The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1920, Page 95

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

=~

"the market down and down.

‘The Lutheran Pioneer.

95

—

man’s rum is doing. Polygamy was a deplorable
institution, but commercialized prostitution, intro-
duced into Africa by the white man, is a far greater
curse than polygamy ever was. As a result of the
white man’s coming to Africa, 50 per cent. of the
natives of South and Central Africa have venereal
diseases. ‘lhe world needs the products of Africa,
and the white man has a right to them at a fair
rate of exchange, but surely not at the cost of
Africa’s physical and moral ruin. ,

Arrica’s Neep.— Christian work is what Africa
needs above all other parts of the world. Of the
32,000,000 natives of Central Africa, only 6,000,000
are reached by Protestant missions. In Africa there
is only one missionary to 35,000 natives.- Of the
$50 native languages and dialects, the Bible has
been translated into only 100 tongues.

Hearnen Gops and Tire Siver Marker. —
After quietly buying all the silver they could for
months, the Hindus of India virtually cornered the
silver market of the world for a while last summer.
Then quietly biding their time, the Hindu mer-
chants, when the time was ripe, let loose their flood
of silver, much of it sculptured into gods, and drove
Silver that had sold
at $1.37 per ounce a few months before, as a result
fell to 80 cents an ounce in a very short time; and
all because Hindus sitting at the foot of the Hima-
layas, casting their trust in their idols of silver to
the winds, melted the gods which their ancestors
had sculptured with infinite pains in their groping
desire to pay honor to them. :

Mission Hosprras In Cua. — When several
years ago the pneumonic plague was raging in Man-
churia, the government of China called upon the
Christian medical missionaries to take charge of the
work of stamping out the disease. They were given
complete authority in the threatened provinces and
succeeded in averting a disaster to the whole world
by their efficient and self-sacrificing labor.

F. J. L.

The Great Progress of Missions.

At the close of the 18th century there were ac-
tually only seven Protestant missionary societies in
existence. Of those only three had worked through
the greater part of the century, the Propagation
Society, the Halle-Danish, and the Moravian, while
the other four had been founded in the very last
decade of the century. ‘To-day there are 187 so-
cieties in America alone; England has 52; Ger-

many, 26; and the other Huropean countries prob-
ably another 25.

To this great array of societies in America and
Europe must be added a large number of indepen-
dent societies in the various colonies, as well as cer-
tain self-supporting, newly established native Chris-
tian societies, which are sending out missionaries.
Such native societies exist in India, Madagascar,
Hawaii, the Fijis, and other mission-fields.

At the beginning of the last century the whole
number of male missionaries employed by these
seven societies was one hundred and seventy. Of
these about one hundred belonged to the Moravians.
To-day there are in the employ of the various Amer-
ican and European societies at least 25,000 ordained
Americans and Europeans, and 112,000 native
workers who are taking care of over 50,000 stations
and outstations. ;

At the beginning of the 18th century there were
searcely 50,000 converted heathen under the care of
evangelical missions. ‘To-day China has 500,000
Protestant Christians, Japan has 100,000, and India
has 2,000,000. More than 2,000,000 natives of
Africa are members of some Protestant church.

The largest of the old missionary societies, the
Moravian, had, 1801, 26 stations, 161 workers, and
about 20,000 native Christians. ‘To-day this society
has 100,000 native Christians, which is three times
the number of members on the home base. ‘The
Inglish Church Missionary Society, founded in
1799, had 26 ordained workers in 1819; twenty
years later, 86; in 1880, 211. At the present time
this society has over 400 ordained foreign workers.
in its employ, not to mention 400 ordained native
workers and a great host of unordained foreign and
native laborers. These workers minister to about
400,000 native Christians. The annual income of
this society is over $2,000,000 per annum. But this
one society no more than_reflects the progress of
every other missionary agency. There has been an

. inerease in workers, in income, in membership, in

churches, and in schools. F. J. L.

BOOK TABLE. =.

“Proceedings of the Thirty-First National Convention
of the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other
States. 1920. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis,
Mo.- 93 pages. Price, 75 cts.

-This English report of our Great Detroit Synod or the
German report should be in the hands of every voting
member of the Missouri Synod. It is only when they are
fully informed as to what recommendations Synod has
made that the congregations will be able to act with in-
telligence and enthusiasm.