The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1914, Page 15

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

15

Tire LuTHERAN Cuurcy 1x Roumanrs.— The
Lutheran Church in Roumania has a force of 100
pastors and other church-workers. In Bucharest,
the capital, with a population of 300,000, there are
six or more buildings in the heart of the city de-
voted to Lutheran mission work.

A Cry rrom Nortit Inpra. — The Chamars of
North India are begging the Christian missionaries
to come and help them. A delegation from one of
their villages called on a missionary of the English
Church Mission and said to him: “The Hindus wilJ
have nothing to do with us; the Mohammedans pay
no attention to us; you alone can help us. Will
you not send us Christian teachers for our chil-
dren ?”

Javan. — Out of its population of fifty million,
thirty-five million are outside the range of Chris-
tian influence. Fully five-sevenths of the entire
population of Japan are living in country districts
and towns that have not as yet been touched by
Christian work.

Rev. Henry Wonper, D. D.— On December
22, 1913, the venerable Dr. Wunder passed away
at the age of almost eighty-four years. THe was
actively engaged in the ministry for sixty-four
years, and for over sixty-two years was the pastor
of the First Lutheran St. Paul’s Chureh of Chicago.
He came to Chicago in 1851 to take charge of what
was then the only Lutheran church of the city.
his one chureh is to-day the mother of 88 churches
of the Lutheran Missouri Synod.

Success or Missions on Tite Konco, Arnica.
In his introduction to a recent book, entitled, “IXon-
goland, a book for Young People,” Sir Harry Johns-
ton writes: “Many of the Baptist missionaries still
at work in inner Nongoland have known that region
when it was populated exclusively by negroes lead-
ing absolutely savage lives, wearing little or nothing
in the way of clothing, living under an awful
tyranny of barbarous customs, associated with blood-
shed-and much agony of mind and body. Yet now,
if any of the readers of this book could go out to
the heart of Nongoland, they would be astonished at
the aspect of many villages, with their well-built
brick houses, their happy, contented, industrious
people, clothed to a reasonable extent, and as Chris-
tian in thought or behavior as the people of London
are or should be.”
- Former Cannipats Bott A Crrurci. — Mrs.
Rich, of the mission at Suau, on the island of
Papua, writes as follows in the London Missionary

Society Chronicle: “Suau was a cannibal village,
its people wild and savage and feared; to-day it is
one of the most promising in our mission. Just
out in front of the present mission house is a huge
rock, nearly covered at high tide. This is called
“Tau veu,’ or ‘man-rock,’ and here in past days the
people of Suau laid their victims, while the horrible
process of dividing the spoil was carried out. The
church is well built and good-looking, and, as a
further proof of its consecration. twenty-eight new
churech-members were baptized at the very first
service in it. There seems a great and good future
before this new church in the old heathen village,
and we earnestly hope it may fill all expectations.”

ABOUT THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO, it is said, a
native of the Chinese island of Haitang was travel-
ing on the mainland. There he heard of Jesus from
a fellow-traveler who was stopping with him at the
same inn. He accepted the truth, and upon his
return to Haitang carried the Gospel to every one
of the 411 villages of the island. When the Chris-
tian missionaries came to Haitang, about ten years
ago, they found the people prepared to receive the
Word. They are now preaching in 30 villages.
Some of these recently converted Christians give
one-fourth of their income for the spread of the
Gospel.

— -—-——_ ++ e-» — — — —_

A Beautiful Legend.

A certain man once possessed a garden which
produced nothing but weeds for him, till at last
he came in possession of a strange flower of won-
derful vitality. The story goes on to tell that the
man sowed a handful of this strange seed into his
garden among all the weeds, and left it to grow
as well as it might. Time went on, and he knew
not how the seed was doing, until one day when
he went into the garden and beheld a most won-
derful sight. “He knew that the seed produced a
dainty flower, and he looked for it; but instead of
a few flowers scattered here and there, he found -
that the new plant had covered the whole garden.
The strange flower had killed all the weeds in the
garden. Look where he would, from wall to wall,
he could see nothing ‘but the fair blossoms of the
strange plant, and the whole air was filled with its
sweet perfume. 3

Christ is that strange, wonderful plant. If He
be sown into the heart, He will gradually root out
all the bad weeds and ugly plants, and fill it with
His sweetness and goodness.