The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1910, Page 85

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

85

all taken an active interest in the building of the
church, some doing a good part of the work, others
giving the wages of one or more weeks to the build-
ing fund. We learn also that these black Christians
contribute regularly every week towards the salary
of pastor and teacher. “As soon as their wages are
paid, they bring their contribution for church and
school.” They also contribute regularly towards the
support of students of their own race, who are pre-
paring for work in the mission field. As regular,
liberal givers for the work of the Church these poor
black Christians put to shame many white Chris-
tians. They practice also brotherly admonition, ad-
monishing and encouraging one another with God’s
Word to shun sin and to lead a godly life.

May the good Lord continue to bless the work
of our brethren among the Australian negroes for
the salvation of many souls!

a

French Vaudois Lutheran Mission at Chicago.

The last surviving member of the protest party
in the New York Ministerium, Rey. F. L. Braun,
offered, for God’s sake and God’s wages, to take -
hold of the French mission spoken of in another
article, and to read to these French Protestants a
Lutheran sermon. Rey. Karl Schmidt, President
of the Foreign Mission Board, agreed to this propo-
sition. In our country there could not be found
in French Dr. Luther’s Catechism or any Book of
Sermons of his. So the missionary was obliged to
translate a sermon from German into French, which
proved a rather difficult work. He chose the first
sermon in Luther’s House Postil for the eighteenth
Sunday after Trinity on the first and greatest com-
mandment.

On the first Sunday in October, at 2 Pp. m., Rev.
Braun went to the house-of Mr. Frank Peyrot,
Where he read the sermon to Mrs. Peyrot. When
asked, “Did you understand it?” she replied, “Yes,
entirely; all the good works we, out of love, do to
our neighbor, Christ will regard as done unto Him,
and this is the true service of God.”

Rey. Braun promised to call again on each first
and third Sunday in the month, and to read the
next time Luther’s sermon on the marriage of the
king’s son. ‘The people were to be notified in time.

Very likely the place of meeting has soon to be
Temoved from the home of Mr. Peyrot, in the rear
house, to a more convenient store or hall, where

rent is to be paid.

All those Vaudois are poor, mostly day laborers
or mechanics. In their manners they differ favor-
ably from their countrymen.

After the recall of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685,
which granted religious liberty also to the Vaudois
in France, the largest part of them emigrated; they
settled in the Alpine valleys of Piedmont or in the
Black Forest of Swabia. A descendant of the latter,
Pierre Peyrot, wrote, in German, a history of the
Albigensians (or Vaudois) in two volumes.

The Vaudois hymn-book, published at Lau-
sanne, Switzerland, contains, besides the psalm-
hymns, translations of English and several German
Lutheran hymns.

If, by God’s grace, this mission should grow
into a congregation, it would be the first French
Lutheran church in the United States.

May God abundantly bless the work begun in
His name! F. L. B.

How a French Lutheran Mission Field Was
Discovered.

A retired Lutheran pastor is aiding each May
since seven years in name-canvassing for the Chi-
cago City Directory. He was mostly sent into Ger-
man, Polish, Bohemian, and Slovak settlements to
get the proper spelling of their names. He has
tried to do mission work at the same time.

Last year he found a meeting-place in a store
for Protestant Italians. Their confessional plat-
form he could not find out.

This year he was one day sent into an Italian
settlement, distant from all others of that tongue.

On the top floor of a rear house with a steep,
rickety stairway he found a family, named Peyrot,
a young couple with one child. As he corrected
the spelling of said name, the broken answer of the
lady seemed to show the accent of a French instead
of an Italian native. Addressed in French, she
was very glad to hear her native tongue spoken by
a German. Questioned why she, as a French Catho-
lic, had no holy pictures on the wall, — the lack of
these had already been noticed in all othér dwel-
lings there, —she replied, “I am a French Protes-
tant, a Vaudois.” She then fetched him a French
Bible. He read to her from the Gospel of St. John,
chapter 1, 1—15.

In reply she answered in French: “But you read
the French better than you speak it.” The remark
was just and proper; for though very well versed in