The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1905, Page 23

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

23

A Missionary’s Sad Experience.

Universally the colored people are denounced
for their immorality. That this sin is prevalent
among them to a great extent, no one who even
has but a superficial knowledge of the state of af-
fairs will deny. But there are causes for this con-
dition. It will not do to say it is a racial charac-
teristic; for if some things could be changed, the
future generation with absolute certainty would
show a marked improvement. As it is, the quarters
assigned by an unwritten law to the colored popu-
lation of a city are infested by the very scum of the
community. How can you expect a higher moral-
ity among the colored people, while every day, at
their very doors, the most despicable and shameful
immorality proudly rears its head? How can you
expect an improvement in the coming generations,
if they are forced to see day after day, from their
earliest childhood, how those whom they have been
taught to look up to as their superiors, whom they
are expected to imitate in speech, in manners, in
dress, etc., how these very ones wallow in the depths
of the most beastly lusts?

Almost daily these facts are impressed upon all
those who are working to free as many as possible
from vices and evil practices and also from serving
the devil in immorality. Strange things sometimes
happen to us. Let me relate an instance that hap-
pened only a short time ago.

It was a very dark night, and I was just return-
ing from the humble home of a colored couple whom
I had instructed in the doctrines of the Catechism
to prepare them for joining the church. A man, in
search for a certain one of the many houses of ill-
repute nearby, accosted me, asking for directions.
As I turned to let the electric light from the corner
fall upon him, I saw before me a middle-aged man
with a faded, though still intelligent face. His hair
was sprinkled with gray, his clothes were shabby,
his strength was gone: a physical and moral wreck!

Instead of directing him, I began to tell him of
his sin, showing him how it would surely lead to
temporal and eternal ruin. He broke down and
wept like a child. I then pointed out the better
way, showed him the Saviour, begged him to turn,
to believe in Christ, who had died for him also, and
to sin no more, pleading with him for almost a half
hour. Oh, how he begged me to help him, to stand
by him, not to forsake him, to give him one more
chance! I rejoiced, told him how glad I was to
help him, and promised to take him to a place
where he would be in good company, where he
would be given employment and be encouraged

and assisted in his struggles in the new life. And
what was the result? With tears streaming down
his wrinkled face he sobbed out, ‘‘Friend, I feel
your sympathy, I feel your love. I know you are
right. I ought to go with you. If I don’t, I’ll go
toruin. Iwish I could. But oh, I can’t—I can’t.
—Good bye— good bye!”

I turned sadly, saying to myself: Another soul
in the grip of the devil, another soul lost!

Tu. B.

A Retrospect.

I.

Twenty-seven years seem a long stretch of time
when we look ahead, especially in the years of early
manhood. But after we have traversed them and
have grown older with time and then review these
twenty-seven years, how short they appear! Never-
theless, in all our surroundings and in all our con-
ditions of life they have left their footprints around
and about us. It was in February of 1878, twenty-
seven years ago, when the Synodical Conference
sent its first missionary South to preach the true
Gospel according to the Lutheran Confessions to the
colored people of the United States. ~ How well do
I recollect this event, especially as some of our
Christian friends and brothers thought lightly, yea,
even disparagingly of the enterprise. They argued
that it was a waste of efforts and energy which would
be better applied in a mission among the whites in
the South, where our Lutheran church at that time
had but few congregations. —

But, my dear reader, I doubt if our beloved
church ever undertook a mission which was so
timely and so needful, and which, as long as it
exists (and God grant that it may continue to exist
until the coming of Christ on judgment day), will
be of such great benefit to poor sinful souls, as well
as improve the social and economical conditions of
the colored race as is this mission among our colored
American citizens. It is a mission at home, among

‘a race unduly despised, berated, and quite often

abused, To lead these people to lane is the only
object of this mission.

Such a work necessarily bears many blessed
fruits. The colored citizen is taught to comprehend
the sinful condition of man; his own helplessness to
contend successfully against this sinfulness through
and by himself. Having been brought to Christ,
his Saviour, he learns to obey the remonstrances of
the Holy Ghost against all wickedness; he learns to
love and fear God, and thus avoids the sin of curs-
ing and swearing which has become so habitual.