The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1887, Page 30

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

30

The Lutheran Pioneer.

ee

Homes for Lepers.

Leprosy is the most frightful and loathsome
disease mankind is afflicted with. There are
about 2,500 different forms of sickness known
to physicians, but the worst of them all is
leprosy. ‘It is really nothing else than a slow
process of putrefaction of the body before
burial; it is a dying off of the members and
limbs of the body, not in the hidden grave,
but in the sight of man. We hear of lepers in
the time of our Lord’s sojourning on earth and
of His healing those incurable wretches by
His almighty word. We know also, and ought
never to forget it, that the leprosy of the mortal
flesh is but an image of the leprosy
of the immortal soul, tainted and
poisoned by sin and that there is no
remedy for that incurable disease
of the soul, but that same almighty
word, which proclaims to us a wash-
ing off of the sin by the precious
blood of the Lamb of God.

There are lepers to-day in various
parts of the world. Strange to say,
leprosy is found even in cold cli-
mates, for instance in Norway, whose
people have cleanly habits. It is
found in China, at the Cape of Good
Hope, on the islands in the Pacific
Ocean, in Palestine. But although
the sickness is as little curable as
two thousand years ago and bafiles
the skill of physicians, the condition
of the lepers is much more endur-
able than in olden times. It is true,
the nature of the disease requires a
complete separation of the afflicted
from other men, but they are not
shunned and cast away like car-
easses. Christian charity is trying
to imitate the Master-Physician in

bringing help and comfort to them,
not because they can reward it, but
because they sorely need it both for
their poor bodies and their aftlicted souls.

On an island off the coast of the Cape Colony,
Whoever sets,| and by, better known, and more lepers were

there is an asylum for Jepers.

his foot on the shore, must stay there until his
death. The love of Christ constrained some
brethren of that great Missionary Society, the

Moravian Church, to shut themselves up with

the lepers on that island and to live and die}

with them and for them. A similar heroism,
greater than any other, is shown by English
missionaries on the island of Molokai, whither
the lepers of the Sandwich or Hawaii Islands
are brought as soon as “‘the white spot’? is de-
tected on the body of any native, be it an old
man or a fair young girl. The Norwegian
lepers are tenderly cared for by their govern-
ment, and Lutheran deacons and deaconnesees
are their nurses. It is not known to us what
the Chinese are doing with their lepers; but
we rather fear that they are more merciful to
their beasts than to those stricken with the
terrible pestilence.

The lepers at Jerusalem are a familiar sight
to the visitors and inhabitants of the holy city.
But that repulsive feature of the western ay-
enues to the city soon will be a thing of the
past, owing to a victory of Christian charity
over the prejudices of Mohammedanism.

Twenty years ago the German Baroness
Keffenbruck conceived the idea of bringing
help and comfort to the lepers of Jerusalem by
the opening of an asylum. Rev. Mr. Tappe
and his wife, formerly Moravian missionaries
in Labrador, were sent by her to Jerusalem
to take charge of the lepers’ home, called
‘Jesus’ Help.’’ It took some time until a few
patients from among the peasantry of the Holy

A DWELLING ON THE ISLAND OF SUMATRA.

Land entered the hospital and subjected them-
selves to treatment. The asylum became, by

willing to enjoy its clean wards, better food, and
the service of Mr. Tappe and his excellent wife.
None were cured, but all of them experienced a
lessening of pain and a lightening of their burden.

On the 24th of April, the Sunday of the Good
Shepherd, a new and much larger lepers’ home
was dedicated in the presence of the three
Protestant congregations in Jerusalem. The
praise of the God of mercy was sung and said
in Arabic, English and German. Mr. Tappe
is house father still, and highly respected by
the whole community. The Turkish govern-
ment, which constantly tries to throw obstacles
into the way of any direct missionary work, is
well disposed towards this one branch of Christ-
ian charity. It has promised pecuniary aid and
intends to place the Jeprous street-beggars in
the asylum, although knowing that the Gospel
is daily read in the home.

Famine in Turkey.

A severe famine is raging in central Turkey,
and much suffering is the result. The rains
have been withheld from the parched earth for
the period of a year, and the ground is barren,
Everything has been burned up by the fierce
rays of the sun. The missionaries laboring in
that region send most heart-rending accounts
of the state of things. We give below an ex-
tract from a letter sent by a committee of the
Protestant Church at Adana, one of the prin-

cipal cities of the famine district:

‘In the providence of God the year 1587

has become a year of calamity such as we have

never seen before. This is owing to
the fact that there has been almost
no rain since a year ago. ‘The far-
mers sowed their winter grain in
hope and the damp earth nourished
it, but without rain it was all wasted.
Everything sowed or planted soon
dried up and was lost.

‘A square section of our most
fertile plain, 3,600 square miles in
extent, extending from Mersine on
the west sixty miles to Missis on the
east, and sixty miles north and
south, is stripped of its glory and
beauty and remains a sad desert.
A part of our vineyards did not be-
gin to put forth their new branches,
and those that did so are already
beginning to wither. The yearly
exports from these fields during the
last few years, in cotton, sesame,
oats, and millet, have been about
$3,500,000, and the wheat aud bar-
ley produced have been worth even
more. This year also, because there
is no grass, the flocks and herds are
being destroyed. Butter, cheese and
milk are with difficulty found.

“From these statements you will.
understand something of the calam-
ity which is upon us. This section of the
country contains over 100,000 inhabitants, of
whom 20,000 are able to find a living without
help. But 80,000 are destitute and cannot be
kept from starvation unless help is brought to
them from without. Many of them have lived
until now only by selling their furniture, in
some cases even to the beds from under them.”’

——>-+ ea o> Oo -

A Child’s Faith.

A mother, with her three children, was cling-
ing to the wreck of the steamer Bohemia, when
the mother said she must let go her.hold and
be drowned. :

Her little girl replied, ‘Hold on a little
longer, mother. Jesus walked upon the water
and saved Peter, and perhaps He will save 18.

The little girl’s words so strengthened her
mother that she held on a few-moments more,
when a boat was sent to their rescue.

“