The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1917, Page 6

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6 The Lutheran Pioneer.

called a conference of his friends, and the announce-
ment must be put far back in the hallway, where
if could not be easily seen from the street. But
now religious liberty has come, despite the wide-
spread agitation of the priests against it. The
legislature has passed an act which has duly be-
come a law, granting religious liberty for Peru.

Tue Great SpinrruaL NEED or Sourm AMER-
1ca. — At least one-half of the men in the South
American republics have finally broken from Rome.
The women are more largely under the control of
the priests, but the men openly ridicule the Church.
The university students, the future leaders, are
either indifferent or are opposed to religion. All
these millions need the Gospel, and need it des-
perately. If the Gospel is not provided, the greater

ordained; and in Argentina they have eleven mis-
sionaries at work. In Bolivia the Methodists have
a large school for boys at La Paz, which receives
an annual appropriation of $10,000 from the goy-
ernment, and in Santiago, Chile, they are conduct-
ing what is claimed to be the best school for girls
in all South America. At Sao Paulo the Metho-
dists have Mackenzie College. The Presbyterians
are at work in a number of the larger cities. They
have a fine boys’ school in Santiago, Chile, a num-
ber of mission-schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
and they are also working extensively in Uruguay.

Aw Unknown Lanp. — The world knows little
about South America. It is not a fully explored
continent, there still being more unexplored terri-
tery in South America than in the rest of the world

A South American Missionary Property of the Moravians.

portion of the male population of South America
will soon fall a prey to open infidelity.

Work Brine Donr 1n SournH America. — In
Brazil our own Church is doing a great work among
the German immigrants, and is also beginning to
work among the natives in the Portuguese tongue.
At present the work is prosecuted at 140 different
places by thirty pastors and twenty-eight teachers.

In Argentina the work is carried on in three widely -

separated fields and at thirty-five different places.
All told, our Church has almost 20,000 souls in
her spiritual care in South America. Of great im-
portance for the work is the higher institution at
Porto Alegre, which is fitting out pastors and
teachers for our missions in Brazil and Argentina.
— Besides our Church, eight other denominational
boards of North America are working in South
America. The Methodists have five men from the
United States working in Peru, of whom three are

taken together. It is not a fully civilized con-
tinent, for in the interior, a little back from the
coast, vast regions can be found where primitive
conditions in religion, home, food, etc., prevail.
Neither can it be called a Christian continent, for
there are vast regions in the interior where the
people do not even know who God is, and in the
larger cities the men have practically left the Roman
Church, and are rushing rapidly into open unbelief.
From fifty to eighty-seven per cent. of the people
are of illegitimate birth! — But South America is
open to evangelistic effort. Ignorance, superstition,
and immorality are no more satisfying the South
Americans than they have ever satisfied others, and
many could be gained for Christ if the Gospel were
brought to them.

HEATHENIsM IN SoutH AmeErtca. —In Cuzco,
a large city of. Peru, there is cut in stone over the
door of a Roman Catholic Church an inscription