The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1909, Page 63

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

63

NOTES.

A NxGiecrep Orrorrunrry. — In a sermon on
neglected opportunities in the mission field, one of
the leading clergymen in the South said: “Our
Southern churches have spent probably a hundred
times as much money since the Civil War in an
' effort to evangelize the people of China, Japan,
India, South America, Africa, Mexico, and Cuba,
as they have spent to give the Gospel to the negroes
at our doors. It is often true that opportunity is
overlooked because it lies at our feet.”

Mission Amona Inprans. — The Lutheran
Synod of Wisconsin and Other States is carrying
on a very promising mission among Indians in
Arizona. Four missionaries are at work in that
field, and their labors in church and school are
abundantly blessed. 300 Indian children attend
the mission schools.

Aw Arrican’s Piea.— An African convert, at
a missionary meeting in England, said: “What
pity it is, what sin it is that you Christians have
so many years got that heavenly bread and hold it
for yourselves, not to give one little bit, one crumb,
to poor heathen. There are so many millions of
heathen, and you have so much bread; and you
could depend upon it you should not have less be-
cause you gave, but the Lord Jesus would give His
blessing, and you should have all the more.”

- Cuina’s Minions. — There are many millions
in China that need the Gospel. A careful compu-
tation gives the following results: “The people of
China, joining hands, in ranks, will gird the globe
ten times with living, beating human hearts. Let
them moye past a point at the rate of a thousand
a day, and the procession will not end in a thousand
years. Let two thousand pass a given point, under
the sunlight and under the stars, every day and
night, and you will hear the muffled tramp for five
hundred years.” Among these millions there are
only 3949 evangelical missionaries laboring at 647
mission stations.

Wuy He Became A Missronary. — In answer-
ing the question, “Why I became a missionary,”
Dr. Hodgkiss, of Chentu, China, said: “I was
brought up to find my heroes among the pioneers
of missionary enterprise, rather than on the battle-
field. At my mother’s knee I heard of the victories
of the Cross in the Hawaiian Islands and the Fijis.

I never questioned the thought that the missionary
calling was the noblest to which a man can aspire,
and I regard my whole life as having been shaped
by this early ideal.”

A CueerruL Giver.—An Indian missionary
in Canada relates the following story about a Chris-
tian woman who could not always come to the
services, but would not miss contributing to the
collection: She called at the mission house one
day holding in her hand a new deerskin purse filled
with silver. She said, “I live seven miles from the
church, and cannot come when the roads are bad
or the bridges gone. I feel disappointed when I
do not have a chance to put my money in the hat.
You always go to church. You carry my purse
every time, and if the hat is passed when I am away.
you put in my money. I shall feel happy all the
time to know that my money never gets left out.”

Givine THE Best. — Not a great while ago a
missionary was speaking to the Indians and asking
them to make an offering which was to be sent to
other Indians, and he said, “Give the best you can;
the very best you have in your homes should to-day
be offered to God.” The baskets were passed, and
the minister was just about to bless the offering,
when an Indian rose in the rear of the room and,
with his wife by his side and their little boy between
them, came to the front. He said, through an inter-
preter, “Minister, you told us to give the best we

have, and our best is not money, it is this little

boy,” and there was not even the suggestion of a
smile when he said, “We could not put him in the
basket, so we brought him to you. We want you to
take him, and we may never see him again, but we
give him to God to-day, and we want him to be
trained so that he may himself become a preacher.
From this day on he is God’s boy.”

Our Mission Duty.

Tf all the heathen shall praise God, Ps. 117, He
must first be their God. Shall He be their God,
then they must know Him and believe in Him, and
put away all idolatry, since God cannot be praised
with idolatrous lips or with unbelieving hearts.
Shall they believe, then they must first hear His
Word and by it receive the Holy Spirit, who cleanses
and enlightens their hearts through faith. Are they
to hear His Word, then preachers must be sent who
shall declare to them the Word of God. — Luther.