The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1922, Sheet 79

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

774

a SSS —————

“One day a well-dressed Colored lady came into the
school-yard and asked me whether I was Teacher M.
When I had told her that I was he, she said, ‘I come
‘from Defiance, and my sister-in-law, Clara B., who
in former years attended your school, asked me to
come and bring you her greetings. She told me
that she never’ would have learned to know her
Savior if she had not attended your school.?” Thus
God encourages our mission-workers in their work,
by letting them learn from experiences like those
just mentioned that their work is not in vain. But
only the last day will fully reveal how many Negro
boys and girls have found the way to heaven in our
mission-schools.

In our divine services all is quiet and orderly.
If our Negro members get to church before the
service, they quietly sit down in their pews, and if
able to read, they will probably take a hymn-book
and spend the time till the opening of the service in
reading a hymn or two. The congregational singing
is good. Our good old Lutheran chorals are pre-
ferred by them. The sermon is simple Gospel dis-
course. God’s Word is preached to the Negro
hearers just as it is preached to us in our churches.
The eighteen Colored preachers of our Negro Mis-
sions preach no other Gospel than our preachers
deliver to their white hearers; and the manner in
which they proclaim this Gospel differs in no way
from that of their white colaborers. The hearers
are quiet and attentive. It is seldom that any one
goes to sleep, even though the services sometimes
last several hours. Especially in new places the
people are so hungry for the Gospel that they can-
not hear enough of it. Some time ago a member
of the Board visited a station that had been opened
only five months before the time of his visit. After
he had finished his sermon, his Colored hearers
cried out: “Keep on! Keep right on!” Such a
thing had never happened to him in his white con-
gregation in St. Louis. He preached a second ser-
mon. When that was at an end, the people cried:
“Preach on! If you can stand it, we can, too!”
So he gave a third sermon that same evening.

The collection is gathered in a manner some-
what different from that which obtains in our white
churches. A deacon steps up to the front and places
the collection-plate on a small table. A hymn is
sung. During the singing of the hymn the people
step up to the table and deposit their offerings. If
necessary, the deacon makes the change for them.

The Communion service is just as solemn as it
is with us. The communicants approach the Lord’s

table with decorum, and their whole demeanor
shows that the Sacrament is fraught with deep
solemnity for them. White Southerners, accus-
tomed to the ordinary emotional and noisy Negro
Service, again and again express their great surprise
at the quiet and decorous behavior of our Lutheran
Negro worshipers. A recent visitor at New Orleans
expressed himself in this way: “The Colored wor-
shipers in our mission-churches are in every way
just as quiet and well-behaved as are the hearers
in our white churches, as I have seen here to-day.”

Frouirs of THE Worp.

The Word of God proves its divine power also
in the Colored Missions. It regenerates and sanc-
tifies. Deeply fallen Negroes have become new men
and women through the labors of our missionaries
to the amazement of their neighbors. Hundreds
and thousands of Negroes have been rescued from
the power of darkness and translated into the King-
dom of Grace, where they now have redemption
through Christ’s blood, namely, the forgiveness of
sins. Having found their Savior, they now go on
their way rejoicing, as did the eunuch of Ethiopia.
By the power of the Holy Spirit they battle vic-
toriously against devil, world, and flesh and walk
in newness of life. Of course, even as we, so they
also have ‘not yet reached perfection, and much
weakness is still apparent in their lives. And yet
there are pleasant surprises. One of our white mis-
sionaries once said: “When we visit our Colored
Christians in their lowly cabins to comfort and
cheer them, we often find a faith so strong, patience
so great, and a hope of heaven so confident that we
leave them, ashamed of our little faith and yet en-
couraged at the thought that God has so richly
blessed our -feeble efforts.” Also those that are
without notice the difference between our Lutheran
Negroes and others. Not long ago a woman in
Alabama said: “TI should like to join the Lutheran
Church; but in that Church one cannot sin enough.”
A Southern business man, who has had many busi-
ness dealings with Negroes, once told the writer:
“Tf all Negroes were like the Lutheran Negroes,
they would be all right.” A Southern paper said
several years ago: “Many of our people will tell
you that the Lutheran Negroes, taking them all
round, are the best we have.” White families are
always looking for Colored Lutheran servants, be-
cause they have a reputation for honesty and trust-
worthiness. Thank God for this fine reputation
that our Colored Lutheran fellow-Christians have
among their fellow-citizens ! ‘