The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1907, Page 87

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

NOTES.

A BuiEssep Work. — We are glad to learn from
papers recently received that the good work done
for the sick in the Lutheran Sanitarium at Denver,
Colo., is being richly blessed.. The sick there enjoy
the best of care, not only as to their bodily, but also
as to their spiritual welfare. The Gospel is brought
to them for their comfort and salvation. “Some,”
we are told, “who were utterly without faith and
hope on entering the institution, confessed with
dying lips that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the
glory of the Father. Such experiences are wonder-
ful and precious, and if you could realize the great
mission work which is successfully carried on within
the Evangelical Lutheran Sanitarium, you certainly
would rejoice in taking part in such a glorious en-
deavor.”

InprAN Missions. — The Lutheran Synod of
Wisconsin has now four missionaries laboring
among the Apaches in Arizona, the Rev. Harders
having recently entered that promising mission-
field. According to the latest statistics there are
38,000 Indians in Arizona, and the results of the
missions among them are said to be very encour-

aging.

Sevr-Surrort or Native ArricAN CONGREGA-
rT1ons. — In his recent report on the Hermannsburg
Missions in South Africa, Director Harms touches
upon a point of great importance for the future de-
velopment of the mission, namely, the training of
the native congregations in the direction of self-
support. “It is to be regretted,” he says, “that wo
neglected to give due heed to this important matter
from the very beginning of the work, and it is hard
to make up for what has been lost.” The mis-
sionaries have a hard time of it trying to make plain
to the people that all their contributions are applied
to their own welfare. “Their last argument is, ‘We
are poor.’ If they would say ‘lazy,’ it would be
nearer the.truth. And yet we dare not grow weary
or give up; we must train our congregations to
support and maintain their churches and schools.
It is really not a question of money, but it concerns
a most important method and measure of education
and culture that cannot be neglected without loss to
the congregations.”

Liserat Grvers. — Twenty-seven hundred dol-
lars for missionary purposes, it is reported, were
collected at one service in the month of August.

87

The congregation which gave that amount was not
a wealthy city congregation, but was composed of
Indian women, who were camping in tents on the
Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.

Joyrul EXxprrrences.— There are ‘many dis-
appointments and sad experiences in a missionary’s
life; but there are also joyful experiences, which
gladden his heart. A Lutheran missionary in South
Africa, writing of a young African woman who died
of consumption, says: “She was always contented
and resigned to God’s will, only lamenting at times
that the Lord seemingly delayed so long to come
and deliver her from suffering, as’she had a desire
to depart and be with Christ. I shall never forget
the hours I spent with her during her sickness.
I went down to her house to comfort and strengthen
her from God’s Word, and I always went home
comforted and strengthened myself.” And another
missionary writes from his mission field in South
Africa: “The wife of my teacher departed in the
firm and joyful faith in her Redeemer. For her it
was no easy departure, for she had to leave her
husband with seven small children, the youngest
only a few days old. Her sufferings were at times
intense. She often exhorted her husband and chil-
dren to remain faithful Christians. Repeatedly she
expressed her desire to depart and be with Christ.
She had a clear understanding of the way of salva-
tion and was well advanced in Christian knowledge.
As often as she would come to speak of her sinful-
ness and guilt, she would immediately find comfort
in the merits of her Savior, to whom she would turn
in full assurance of childlike faith.”

A Faithful Neighbor.

Writing of her work among the poor, a deaconess
ys: “I dropped into a poor home one day, a very
poor home, and found a woman sweating over a
washtub. Her face was cheery, even though her
head was tied up with a handkerchief, and there was
an odor of camphor in the air. It was hot, and the
room was in fearful disorder. The children, dirty
but happy, had turned their chairs upside down and
were playing streetcars. The little mother at the
washtub explained that across the way a dead baby
was lying in its coffin, and as its mother had six
children while she had but three, and as the other
mother was quite ill, while she only had a headache,
she had brought the other mother’s Bex washing
over to do it for her.” ‘