The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1916, Page 15

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Pe nee a ee ee,
The Lutheran Pioneer.

15

New Lecture and Slides on Our
Colored Mission.

Rev. R. Jesse has just completed his second
lecture, and will be ready to send it out when this
number of the Pronger reaches the hands of its
readers. We give below what Rev. Jesse himself
has to say concerning this second lecture: —

Have just finished work on Lecture No. 2. All
that remains to be done is to gain the consent of
five houses to permit me to use six pictures on
which they haye a copyright. Then the slides
can be made. Have promised to have this lecture
out beginning with the first of February, and hope
that it will be as busy as Lecture No. 1 has been
thus far.

As far as the pictures are concerned, they are
better, I believe, in many respects than those of
the first lecture, partly because not only the men
in the field supplied me. with many pictures, but
because also the Rev. H. C. Messerli, Prof. Lochner,
and Rey. Gross sent me an abundance of pictures
that gave me a large number of views to select
from. Thus it was not necessary for me to take
many pictures out of books and from printers’ cuts.
Actual photographs always give one a clearer slide.

The contents of lecture? After the introduc-
tion, speaking of the purposes which the two lec-
tures are to serve, the lecture proper is introduced
with a slide containing the wording of a deed of
sale transferring a slave. This deed of sale was
found in the first shack at Concord when it was
wrecked. ‘The slide and its contents remind us
of how the Colored came into this country; how
they were surrounded in their kraals in Africa by
Mohammedan slave-dealers; how they were taken
prisoners, led away, brought to this country, and
sold into slavery. - Not until this land was saturated
with the blood of our forefathers did the atrocities
of slavery end. ‘The blood of man gained -emanci-
pation for the slave, but the blood of God, too, was
shed for them to gain emancipation for them from
the more disastrous bondage of sin, and the same
Savior who redeemed them has by His overruling
providence placed them before our doors, has brought
them into this country that we might proclaim the
true liberty to them. In fact, “missionary work
begins at home,” according to Acts 1; therefore we
should give some of our foremost efforts to this work.

It must be said to the credit of Lutheran slave-

holders that they knew and obeyed this will of the |

Master. They not only treated their slaves well,

but also had them instructed in the Word of God.
Thus it happened that before the war we had more
Colored Lutheran communicants in the South than
we have in our entire mission to-day.

Unfortunately, during the unsettled times right
after the war, these Colored Lutherans were not
looked after properly, and were almost all lost
to us. In the Carolinas this was not the case,
and their presence in later years explains to a con-
siderable extent our growth, which was much more
rapid in the Southeastern than in the Southern
field. Why were many here retained in the Lu-
iheran Church? ‘The history of the Alpha Synod,
the presence of Colored “Lutheran preachers,” ex-
plains this. A brief sketch of the quartet of Alpha
Synod members is given. The death of Koonts,
the appeal in their helplessness for advice from us
on the part of the remaining three members of
the Alpha Synod opened the door into this field
for us. The Rev. N. J. Bakke was the man to
whom we then looked to take possession of the
field for us. He has served us in various capacities,
first in New Orleans, then in the Carolinas, and
to-day as our Field Secretary, for more than thirty-
five years. What that means can be gathered from
a pen-picture of the life of a missionary in the
Colored Mission Field. The various stations in
this field are all-visited. Some of them, for lack
of time, and to make this lecture no longer than
the first, had to be passed up with a few words,
but enough has been said to give our people a good
insight into conditions as they were and as they
now are.

The requests that I would make to the brethren,
as I Jearn by experience, are the following : —

1. That applications be sent in as long as pos-
sible beforehand. This will save many of the breth-
ren disappointments.

2. Is lecture to be given in German, in English,
or in both languages?

3. We distribute dodgers in connection with our
lectures to advertise the Missionstaube and THE’
LuTHERAN PioNErr. How many dodgers will be
required ?

4, Have you a machine, or shall we sonal ours ?

5. Will electricity or gas light be used? If gas,
can you get a Prestolite gas-tank from an owner of
an automobile, or must we ship our Prestolite tank?

6. Do you know whether or not any brethren
in your conference district may wish to give the
lecture, and if so, who are they? This informa-
tion may lead to much saving of time and tepeated