The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1896, Page 19

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

19

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‘as he desires to let them all know that he has
.been very mindful of their doings in behalf
of the new church.

Commending you all to the gracious care
of our Saviour,

gentlemen, and to welcome their sweet young
wives. Soon they built a little house and went
to house-keeping, and received the natives
in their own homes. Can you imagine how
strange it all was—the native men and women
coming in and looking at everything, and say-
ing so many things in a language that no one
understood, and which was laid down in no
books?

‘‘But they set about finding out what these
strange words did mean, and when one learned
a word he told the rest. Then they put their
wits together to spell it, and were amazed to
find that they could spell every word with only
twelve different letters. Wouldn’t it be fun
to learn to read with only twelve letters?
There couldn’t be so many silent ones, could
there? After a while they made a primer,
and how wonderful it seemed to the natives
that books-eould talk!

‘After a few years other missionaries came ;
and in these homes, I mustn’t forget to say,
that little missionary children were growing
up, and becdéming a great help as the years
wenton. Pretty soon the Gospel was preached
in all the Islands,’’ —grandma called it pretty
soon, but it was as much as fifty years— ‘‘and
there were pretty homes, fine fields, churches
and school-houses all over the Islands. Here
they told the Mission Board they would sup-
port themselves ; they had been helping them-
selves and others somewhat all the time, but

“No;.the king had changed his mind, and| now they would take no more help.’’ 3
wanted some one to teach him and his people| Willie, who has a head for figures, asked
about the white people’s God. So, up among] how much it had cost the Board in fifty years,
the hills of Massachusetts went the news and| and ‘‘Oh-d’’ a great deal when grandma said
the question, Who will go? A young man, |it had cost more than a million dollars.
Hiram Bingham, said, ‘I’ll go;’ and another,| ‘‘Far away to the southwest of the Sandwich
Asa Thurston, said, ‘I’ll go;’ and soon each| Islands is a group called the Gilbert Islands,
had asked the girl-he liked the best to be-| and Rev. Mr. Bingham’s son, who was a young
come his wife and go too. The girls said}man now, wanted very much to carry the
‘Yes,’ and then what busy times there were!|Gospel to those islanders. They were so
mothers, aunties, sisters, and friends all doing} savage, however, that they wouldn’t let him
something to provide for the homes to be made Jand, and drove him away with arrows. But
in those far away islands of the sea. the young man kept asking the Lord to pity

‘After a while weddings were over, boxes| them and make them willing to hear about
were packed and good-byes said, and in Oc-| Jesus. After awhile he went again, and this
tober, 1819, they set sail. They did not go} time they let him stay, and how glad he was
in a cozy steamer, bent on making the passage | to puzzle his brain over their strange language.
in the least possible time, but upon a whaling| By and by he was ready to make them a little
vessel, whose kind captain made them as com- primer, so his father wrote him: ‘We will
fortable as he could, and while he prayed — send you by the Morning Star our old font of
if pray he did—that they might see some} type; we haye a new one from the States.”
whales, this little band of missionaries prayed} When the type came and the junior Bingham
tor favorable winds and smooth seas; for they| attempted to set it up, the language was so
had to sail away around by Cape Horn—there different — though they used all the same
was no Panama Railroad then—and so, when|letters, only a great many more a's and n’s
they reached Hawaii, the biggest of the Sand-|— that he could do nothing with it. : What
Wich Islands, it was April. ; trouble he was in! People were waiting for
_ ‘How glad they were to see land once more! | the primers, and the primers were waiting to
The king; too, was glad to hear of their arrival. | be printed, and now a strange thing happened.
He had been so sure they would come that he| ‘Away six hundred miles to the.eastward
had destroyed all his idols. So, when he had|a ship was tossing in a dreadful storm. By
freshly besmeared his body with cocoa-nut oil, | and by it sprang a leak, and though the ship
had put a bunch of tall feathers on his head, | carpenters tried to mend it, and the sailors
ond a.green girdle about his waist, he went| pumped bravely, the seam kept widening and
down to the ship to pay his respects to these the water gaining. At last the lifeboats were

Your affectionate uncle,
Bos.

«7 oe

How They Planted the Seed.

A MISSIONARY STORY.

‘‘Mamma’s gone on a visit, and grandma’s
going to tell us our good-night story,’’ said
brother Willie.

And little roly-poly Archie left his bridge-
building on the floor, and came to nestle in
grandma’s arms; for somehow he knows a
story is nice, though he doesn’t understand
it all. :

“OQ grandma, please tell us a missionary
story,’’ exclaimed one of the children.

So grandma began:

“It was a long time ago, when I was no

older than Willie, that there came into Boston
‘harbor one day a whaling vessel, whose cap-
tain brought word that the king of the Sand-
wich Islands wanted a missionary.
_ ‘Wants a missionary!’ people said with
surprise. ‘And does he want to cook him?’
some one asked, remembering the fate of poor
Captain Cook.

brought out and filled. The sailors lashed
themselves to pieces of the ship, and one poor
fellow floated day after day, until one morning
he was washed ashore at the Gilbert Islands.
How wet and hungry he was! But when he
had been warmed and clothed, and given a
breakfast he was found to be a practical
printer. When he learned what dilemma
Mr. Bingham was in, he said, ‘We'll cut off
the d’s and make a’s, and cut off the h’s and
make n’s.’ This they did, and soon the
primer was given to the people.

‘Afterward the missionary made the whole
New Testament into the Gilbert Island lan-
guage, and went to Honolulu to have it printed
on the new type. Here his sisters had a semi-
nary, and when commencement day came the
new king, Liholiho, was present. Upon the
table lay two newly-bound copies of the Gilbert
Island Testament, and two swarthy islanders
came in and bought them, and everybody was
glad and happy.”’

Here grandma stopped to find little Archie
fast asleep; but Willie’s eyes were wide open,
and he said that he wants to preach to the
islanders when he grows to be a man.

Selected.

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A pretty “Thank You.”

In far-away Kanazaw, Japan, a foreign lady
stands looking out of her window. What does
she see? Some little girls have opened the
gate, and are timidly coming into the yard.
Immediately Mrs. Hayes (for the foreign lady
is she) raises the window and invites the little
ones in, but, oh, no! they are too shy for
that, and they all scamper off—all but one,
and she looks very frightened.

Mrs. Hayes encourages her, however, with
a sweet smile, and soon the others come back
also, and each one is given an orange. This
is acknowledged by a very low bow, and away
they run the second time!

Half an hour later Mrs. Hayes again looks
out of her window; this time it is what she
hears that attracts her. The same little girls
have returned and are standing at the gate
singing one of the hymns taught in the mis-
sion Sunday school.

This is one of the ways little Japanese girls
have of saying ‘‘thank you”’”—snd a pretty,
graceful way it is!

——s oe oe

A Mother’s Influence.

“J used to be called a Frenchman,’” wrote
John Randolph, ‘because I took the French
side in politics; and though this was unjust,
yet the truth is, I should have been a French
atheist (one who believes that there is no God)
if it had not been for one recollection—the
memory of the time when my departed mother
used to take my little hands in hers, and cause
me, on my knees, to say, ‘“‘Our FATHER, Who
art in heaven!”” . }