The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1919, Page 4

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4 The Lutheran Pioneer.

rolment has reached the 700 mark, and the tuition-
fees collected from the pupils so far during this
school-year amount to $400. At the beginning
of December sixteen teachers were taking care of
this large number of scholars.

The new building at Midway is well under way.
The congregation celebrated Christmas in the new
chapel, though the building will probably not be
completed before the middle of this month. If
some congregation should have some old pews and
school-desks for this building at Midway, Rey.
George Schmidt, Camden, Ala., would be delighted
to get into touch with its pastor or officials. Through
the kindness of Missionary Claus and his congrega-
tion at Springfield, Ill, Midway has been supplied
with an organ and quite a number of school-desks.

A Junior Lutheran School Orchestra.

The missionary and members are yery grateful to
Rey. Claus and his congregation, and they hope and
pray that the hearts of other Christians may be
opened to supply additional pews and desks, suffi-
cient to satisfy the needs.

The chapel at Nyland, though so very urgently
needed, has not yet become a reality because of the
lack of funds. Pastor Schmidt asks us to state
that it would be greatly appreciated if those Chris-
tian friends who have decided to contribute towards
the building of the chapel at Nyland, but for some
reason have been hindered in carrying out their
wish, would, if possible, do so in the near future,
lest the good work at this place be hindered be-
cause of the. lack of the much needed place of
worship:

Rey. W. G. Schwehn, the official visitor of our
southeastern mission-field, visited various mission-
stations in Alabama in December. TS We

An Urgent Appeal.

Did you read the short article in the Pronrpr
for September, in which you were told how much
they were in need of a new chapel and school at
Napoleonville, La.? It was then stated that there
were two reasons why they should be helped in the
near future. For one thing, the old chapel is sit-
uated in a very undesirable part of the town of
Napoleonville. The property is actually away from
any street, and can only be reached by crossing over
the lots of other people. At the time of its purchase
we were assured that all was well in this respect,
and the town plat showed a street, but since then
the courts have decided that the supposed street is
part of the property of some citizen, and that now
leaves us a property without ingress or egress. If
they could be furnished the means to buy a new
site and build a new chapel and school, the people
of Napoleonville could remove the storm-wrecked
building in which they now worship, and use the
old site for a cemetery. Experience teaches that
they must get away from the old place and out of
the old chapel, and they must also have a cemetery
Some
sad experiences that our missionary at Napoleon-
ville has recently had are directly attributable to
the fact that we have no cemetery there to bury
our dead. Referring to this, our faithful pastor
at Napoleonville, Rev. C. P. Thompson, writes as
follows : —

if our mission at this place is to prosper.

“During the recent epidemic of the Spanish In-
fluenza every home of our little band of members
was invaded by the pest. While at the time of
this writing the plague is gradually dying out, it
certainly did rage fearfully in this section of Loui-
siana, and spread great terror and dread in our
little town. And this time of the epidemic brought
trying days to our little flock. It seemed as though
Satan was using every means to destroy our work
and ruin our congregation. While our members
were afflicted with the influenza and were in a
serious condition, the devil was busy among them
and tempted them to give up their Lutheran faith.
One strong and very successful mode of attack used
by Satan was that he would say to our people, ‘If
you die, where will you be buried? You know that
the Lutheran Church does not provide its members
with a burying-place.? Some of our readers may
not fully realize what a strong weapon this would
be against Christians at Napoleonville, but if they
will remember that all of them were reared under