The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1922, Page 69

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

69

Teaching Indians the ‘‘Jesus Way.”’

We glean the following from an interesting ar-
ticle written by Rev. J. C. Schmidt, for thirteen
years a missionary among the Negroes of North
Carolina : —

Among the duties assigned the writer of these
lines, when he was called to Arizona, was to look
after the spiritual welfare of the pupils at the In-
dian School in Phoenix, the capital of the State.

It is one of the three greatest Indian ‘schools,
supported by the United States Government, the
other two being Sherman School, at
Riverside, Cal., and Haskell Insti-
tute, Lawrence, Kans. Phoenix, like
the other two schools just mentioned,
has an enrolment of 750 pupils, half
boys and half girls, representing be-
tween twenty-five to thirty tribes,
e.g., Papago, Navajo, Pima, Mari-
copa, Apaches, ete. The authorities
endeavor to separate the children of
the various tribes, in order to pre-
vent jealousy arising between different
groups of tribes. More than ninety-
nine per cent. of the pupils are full-
blooded Indians; there are, in fact,
but two pupils at Phoenix that have
white blood in them. (Full-blooded
Indians are not decreasing in Arizona.
Of the 42,000 Indians in the State but
400 to 500 have mixed blood in their
veins.)

It was my privilege to instruct a
class of eight Apache boys and one of
twenty-eight Indian girls every week
for an entire school-year at Phoenix,
and to show them the “Jesus way” of
salvation, as one Indian expressed it.
All, with the exception of one lad, were in their
teens, adults; and more attentive pupils I have
never had, either among the whites or among the
Negroes, among each of which I spent over thirteen
years as pastor and missionary. ‘This fact made the
hour of instruction ever a pleasure and a joy.

Of course, it were vain to look for immediate
results of this teaching of the Gospel at the Indian
School at Phoenix. It is but a sowing of seed, in
the full expectation that the Lord of the harvest
will, in due time, let some come up and bring forth
fruit in its season, some thirty, some sixty, some an
hundredfold for the eternal garners, according to

His gracious promise: “As the rain cometh down
and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither,
but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth
and bud that it may give seed to the sower, and
bread to the eater, so shall My Word be that goeth
forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto
Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please,
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”
Is, 55, 10. 11.

Twice during the school-term a religious speaker
of international reputation lectured at the Indian
School, during the hours set apart for religious in-

Map of China Showing Location of Hupeh Province together with

Our Three Mission-Stations.

Kikungshan (dshigungssahn) and Kuling (guling) are summer-resorts.
At Peking is the language school.

Shanghai is the landing-place.

struction, and the superintendent of the institution
intimated to me, to permit the Indians of my class
to go to the large assembly-hall in order to hear him,
if they desired, instead of attending my plain les-
sons about Jesus. Imagine my joyful surprise,
when the class told me, both times, they would
rather have their regular lessons, than hear the man,
who had traveled all the world over!

The Indian question is a greater and more in-
tricate problem racially, spiritually, nationally, and
internationally, than most Americans fancy. Being
here, the Red man in his home and community will
be largely what we Christians make him. It de-