The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1920, Page 30

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30

' 'The Lutheran Pioneer.

A New Brste Transition. — Rey. L. O. Fos-
sum, an American missionary, has recently finished
a translation of the Bible into the language of the
Kurds, that barbarous tribe which is accused of
having so cruelly massacred the Armenians upon
many occasions. The Kurds number about four
million people, and thus afford a large, though
difficult,. mission-field.

, AFGHANISTAN. — This is now the strongest
country, politically in the Mohammedan world, and
the only Mohammedan country that enjoys political
independence. While no direct Christian mission-
ary influences are as yet to be recorded, neverthe-
less, the fact that Western ideas and methods, as
well as Western machinery are being introduced
into this secluded country does seem to give some
encouragement to hope that Christian missionaries
may be able to enter this citadel of Islam in the
not too distant future.

Frencu Inpo-Cu1na. — In this large territory
there are only three Protestant mission-stations,
and they are not able to work unhindered because
of Romish opposition.
practically barred from this large area with its
~ 20,000,000 inhabitants. It is, however, hoped that
the next few years will see a decided change in the
situation. F.J.L.

Are You That Way?

One native convert asked another, “If you had
one hundred sheep, would you give fifty of them
for God’s work?” .

He replied, “That I would; I would be willing
to give fifty.”

His friend asked again, “If you had one hun-
dred cows, would you be yilling to give fifty of
them to the Gospel-work ?”

“Oh, yes, I would,” was the Comoe reply.

“But you would not do it if they were one hun-
dred horses, would you?” |

“Oh, yes, T would; you would see that I would.”

“But if you had two pigs, would you be willing
to give one of them?”

The man’s countenance fell, and he aidtiy Te-
plied; “No, I wouldn’t. You know I have two pigs;
_ then why do you ask me that?”

He was willing to give what he had not, but
what he had he was not willing to give.

Are you that way? — Sel.

Protestant. Christendom is ~

Startling Facts about China.

One-third of the human race lives in China.

Iivery month, in China, one million souls pass
into eternity.

Every third person who lives and breathes upon
the earth is a Chinese.

Every third child born into the world looks into
the face of a Chinese mother; every third pair
given in marriage plight their troth in a Chinese
cup of wine; every third orphan weeping through
the day, every third widow wailing through the
watches of the night, is in China; every third
person who comes to die is a Chinese.

Put the people in China in rank, joining hands,
and they will girdle the globe ten times at the
equator with living, beating human hearts.

Constitute them pilgrims, and let’ two thousand
go past every day and night under the sunlight and
under the solemn stars, and you must hear the
ceaseless tramp, tramp, tramp of the weary, press-
ing, throbbing throng for five hundred long years.
There are five times.as many people in China as
in the whole of the United States, and one-third
more than in all the countries of Europe combined.
It would take something like the letters of a hun-
dred Bibles to represent the men, women, and chil-
dren of this old and wondrous nation.

Ten thousand foreign missionaties are needed in
China if there is to be one for every twenty-five
thousand of the population.

In the United States there is one Gospel-worker
or evangelist to every 48 people. =

1,557 of the 2,033 walled cities of China have as
yet no resident missionary. Tens of thousands of
towns and villages have no center of Gospel-light.
No province is adequately worked. :

There are about 2,600 non-Christian Chinese to

. every Chinese Christian.

Even after a century’s work, out of every .1,000
people 999 have no Bible, even if ever'y'copy printed
were still in use.

Among the teeming millions of China the Lu-
theran Synodical Conference has six foreign mis:
sionaries, three native evangelists, and seven native
teachers. These laborers are at-present all working
in Hankow, a city of 800,000 inhabitants. It is
the chief distributing center for the central proy-
inces of China, and is for this reason an ideal mis- .

_ sion-center.