The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1916, Page 11

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

11

are gold, and stinging nettles are plants that can
cheer its despairing heart, but rejects the Pearl of
Great Price.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ grant us His
Holy Spirit that we may forever cling to the
Christian doctrine of atonement, and that we may
be filled with burning zeal to bring help to the ill-
fated world by untiringly confessing the Gospel,
by which souls are won from darkness, and trans-
lated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, in whom
we have redemption through His blood, even the
forgiveness of sins. H. Osrrernus.

— — 20

The Macedonian Cry from a “Black Belt”:
“Come Over and Help Us!”

In the beginning of November of last year, the
Chairman of our Mission Board received a letter,
signed by Rosa J. Young, a person unknown to us,
in which she offered to turn over to our Board her
school property, under the condition that we assume
control of the school for the benefit of the Colored
children of the community. She gave a very touch-
ing description of the condition of her people in
that section of Alabama, and closed with the Mace-
donian cry: “Come over and help us!”

As the writer was on an official visit to the
southeastern field of our Mission, and could make
a side-trip into Alabama without materially in-
creasing the expenses, he decided to visit that field
also. before returning to St. Louis.

Rosa Young and her school have been, and still
are, an asset to the community in which they are
located. Miss Rosa, as her pupils call her, is a
graduate of Payne University of Selma, a highly
educated young woman, and loved and respected by
both races. A girl like that is more than an asset,
she is a shining light and a benefactress to her
people. What induced her to establish the school?

‘In her section, like in many others of the South,
the Colored children received only three to four
months’ public schooling. This did not meet the re-
quirements of the people, and being unable to send
their children away to better schools, they requested
her to establish a- private school, and promised to
support it to the best of their ability, which they did.
The white people, too, were interested in the under-
taking. After having. enlisted the moral and finan-
cial support of her white friends, she secured five
-acres of beautiful timber-land, erected a schoolhouse
with three'small rooms, and established “The Rose-

bud Literary and Industrial School.” The equip-
ments are rather primitive. The long benches and
teachers’ chairs are home-made. The little children
write with their tablets or papers on the bench,
kneeling on the. floor. There are a few imitation
blackboards, but no maps or charts were visible.
As no chimneys are provided, the stovepipes are
run through the windows. How would you, Lu-
theran children, like a schoolhouse like that? But
it was the best that Rosa and the poor people could
do with the little money at their disposal.

Yet, strange to relate, during the first year, 1912,
Miss Rosa managed to crowd into these three rooms

Miss Rosa J. Young.

215 children. ‘Two teachers were added, and the
larger girls were instructed in sewing and cooking.
A number of books were collected for a circulating
library, and the erection of a spacious chapel was
begun. But hard times came. The low price, of
cotton and the boll-weevil, the latter worse than
the former, caused a scarcity of nioney, and it be-
came necessary to cut down the expenses. This left
the principal, Miss Young, alone with over 100 chil-
dren. in her care. ‘To save the school from be-
coming “a memory only,” the trustees appealed to
the Methodist Church for help, but met with a re-
fusal. Then they authorized the principal to offer
the school to any Protestant church-body that would

‘continue to conduct it in the interest of the Colored

children, and she applied to our Church. |