The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1883, Page 20

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20

The Lutheran Pioneer.

The Outlook from the Editor’s Window.

—Ir would be well if in this Luther year
the people would become thoroughly acquainted
with the life and work of the great Reformer.

- We are therefore glad to hear that a new Life

of Luther is being prepared by Prof. A. L.
Graebner of the Lutheran Seminary at Mil-
waukee, Wis. It will appear, finely illus-
trated, in ten numbers at the cost of 20 cents
each number. Judging from the first number,
which has just appeared, it will be a most ex-
cellent work and, we doubt not, will find a
wide circulation among the members of all our
churches. It is published by the well-known
Publishing House of Geo. Brumder, Milwau-
kee, Wis.

—TuErE is much discussion going on among
Lutherans about what to do for the church in
this Memorial Year in which the four hun-
dreth anniversary of Luther's birth will be
celebrated. The members of the Lutheran
St. Matthew's congregation in New York city
know what todo. At a recent meeting they
resolved to aid in the building of the new Lu-
theran Seminary in St. Louis. In order to
awaken a greater interest in this work the pas-
tor of the congregation, Rev. H. Sieker, by
request preached and published a sermon on
the Blessed Work of the faithful Lutheran
Church in this country. This sermon will no
doubt prove profitable reading also among the
members of other congregations. It can be
had for 10 cents per copy by addressing Rev.

E, Bohm, 298 Broom St., New York, N. Y.

—Oor Lutheran Deaf and Dumb Asylum
near Detroit, Mich., is in a prosperous condi-
tion. At a recent meeting of the Board of
Directors the gratifying news was made known
that the debt of the institution has been greatly
decreased during the past year.

—Tue Norwegian Lutheran Orphans’ Home
at Wittenberg, Wis., was opened Jast year on
the 26th of August by the Rev. Homme with
three children and one aged person as its first
inmates. By the blessing of God this number
has since then steadily increased, so that an ex-
tension of the accommodations will soon be a
necessity.

—Tae well-known ‘‘Life of Luther’ by
Prof. Koestlin is being translated into English
by Rev. Dr. Morris, of Baltimore, and will be
published during this memorial year. From
the Workman we learn that ‘it was the pur-

_ pose of the Jamented Dr. Krauth to have
based his Life of Luther on that of Koestlin,
so that thé next best thing in the absence of
Dr. Krauth’s book will bg. the elegant work of
Koestlin, translated into good English.’”

—Tae first Lutheran congregation in-York,
Pa., was organized in the year1783. The first
church building, a small log-house, was erected
in 1744. ; ‘ ‘

—In the great African island of Madagascar
the Norwegian Lutheran Missionary Society
had 20 missionaries at work in 1881. There
are 20,000 members connected with this mission.

—Tne_ whole number of members connected
with the Lutheran mission in South Africa is
said to he 6,632.

—Tne American Bible Society is making a
canvass of the whole United States with the
intention of supplying Bibles to all faiilies
found without them. So far 288,718 families
have been visited, of which 45,034 did not
possess a complete copy of the Scriptures.

—Aw edition of 11,000 copies of Gospels in
Zulu, recently printed at the Bible House, has
been put at the disposal of the American
Board, for sale and distribution in Southern
Africa, by the American Bible Society.

—In 1800. there were 150 missionaries at
work; now there are 125,000. In 1800 there
were 50,000 heathen converts; now there are
1,650,000.

—Tue report for 1882 from the Moravian
mission among the natives of Australia says
that the doomed race is. dying out rapidly.
The Christian life leads them to reject the
views of their fathers and arrests the progress
of certain diseases; but they suffer from the
sins of their fathers and they are rapidly dis-
appearing. © The missionaries say that ‘in the
course of a few years, the Australian mission
will have lost its people,’ and their work will
come to an end unless fresh fields in other parts
of Australia are opened to them.

—AnonG the millions of China, which was
opened to foreigners in 1858, there are only
300 missionaries at work; and in Japan, which
was opened to foreigners in 1868, there are no
more than 88 missionaries engaged in Gospel
work.

—THE suggestive fact is published by a Phila-
delphia paper that in a certain manufacturing
town an employer, on a recent Saturday, paid
to his workmen $700 in crisp new bills that
had been secretly marked. On Monday $450
of those identical bills were deposited in the
bank hy the saloon-keepers.

' —REticiovus statistics are published, and
show the total amount contributed by the vari-
ous denominations in the United States the.
past year, for benevolent and congregational
purposes to be $106,962,000, of which the
amount collected for purely benevolent pur-
poses is $31,331,150. The amount contributed
for church purposes, including the maintenance
of the Church, sustaining the ministry, &c., is
$75,252,866. There are 92,653 Protestant
churches in the United States, with 71,602

ministers and 9,003,030 members. These fig- |

ures may safely be left to tell their own story.
'—TnxeE Chinese Province of Hunan has
15,000,000 inhabitants, and not a single resi-
dent missionary.

—TneE various Bible Societies now repre-
sented in Japan, make it a rule never to give
away the Scriptures. They have sold together
115,000 copies during the past year. It is
stated that at Kioto a single copy of St. John’s
Gospel led sixty families to renounce idolatry.

—TuE Outlook, of London, says: ‘‘Morocco,
which is peopled by perhaps the finest Moslem

race in the world, numbering eight or nine mil-
lions, presents a stern wall to the Christian
faith. We understand that the Emperor will
not permit a Christian to live in the interior
of his country.”’

—Spam, a Roman Catholic country, has
nevertheless 32 Protestant churches and chap-
els, with a membership of 28,000, mostly of
the poorer people.

—_s--+¢-<4o> —o

Short Stops.

—Nor long ago a ship was wrecked upon
the reefs of an island in the Pacific. ‘The sail-
ors, escaping to land, feared lest they might
fall into the hands of savages. One climbed
a bluff to look over the island. Turning to
his companions, he shouted, ‘‘Come on! Here's
a Church!’’ A simple story, but one which
puts to the skeptic the searching question:
Why was it safer for the shipwrecked men to
go where a church reared its cross than where
there was none?

—How many members are there in your
church? ‘*Well,”’ said an elder, ‘I tell ’em
we've got about ten to he depended on to do
anything, though we've got more than a hun-
dred on the books.’’ It was one of the churches
in which a small proportion of the members
largely does the work and pays the bills.

—Votralr_, the French infidel, prophesied
that in this nineteenth century the Bible would
become extinct. The room in which Voltaire
wrote that prophecy was in the year 1881 filled
from floor to ceiling with Bibles for Switzer-
land.

—A MODERATE Scotch minister, who was a
keen fisher, once said to Dr. Andrew Thomson,
“IT wonder you spent so much time on your
sermons with your ability and ready speech.
Many’s the time I’ve written a sermon and
killed a salmon before breakfast,’’ to which
saying Dr. Thomson replied, ‘‘Well, sir, I’d
rather have eaten your salmon than listened to
your sermon.”’

—A CLERGYMAN was met the other day by
a ragged individual with a flask of whiskey in
his pocket, who inquired, ‘‘Sir, is this the near-
est road to the poor-house?’’ ‘‘No, sir,’’ said
the clergyman, pointing to the bottle, ‘‘ but
that is.’

St. Paul’s Colored Lutheran Church,

Littte Kock, Ark.

1 on corner of 12th and Rock Sts.
Sunday at 2 o’clock.
and 7 o’clock.

Chay
Sunday-school meets eve!
Divine services at 3 o’cloc!

TERMS:

Tre LuTHERAN ‘PIONEER is published monthly,
pevable in adyance at the following rates, postage
included, to-wit:

50

eecccccscsscccsccescssccccs 9.00
Club rates only allowed if all copies are to be sent
to one address. ~ Sp
All business communications to be addressed to
»Luth. Concordia Publishing House“, M..0, Baz-

ae Agt., St. Louis, Mo. ‘

All communications concerning the editorial de-
ent to be addressed to Pror. R. A. BiscnorF,

mcordia College, Fort Wayne, Ind.