s Missionary Society meet- ings because it contains so much missionary statis- tics and information in general. So you see the Pioneer gets to many non-Lutherans here in, W. County. “J am placing the PronEER and the Colored Lutheran also in our County Infirmary. When I visit the old men there, they tell me that they like the papers very much. Even an old, feeble-minded man thankéd me for sending the PronEER because he liked to read the stories and look at the pictures. Then, too, I place two copies of the little Lutheran Guide in our County Detention Home, where the children that are county wards are being cared for. The County Juvenile Board, all of whose members are non-Lutherans, told me that the children appre- ciate this little paper very much. “J read all these papers myself, but I don’t keep them. After I have read them, I hand them to my non-Lutheran friends, among whom are also some ministers. “Before I close, I want to tell you something else. These same non-Lutheran friends of mine tell me that they like to listen in when KFUO is on the air or Pastor Dannenfeldt in Cincinnati or Pastor Schutes on WRBC. Some time ago Pastor Baer, of Fort Wayne, broadcast a sermon on ‘Jesus, the Bread of Life.’ A few days later I met a friend of mine in the old F. congregation, and he told me that an unchurched English-speaking neighbor of his, who had heard Pastor Baer’s sermon, said to him, ‘I have lived forty years among you German Lutherans and never knew what the Lutheran Church taught and believed; but now I get it on my radio!” Dear reader, isn’t there much food for thought in this letter from my old friend?