The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1905, Page 71

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

NOTES AND ITEMS.

“Harp Hrrs.’’—Thatis what some papers called
the statements recently made in a sermon by a col-
ored preacher in Atlanta, Ga. The sermon was de-
livered by the Rev. J. Davis, presiding elder of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church of the Atlanta
District, before an audience of 2000 colored people.
Speaking of the colored people that have grown up
since the war, the speaker said: ‘‘The tactics and
procedure of the new negro is destroying him. His
reckless disregard for moral purity, a disposition to
ignore the church and the Gospel, a love for a life
of ease and pleasure, an ignorant and malicious dis-
regard for the laws of God and the rights of men
that is daily being practiced by the majority of the
race, convince me that the negro is a lawless being ;
and he is a liar if he says he is not. The negroisa
lawless character without rule inthe home. There-
fore he can have but little in his church and society.
He does right only from fear of punishment or hope
of reward.”? The speaker added: “‘I need not say
there are exceptions; I need not say there are good
men and women in the race; but they are in the
hopeless minority.’’

No wonder the 2000 colored hearers ‘‘sat as if
stunned by the hard hits,’’ especially when the
preacher declared at the close: ‘‘It is not the white
man’s prejudice, lynchings, or mistreatment of the
negro that will destroy him half as fast as his bad
conduct and habit and love of immorality.”

Cotorep PreacHers IN THE Sects. —Speaking
of the colored sectarian preachers, the same presid-
ing elder of the'African Methodist Episcopal Church,
who ought to know what he is talking about, said:
‘“‘Pully one half of the negro preachers should be
out upon the farms where they can best serve the
people. The church is ruined with drunkards and
debased characters.’’

Wuose Fautr Is Ir? — That is the question
asked by one of the papers after giving the above

statements of the Methodist preacher regarding the

condition of the colored people that have grown up
since the war. The editor points to the fact that
the Methodist as well as the Baptist church has
been working ‘‘among the colored people in the
South all these years and must bear some of the
blame.’’? ‘‘The Christian education of the chil-
dren,’’ says the writer, ‘‘has been neglected by the
church, and the preachers appointed among the
colored people were to a great extent ignorant, un-
educated men, who entered the ministry only to

71

make an easy living.’? No doubt! What the col-
ored people need are such Christian day schools as
are taught by our missionaries wherever the Lu-
theran church has begun mission work, and well-
educated, pious, God-fearing preachers and teachers,
such as our church intends to train in our colleges
at New Orleans and at Greensboro, N.C. Our Lu-
theran mission work has been a blessing to the col-
ored people in the past, and we hope it will be a
still greater blessing in the future.

A CuristiAn Sotprer.— Among the Japanese
that met their death in the naval battle at Port Ar-
thur, May 3, 1905, there was an officer by the name
of Kagejama. He was known among his comrades
as the Christian soldier. When his body was taken
from the water a little book saturated with blood
and water was found in his breast-pocket. It was
the Gospel of St. John, which he had received as a
present from a missionary some years before, and
which he always carried with him. His favorite
text were the words of Jesus: ‘‘If a man keep my
saying, he shall never see death,” John 8, 51. ‘‘This
is my comfort in the face of death,’’ he often said to
his comrades, ‘‘he that believes in the Gospel of
Jesus has everlasting life.’’ ‘In this firm belief,’’
writes one of his friends, ‘‘he entered death and de-
parted in peace with his dear little book upon his
heart.”’

Brste Worx.—The report of the British and
Foreign Bible Society for the past year has been
published. This is the oldest and greatest of the
Bible Societies. Last year, it issued a total of
5,857,645 copies of the Scriptures. The grand total
since the foundation of the Society reaches the mag-
nificent figure of 192,537,746. Of this total, over
77,000,000 copies have been issued in English. The
entire Bible is issued in 100 languages, the New
Testament in 94 more, and single books in 196 ad-
ditional tongues, making some 390 versions in all.
Additions to the versions are constantly being made,
and during the past year the Scriptures and portions
of them have been translated into the languages of
peoples living in Morocco, Equatorial Africa, New
Guinea, the New Hebrides, Kashmir, Baluchistan,
and Matabeleland. The people dwelling on the
east of the Paraguay River have had the Gospel of
St. Luke translated for them into Guarani and Span-
ish, printed in parallel columns. The society has
been caring also for the needs of the Russian and
Japanese soldiers, and has distributed over 350,000
copies among the troops on their way to the field
and among the sick and wounded in the hospitals.