The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1919, Page 5

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The Lutheran Pioneer. 5

Roman Catholic influence, and that they have al-
ways heard of ‘consecrated’ burying-ground; if you
remember that before our coming to Napoleonville
the superstitions of Romanism were their daily
food, that they always heard much about souls being
restless if the bodies should be deposited in ground
that had not been consecrated,—then they may
have a faint idea of the dangerous weapon Satan
used against us when-he emphasized the fact that
we have no cemetery in connection with our mis-

members were lost to us and to the last ministra-
tions of our Church because of their fear of being
buried in unhallowed ground if they died as mem-
bers of our Church. We are sure that these ex-
periences will occur again in the future if we do
not provide a proper burial-place for our people.
And since we are in such great need of a new build-
ing to take the place of the old storm-wrecked chapel,
we feel that if our good friends hear of our great
distress, they will gladly help us. We need a new

Chapel at Napoleonville, La.,
after the first storm had partially wrecked it by breaking its “backbone.”

sion in Napoleonville. You, my dear friend, who
have been reared in the pure atmosphere of Luther-
anism, free from the miasma of superstition, —
you may find it strange that a thing like this could
cause a person to waver in his faith; but we that
see what superstition can do with the best of people,
we dread it because of its pernicious influence and
great power.

“The only place we now have at our disposal
for burying purposes is the rear of our schoolyard,
where a few members lie buried. But this corner
of the lot, without a fence and very unkempt in
appearance, at best looks like a potters’ field. Dur-
ing the past epidemic of the influenza two of our

church, for the old building is not safe to be in
when the wind blows a little strong. Since it
passed through the second severe storm, its con-
dition is much worse than it had been before. We
need a church in a different locality, partly because
we are closed off from the street where we are at
present, and partly because the neighborhood in
which we now are is quite undesirable. Finally,
we need a cemetery, a respectable and decent bury-
ing-ground, where our dead may be interred in a
proper manner according to the rites of our Church.
The lack of an established cemetery in connection
with our mission in Napoleonville has hindered
our work greatly in the past, and has been’ the