# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1928_S159 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. 159 Miss Sahib, found me and brought me here. my mother, and I am her child.” An old woman in Bed No. 4 exhorts the patients around her to trust the mission-workers. “TI was against them once,” she tells them, “but now 1 know what love means. Caste? What is caste? I believe in the goodness they show. That is their caste.” Indeed, the ministry of Christian physicians comes as a revelation to the tortured victims. She is New Converts and the Bible. The knowledge of the Bible shown by heathen converts should shame many Christians in America. The police of a certain country once professed to believe that a mission-school was “seditious,” and following the example of Russian police in such circumstances, they arrested all the native teachers and many of the students and hurried them off to jail in another city. The Christians had no idea what they had been arrested for, but they suspected it was on account of their faith in Christ. Did they keep silence? It no more occurred to them than it did to Paul and Silas. When they were led through the streets, handcuffed and chained to one another, they sang the hymn “Glory to His Name.” Every one felt that God had permitted this trial because he had something for them to do in prison. They could tell the other prisoners about Jesus, as Paul had done. They had their Testaments in their pockets. When the police searched them, the Christians asked permission to keep their Testa- ments; but the officers refused, except in one instance where one of the teachers persuaded a guard to let him keep the little book. The next morning he tore his New Testament leaf from leaf and passed the leaves through the cracks between his cell and the next cell, and the boys there passed them on into the next cell, and so on until every Christian in that old prison had leaves from the Word of God. Each one took his leaf and committed it to memory, then exchanged it with another boy and committed the new leaf, until they had committed whole books of the New Tes- tament. In the months of imprisonment some had committed the whole of the New Testament. When they came from prison and told this story to the missionary who narrated it to me, he tested some of the boys as to the truth of their statement. “Repeat John 7%, 36,” he said to one boy. How many readers of this page can give it? This youth reflected for a moment how the seventh chapter of John began, ran down the chapter till he came to the thirty-sixth verse, and then repeated it word for word. Several said that, while they were being tortured, they quietly repeated over and over the passages which they had learned, and one of them said: “Jesus came so near, oh, so near, as we quoted God’s Word.” BOOK TABLE. Happy School Days. By Margaret E. Sangster. 271 pages; bound in cloth. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo. Price, $1.25. The book contains thirty-eight chapters, every one of which is brimful of good counsel for our schoolgirls. Mrs. Sangster speaks on many subjects in this book, and she does so in each case from a sound Christian standpoint, A girl can only profit by reading these common-sense counsels. Luther on Education. By F.V.N. Painter, A.M. 282 pages; bound in cloth. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo. Price, $1.50. Professor Painter’s book on Luther as educator is as well worth reading to-day as it was when first published, almost forty years ago. The author, in four historical chapters, presents the proper background for Luther’s educational views and activities, which are described in the following chapters. In the last two chapters Pro- fessor Painter gives most happy renderings of Luther’s Letter to the Mayors and Aldermen of the Cities of Ger- many in Behalf of Christian Schools and his Sermon on the Duty of Sending Children to School. What most forcibly struck the reviewer while rereading this book is the remarkable up-to-dateness of Luther. It is diflicult to realize that Luther wrote the last two chapters of Pro- fessor Painter’s book four hundred years ago. Two Simultaneous Conventions. A Declaration of Lu- theran and American Principles. Address delivered by President R. Kretzschmar, June 14, 1928S, at the convention of the Western District of the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. Pub’ lished by resolution of the convention. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo. Price, 5 cts. per copy; $2.50 per hundred. A happy thought on the part of President Kretzschmar to compare the convention of the Western District with that of the National Republican Convention held at the same time in Kansas City, Mo. The comparison gave opportunity for the presentation of much wholesome thought. Handbook for Congregational Officers. By Theo. Graebner. 252 pages; bound in cloth. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo. Price, $1.25. Here is one of the most practical books ever put out by the Concordia Publishing House. In the light of Scrip- ture and sound Lutheran practise the affairs of a congre- gation and the duties of its officials are discussed ina clear manner. Every congregation should own several copies of this valuable book. The Lutheran Principle of Indoctrination versus the Pedagogy of Modernism. By P. E. Kretz- mann. Reprinted for private distribution from the Lutheran Witness, the Lutheran School Journal, the Theological Monthly, and the Sunday-school Teach- ers’ Quarterly. 22 pages. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo. Price, 10 cts. The four articles reprinted in this pamphlet deserve the careful study of all engaged in the religious teaching of the young. The Lutheran’ principle of thorough indoc- trination is emphasized, and a ‘cry of. earnest warning is raised against modernistic religious teaching.