The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1908, Page 30

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30

The Lutheran Pioneer.

SS  ————————_————_———_—_————— OO LLOETEEEE™E™E

First Mission among the Red Men.

John Eliot has been styled “the Apostle of the
Indians,” and Bancroft speaks of him as, “the
Morning Star of Missionary Enterprise.” The facts
are, however, that a Swedish Lutheran missionary
on the Delaware began mission work among the
Indians in 1642, four years before Eliot began his
mission work in New England; and that as early
as 1624 Gustavus Adolphus, the Lutheran King of
Sweden, planned a mission among the Red Men of
America, although the unsettled condition of the
state of affairs in Europe kept back the beginning
of that work until 1638. This, however, was eight
years before Eliot’s work began.

To those early Lutheran settlers belongs the
honor of inaugurating the peaceful policy toward
the Indians which gave Penn so much of his fame.
That policy, too, was dictated by the State that sent
over the colonists and the missionaries. Among
the instructions given these pioneers of civilization
on the Delaware (then written De La Ware) .were
such as these: “The wild nations bordering on all
sides the governor shall treat with all humanity
and respect, and so that no violence or wrong be
done them . . .; he shall rather exert himself that
the same wild people may be instructed gradually

.in-the truths and worship Christian religion. . . .
Especially shall he . . . impress upon their minds
that neither he, the government, nor his people,
are come . . . to do them any wrong or injury, but
much more for furnishing them with such things
as they may need for the ordinary wants of life.”

This policy was the guide of the Swedes at all
times. They lived in peace with the Indians — did

them no injury and received no injury from them, -

and the Red Men continued to speak of them with
confidence and affection long after their power had
been destroyed by the Dutch (Hollanders).

Campanius (the elder) was the missionary of.

Sweden, who first busied himself in efforts to win
the Indians to Christianity. He published dia-
logues and vocabularies of the language of the
Delawares, and these, with the translation of Lu-
ther’s Small Catechism in the same tongue, are
supposed to have been the first attempts at reducing
to writing the language of our North American
Indians. The Catechism was printed in Sweden at
the king’s- expense, and was.sent over to America
with the missionaries.

To the Swedes also Belongs the honor of first
translating that same Catechism into the English

tongue, in connection with their missions and ,

colonies on the Delaware. It was issued from
Dr. Franklin’s printing office, and the translation
made by Dr. Magnus von Wrangel, then the Provost
of the Swedish churches. — Zhe Young Iutheran.

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Misdirected Magic.

It sometimes’ happens that evil intent results in
good. The following is a case in point:

A few years ago a missionary near Bulawayo was
regarded with much suspicion by the Matabele of
the neighborhood. What most excited their fears
was a force pump in his garden. To them it was an
entirely novel piece of machinery, and the only ex-
planation that occurred to their minds was that it
must be some kind of magic. So they watched the
missionary very carefully when he was using it,
that they might be able to direct his magic against
himself.

Soon afterwards they decided to turn their
newly-acquired knowledge to account. So one bright
moonlight night a small group of Matabele war-
riors might have been seen making their way to the
bank of the stream where the pump was. They
found, to their delight, that they were able to work
the handles.
the pump going for two hours, by which time they
thought a sufficient supply of magic would be di-
rected against the missionary.

~ The next morning the missionary’s wife found

the tank full, and felt very grateful.

The Gospel.

“T have tried the Gospel,” said an aged Chris-
tian; “I have put it to the proof. I know what it
is and what it can do. Tell me that food does not
strengthen the weak; tell me that water does not
refresh the weary; tell me that light does not cheer
the disconsolate, and then you may tell me that the
Gospel does’not help when all other help comes to
naught, does not comfort the poor sinner when all
other comfort fails. Men can afford to give up all
other things rather than to part with the Gospel.
Men might better give up the sun than quench that
heavenly light of comfort which ee our lives
and dispels the darkness of the grave.”

_ “Ir is well that God answers our needs rather
than our wishes.” 2

Taking this dnty in turn, they kept *