The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1914, Page 82

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82

smelling savor, that we might be holy and with-
out blame before Him in love. Concerning this
loving-kindness of our Redeemer, Paul Gerhardt
sings:

It is that mercy. never ending,

Which all conception far transcends,

Of Him who, with love’s arms extending,

To wretched sinners condescends;

Whose heart with pity still doth break,

Whether we seek Him or forsake.

Because Christ has thus loved us, we love Him,
and also our neighbor, and have the ardent desire
to rescue those that are still afar off from the
kingdom of grace, whom the Lord, our God, calls
through missions.

As the compassion of the Son of God makes
us believers willing to do all manner of good
works, so it also makes us zealous in this blessed
work of leading immortal and hitherto unconverted
souls into the congregation of saints and believers
in Christ Jesus, and of causing those that are
spiritually neglected and forsaken, being without
Word and Sacraments, to join an orthodox church,
thus keeping their souls from utter ruin, strength-
ening, furthering, and preserving them in faith
and Christianity.

Dear reader, if you have learned to know and
appreciate the love of Christ, you, too, will show
yourself an eager missionary. 1H. Osteruus.

How the Papuans Received the Gospel.

New Guinea is the largest island in the world.
It is 1,400 miles in length, and its greatest width
is 400 miles. The northwestern portion belongs to
the Dutch, the southwestern section is owned by
Great Britain, and the northeastern portion is a
protectorate of Germany since 1884. The German
part of New Guinea is still quite unexplored and
undeveloped, and has a native population of more
than 100,000. New Guinea is the home of the
black, frizzle-haired Papuan. Here are to be found
primitive types of human life such as are scarcely to
be met elsewhere. Here may be found tree-dwellers
and Jake-dwellers, men whose weapons, implements,
and utensils are made of wood and stone. Almost
devoid of clothing, they ornament their bodies with
elaborate tattooing, with feathers, rings, and nose-
sticks. The Papuans have no money, and do not
know the need of it. The land is rich, the water
swarms with fish and the forests with game. But
cannibalism and open murder spoil the beauty of

The Lutheran Pioneer.

the picture, and a slavish fear of evil spirits fills
the hearts of these poor people.

When, in 1892, one of the early German mis- -
sionaries of the Rhenish Society was on his way
to Kaiser Wilhelm’s Land, as the German portion
of New Guinea is called, one of his traveling com-
panions on board the ship said to him, “You had
better save yourself the trouble of trying to con-
vert those cannibals, and go with me to Borneo
to preach to the orang-utans. It will be an easier
task to convert them than the savages of New
Guinea.” And the missionary who was thus ad-
dressed, after working quite a while among the
native Papuans, often recalled the words of his
fellow-traveler.

It was quite a while before the first German
missionaries were able to preach the Gospel to the
Papuans. ‘There was no one to teach them the
language, or to enlighten them on Papuan customs
and usages. ‘They were obliged to learn the lan-
guage from the lips of the natives, and become
acquainted with their customs by the observations
of many years. ‘This slow process of learning led
them to begin to preach before they fully com-
manded the language, and many were the mistakes
they made. Thus, for example, instead of using
the Papuan word for God, they used the word sig-
nifying death. In another case they used a word
meaning wild game, or a beast of prey, to desig-
nate flesh, which, of course, imparted thoughts to
the natives far from those intended by the mis-
sionaries. Because of these blunders, the natives
good-naturedly advised the missionaries that they
should postpone their preaching until they had eaten
more native yams and cocoanuts.

They began their preaching of the Gospel by
telling the Papuans Bible stories, those stories which
spoke of Jesus’ person and work. These stories
pleased the natives greatly. A good story had to
be repeated. “That was a good story,” they would
say; “tell it twice, three times, and it will find
ifs way into our liver and remain there.” Among
the Papuans, namely, the liver is looked upon as
the repository of knowledge, a kind of pocket into
which all mental treasures can be packed.

That Jesus had come from heaven to earth the
Papuans believed without difficulty, for there was
a tradition current among them that the great
Spirit would send a messenger who would lead men
back into a better country. Old and young, there-
fore, listened with great interest’ when they were
told that Jesus was the Son of God. And it was