The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1916, Page 60

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60

The Lutheran Pioneer.

the pastoral charge of Rev. Bakke. Mount Zion,
founded in 187% by Doescher, had not long before
my arrival vacated its old place of worship in
“Sailors? Home,” and was then domiciled in an
old church, which had been purchased from the
Colored Methodists. Up in Carrollton, a suburb of
New Orleans, Rey. Aug. Burgdorf preached in the
old ‘Rooster. Church,” so called because a metal
rooster ornamented the top of its steeple. Bethle-
hem, the fourth station in New Orleans, had just
been opened and was also served by Rev. Burgdorf.
Besides these four stations in New Orleans, there
was at that time a small Colored congregation at
Springfield, Il., a faithful little flock at Meherrin,
Va., and the station at Little Rock, Ark. The
station which Rev. Doescher had founded at Mobile,
Ala., and which soon after its opening had a Sunday-
school enrolment of over two hundred, had been
abandoned after a few years. Three pastors, three
teachers, and several students manned these various
stations at that time, thirteen years after the work
had been taken up.

To-day this insignificant plant has grown to be
quite a good-sized tree. The list of our Colored
stations, as it appears every three months in the
PIONEER, occupies a whole page, and the type is
small. The four stations in Louisiana have in-
creased to eleven. Instead of two missionaries, two
teachers, and one student, the Louisiana field at
’ present has seven missionaries and fourteen teachers.
Then the little flock at Meherrin, Va., was all we
had in the Southeastern States; to-day we have no
less than 25 stations in North Carolina alone, which
are manned by ten missionaries and ten teachers.
Besides these more extensive fields in Louisiana and
North Carolina, we have a station at Meherrin, Va.,
two stations at St. Louis, one at Springfield, Ill,
one at Little Rock, Ark., one at Yonkers and another
in Brooklyn, N. Y., one in South Carolina, one each
in Richmond, Va., Washington, D. C., and Atlanta,
Ga., and, finally, the new and very promising sta-
tions at Neenah, Oak Hill, and Sedan, Ala. All
but two of these stations are marked on the accom-
panying map. The reader will see that there is
but a small portion of the South that we have occu-
pied with stations as the whole should be occupied.
In Alabama, with its million Negroes, we have but
three stations; in Mississippi, with a Colored popu-
lation of considerably over a million, we haven’t
a single worker, Among the half million Negroes
of Tennessee and the thousands of Colored people
of Florida no Lutheran mission-work is being done.

South Carolina and Georgia have but one station
each, and the great State of Texas has not been
worked by us at all.

In our thirty odd mission-schools almost twenty-
five hundred pupils are being taught by seventeen
pastors and twenty-six teachers. In all these schools
the Word of God and Luther’s Catechism are regu-
larly and daily taught, and on the mind and heart
of every living soul that passes in and out of our
schools there is impressed the fundamental and far-
reaching truth that “the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom.” ‘The end of all our work
is to save souls, to make godly men and women.

About twelve years ago two other missionary
agencies were added. I refer to Luther College at
New Orleans and Immanuel College at Greens-
boro, N. C. During these years a number of
reliable and efficient Colored pastors and teachers
have gone out from these two institutions, and the
students of these institutions that did not enter
into the immediate service of the Church have been
a mighty influence for good because of the higher
Christian education they have there received.

F. J. L.

The Summer Convention of Luther
Conference.

Luther Conference met in Bethlehem School,
New Orleans, for a two-day session on Wednesday
morning, June 21. Conference was begun with the
reading of a portion of Holy Writ by Chairman
Kramer, the singing of a hymn, and prayer. ‘The
absentees noted at roll-call were Pastors W. Ter-
valon and E. Berger, the latter, however, being
present at the next day’s sessions. The first paper
read and discussed was that of Pastor Peay, under
the caption, “The Relation of One Brother to
Another.” ‘The essayist viewed his subject in four
phases: Brotherly Love; Brotherly Unity; Broth-
erly Sympathy; and Brotherly Admonition. In the
afternoon session a catechization on the Fourth Com-
mandment was read by Teacher Arthur Berger.

Wednesday evening, at 8 o’clock, a joint service
was held at Bethlehem Church. The sermon was
delivered by Pastor E. Schmidt, the undersigned
conducting the altar service. The speaker spoke on
Ps. 103, 1. 2, choosing as his theme, “The Thanks
That You as Lutherans Owe unto God.” He
showed, first, for what Lutheran Christians should
be thankful, and secondly, in what manner they
should give thanks. f

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