The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1918, Page 47

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The Lutheran: Pioneer. 47

dred and fifty thousand miles of irrigation canals
traverse the country in every direction. ‘These canals
cost fifty million dollars, but they have turned more
than twenty-two million acres of waste soil into rich
farm land.

India is the greatest cotton producer in the world
next to the United States. One-sixth of the total out-
put of this important staple is produced in India.
Jute bags, so extensively used everywhere for coffee,
wool, wheat, and the like, is a monopoly of Bengal
Province, India.

India has thirty thousand miles of railroads, and
ranks fourth among the countries of the world in
railroad mileage. The fare on these railroads is only
one-third cent per mile. Fifty thousand miles of
macadam roads have been built, and seventy thou-
sand miles of telegraph lines are in operation.

India’s trade is larger than that of China or
Japan. The annual exports reach the sum of about
four hundred and fifty million dollars, while the
imports aggregate no less than seven hundred mil-
lion dollars.

‘Thirty-five million people are dependent for their
living upon mills and factories. In 1880 India had
fifty-eight cotton mills; to-day it boasts of more

than two hundred and fifty. India has within its *

borders over one thousand tea plantations, four
mints, forty-eight rubber plantations, twelve gold
mines, ten paper mills, three hundred and fifty-three
coal mines, three hundred and forty-one printing-
presses, and eighteen auto works. F. J. 1.

Mission-Schools in Asia.

Christian schools are springing up everywhere
in Asia, common schools, academies, and colleges,
where the children and young people of the East

are taught the Western knowledge, but, above all,

things, the one thing needful. Everywhere it soon
becomes apparent, no matter what field of mission-
endeavor you examine, that, while the Church may
bring the school, it is equally true that the school
builds the Church. It is the same story every-
where —in Japan, in China, in India. In India

there are 53 colleges under Christian management..

In China the first eight colleges and universities
founded by the government were established and set
in running order by Christian missionaries. So
also in Japan it was the Christian missionary Ver-
“beck who founded the first college, and Roberts Col-
lege, a Christian institution at Constantinople, for.

years has most powerfully and beneficently affected
the whole of the near East.

But even more beneficial than the higher institu-
tions .of learning, though less ostentatiously so, are
the elementary Christian schools conducted by Chris-
tian missionaries in all the countries mentioned
above. It is through the lower grade schools with
their daily Gospel-teaching that the blessed leaven
of the Christian religion is brought into thousands
of households, there to do its blessed work in silence
and unnoticed, but, for all that, most surely and
steadily. Teaching the Gospel of Jesus, the Savior
of sinners, to the heathen children day after day in
the mission-schools is the most certain, reliable, and
thorough way of overcoming heathenism. They who
despise not to work upon the hearts and minds of
the children will in the end have the most abundant
and enduring success. As experience in the home
church proves that churches taking the best care of
the children have the most rapid and steady growth,
so also experience on the foreign field shows that,
the mote attention is paid to the children of the
field, the more rapid the growth of the Church and
the more reliable the membership.

May all the Christian congregations at the home
base profit by the example of their congregations in
the foreign field! FIL.

We are the children of the conyerts of foreign
missionaries, and fairness means that I do for others
what men once did for me.

BOOK TABLE.

Testimony and Proof. By Prof. Th. Graebner. Con-
cordia Publishing. House, St. Louis, Mo. a rege
booklet, paper cover. Price, 5 cts., postpaid; 50
copies, $2.00, postage extra; 100 copies, $3.50, post-
age extra; in quantities of 500 or more, at $30.00
per thousand, transportation extra. _

We can in no better way prove our love to our Church
and our loyalty to our country than by assisting in the
wholesale distribution of this booklet. It did the re

viewer’s heart good when he saw the first copy, and as

soon as he had read it through, he sat down and
300 copies for distribution in his church. We subscribe
to every word the publishers say in announcing this
timely tract: — f

“One of the developments of our war with Gerinany
in many localities is the assumption that the Lutheran
Church is the: Kaiser’s church, and that the Kaiser in-
directly or directly is influencing or even governing the
Lutheran Church. By some irony of fate the Missouri

_ Lutheran § Gas ewhicht owes ks) realac in to emigra-
tion e Ka ‘3 on account o: lous op:
ioe ra Rabers ea:

pression. and persecution under the

17 .
cestors, is singled out for especial odium by misinformed _

peas, and in the excitement of the such unfounded

msinuations and charges gain credence & manner and —

to an extent that bodes no good to our church-body.

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