The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1918, Page 49

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When yon finish reading this magazine, place a 1-cent 5 on this
notice, mail the magazine, and it will be placed in the hands of our sol-
dicrs or sallors destined to proceed overseas.

No Wrapping —No Address. A. S. BunLeson, Poetmaster-General.

The Lutheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

Posiisnep BY THE EvaNGEricAL Lurieran SynopicaL CoNFERENcE oF NortH AMERICA.

REV. F. J. LANKENAU, EDITOR.

Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Oh, What a Faithful Friend Thou Art!

Lord Jesus Christ, my Friend Thou art,
From whom I nevermore would part.

For when my faith looks up to Thee,
The shades of sin and sorrow flee.

Thou art the Door to heav’n, the Way
To God, with whom I'll dwell for aye.

Thy Spirit Thou hast given me;

I also have true joy in Thee.

I’m peaceful even here; —and there
I shall Thy bliss and glory share.

Oh, what a faithful Friend Thou art,
Lord Jesus, Sunshine of my heart!
H. Ostreruus.

es

The Loyalty of Lutherans.

From all over the country we hear of Lutheran
patriotic meetings. From the East and the West,
from the North and the Southi, reports of great
rallies come to us. Juast month’s PioNEER brought
us an interesting account of such a meeting held
in one of our Colored churches in New Orleans.
Our “Items” in this issue make bricf mention. of
a rally held-at Midway, Ala., by one of our mission-
schools and its friends. But of all the rallies we
have heard, that held by the Lutheran churches of
San Francisco and ‘vicinity on April 19th seems
to have been one of the most successful and en-
thusiastic. We have been favored with a very full
account of this great meeting, attended: by thou-
sands of Lutherans representing more than a, dozen
different nationalities, and we are very sorry that

ST. LOUIS, MO., J

ULY, 1918. No. 7.

it is not possible to give our readers extracts from
the eloquent addresses made upon the occasion,
several of them by men of national reputation.

Surely, these Lutheran patriotic meetings, held
in every part of the country, and the reports of the
truly magnificent manner in which our people have
responded to the demands made upon them by the
Government, must convince all that are open to
conviction that our people as a whole are loyal
Americans: ‘Tus a partial report from 16,000
Lutherans in Nortliern California shows subscrip-
tions to the Third Liberty Loan to the amount
of more than three and one-half million dollars.
From other parts of the country the reports are
equally encouraging. ‘Thousands of volunteer boys
from our congregations are now in the Army and
Navy, not to speak of the many thousands of Lu-
theran select men serving the flag. One-third of
the young men serving the flag from the writer’s
congregation are volunteers, and he has good reason
to believe that an equally good proportion obtains
elsewhere in our Church. If the young men every-
where in the country had responded as cheerfully as
did the young men whose pastor the writer is, our
country would not have been obliged to draft a
single man to the present day, and the writer be-
lieves ‘that the same can be said of thousands of
Lutheran congregations in our country.

We Lutherans have been accused of disloyalty

and un-Americanism, but our words and deeds have ~

proved these accusations to be false. Our religion
has' been maligned by those who wished us ill; but
we have shown’ again and again that those who spoke
of us as evil-doers are slanderers. May it ever be

thus; “may we ever with well-doing put to silence.