The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1886, Page 6

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6 The Lutheran Pioneer.

St. Paul. By the untired efforts of the teachers Carrying their own Brimstone.
and the generosity of the Missionary Board
Christmas-trees, laden with toys and fruits and
ornaments, gladdened the hearts of the children.
After services the tree was lighted and presents
distributed. These have been selected with
good taste. The older and more advanced
scholars received ‘‘Luther’s Life” and ‘‘Diet-
rich’s Catechism,’’ the small ones Toys and
Picture Books. Another half hour passed pleas-
antly by during which the children did justice
to the contents of their well-packed Christmas-
bags. What a beautiful contrast this simple
but hearty rejoicing in the house of God forms
to the noisy boisterous crowd outside. They
who rejoice in the glorious Christmas gift of
God’s only begotten Son, rejoice truly. All
other rejoicing is in vain and transitory, when
the good tidings of great joy are neglected or
rejected. _

Now a few items from our annual report
and we shall close our letter. The schools have
been crowded all the year. At present 170 chil-
dren are enrolled, which is about all that we
can admit. 24 new members have been added
to our congregations, 118 communed, 19 have
received Holy Baptism. 4 marriages were
solemnized, and two members buried. The
contribution of schools and congregations for
the year amounts to $320.00. May the Lord
continue to bless and prosper our work to the
glory of His name. ~

New Orleans, La., January 20, 1886.
MisstIonary.

Letter from New Orleans.

After a service in a place where the people
had been a good deal bewildered by a self
ordained preacher, who accepted only so much
of the Bible as suited his whims, and who was
wont to make merry over the idea of future
punishment, a man stepped up to me, and said
in acanting voice: ‘‘ Bishop, do you believe in
a hell?”’

I said, “Are you anxious to know what I.
think of hell?”’

“*Yes,’’ said he.

“Well,” said I, ‘‘the best answer I have
ever heard came from a poor colored woman.
She had a young niece, who sorely tried the
poor soul. The more she struggled to keep
this willful charge in the right way, the more
she seemed to wander. One day, after hear-
ing a new preacher, the niece came bounding
into the room, and said:

“ Aunty,’ I ain’t gwine to believe in a hell
no more. Ef dar is any hell, I jest wants to
know where dey gets all dere brimstone for dat
place; that ’zactly what I would like to know.”

“The old woman fixed her eyes on her, and
with a tear on her cheek, said:

“Ah, honey darlin’, you look out you don’t
go dere, for you'll find dey all takes dere own
brimstone wid em.”’

I then said, “Is there any other question in
theology you would like to ask??’’

‘“‘No,’”’ said he.

And he went home, I hope with a new idea
that sin brings sorrow, and that to be saved
we need deliverance from sin. Some men
carry ‘‘their own brimstone’’ even in this
world.—Bishop Whipple.

DEAR PIONEER :—

How New Orleans in general and we Colored
Lutherans especially celebrated Christmas shall
be the burden of these lines. Christmas is pre-
eminently a children’s festival, children should
especially be remembered in its celebration.
It is meet that we should ‘strive to make it
happy for them. Christ Himeelf became a
child showing thereby that children are wanted
in His kingdom. They have reason to be glad
in the commemoration of their Saviour’s birth.
And when we old folks become as little chil-
dren and in childlike faith take up into our
hearts the blessed Christ-Child and heartily
rejoice in Him, we have celebrated the anniver-
sary of His appearance into our world in a
proper manner, and then only. Strange as it
may seem there are those who frown on the
children’s Christmas joy and the old folks’ de-
light on this happiest day of all-the year.
There are surely Pharisees in our days as in
the days of Christ, who say: “Master, rebuke
thy disciples.” But now as then Christians
persist in rejoicing at the coming of their King.
Now as then the stones would immediately cry
out, if the disciples of Christ should hold their
peace. (Luke 19, 40.)

In New Orleans, outside of Lutheran homes
and churches, Christmas receives very little
attention, except in a worldly way. A devout
Lutheran from the North who a year ago
stayed here during the holy-days remarked :
Why, your Christmas celebration reminds me
in the most forcible manner of the way the
Northern people celebrate the ‘‘Fourth.”” Only
this revelry surpasses the carousals which are
usually associated with the ‘‘Fourth.” And
s0 it does. From dusk on Christmas eve until
- after midnight the shooting of Fire-crackers is
carried on making the thoroughfares anything
but safe to travelers. The streets and stores
are thronged with people till a late hour.
Tooth-pullers, Quack-doctors, Peddlers and
Auctioneers, some with a band of music, draw
curious crowds to their stands and entertain
them with blasphemous jokes about Christ and
Christmas. “Add to this the shrilling notes of
the tin-horns, the display of fireworks, the wild
cries of intoxicated men and women, the shoot-
ing and stabbing affrays, and the reader will
have a faint idea of the celebration of Christ-
mas in New Orleans.

- But notwithstanding these horrors cur Col-
ored Jutherans, like their white brethren,
work their way through rain and darkness
and crowded streets to the house of God. It
¢an not be the Christmas-tree only or the ex-
pectation of a trifling present that draws them
thither; no, they have come to offer the tribute
of a joyous, grateful heart to the Christ-Child.

The devout attention of young and old to the
Jad tidings and the hearty carols of the chil-

an indicate as much. Services were held in
urches, Pastor Burgdorf officiating in

——— —- oe

A Chinese Funeral.
+o
One day a missionary lady, walking through
the Chinese quarters in San Francisco, saw
hundreds of fpeople collected in one of the
streets. As she drew near she found that the
funeral of a wealthy Chinese merchant was in
progress. A large canopy had been erected on
the sidewalk, extending to the street, and upon
this were placed the offerings for the dead.
And what do you think they were? Three
large roasted pigs, five pyramids of oranges,
platters of rice and meats, cakes, confections,
wine and tea! At one end of this canopy plat-
form were crouching upon their knees the three
wives and five children of the dead man; also
five hired mourning women who were weeping
and wailing in pretended grief. A Jong line
of carriages made up the procession, which at
length started; but the wives and children
were not permitted to ride in a carriage, but
were stowed away in an old express wagon.
The idea was that their grief was too great to
permit them to ride comfortably to the funeral!
What a painful thought it is that these poor
people, though in a Christian land, should not
haye the unspeakable comfort of trusting in
the blessed Saviour in their time of sorrow!

—Children’s Work for Children.

Fruit from a Small Seed.

The child who, half a century ago, dropped
into the missionary box the one cent that was
blessed to the conversion of the son of a Bur-
man chief sowed a seed that was ‘‘less than all
the seeds.’ But it became a tree. A little
tract, that cost just that single cent, fell into
the hands of that young man, and he was 80
anxious to know its contents that he traveled
from Burdwan, 250 miles, to Rangoon, on
purpose to learn to read it. The Christian
teachers soon taught him, and from the read-
ing of that tract he arose-with a new heart in
his bosom: and went home with a basketful of
similar. tracts to distribute among his people.
He was a man of influence, and crowds came
to hear him talk and explain the gospel as he
had learned it. In one year 1,500 natives
were baptized in Arracan as the result of his
labors.

—_> oa o>

Ir has long been the policy of the devil
to keep the masses of the world in ignorance;
but, finding at length that they will read, he
is doing all in his power to poison their books.

—Kirk.