The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1923, Page 66

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66

The Lutheran Pioneer.

do mission-work that we are living. Were it not
that the Lord wanted us to bring the souls of our
fellow-men to Him. He would take us to Himself
into glory as soon as we had become His own
through faith. The chief end and purpose of our
Synodical Conference is to carry out Christ’s part-
ing command to preach the Gospel to every crea-
ture. What, then, are the million and a quarter
members of the Synodical Conference doing for
that which is the greatest need of the world to-day ?
Statistics show that the total amount contributed
by our large body of more than a million souls for

home and foreign missions was $1,112,360.71 in _

the last year of which we have a complete record,
that is, in 1921. You will see that we spent
a hundred times more for luxuries, for things that
we did nol need, than we did for thal which the
world needs most! For luxuries, for unnecessary
things, in some cases harmful things, we spent more
than $120 each, while for missions, for the ‘salva-
tion of poor souls that know not Christ, for the
spreading of Christ’s kingdom among those that
have not yet accepted inten as their King, we spent
less than a dollar a year. Do you “get” that, dear
fellow-Lutheran ?

And here is another thought. Probably about
half a million of the one and a quarter million
baptized members of the Synodical Conference are
engaged in some gainful occupation. Of course,
these 500,000 persons are not all getting large wages
and salaries; while the wages and salaries of some
amount to two, three and more hundred dollars a
month, others are perhaps not earning over $40 or
$50 in the same period. But I am sure that we
shall be putting the average income at a very low
figure when we make it $750 a year. This would
make the total annual income of 500,000 wage-
earning persons in our whole Synodical Conference
to be $375,000,000. Now, suppose that we should
set aside one per cent. of this for missions. Surely
no one could object to this being too much to carry
on the main business of the Church. And yet, if
we should give only one per cent. of our total

~ annual income for missions, it would be $3,750,000,
in other words, three and one half times more than

we are doing now. Do you “get” this, dear fellow-
Lutheran? Of every three dollars we earn we give
one cent for missions: of every dollar we receive
as our income we give less than one-third of a cent
carry on that work which should be our chief
usiness in life!

ther Protestant denominations are. doing far

more than we are for missions; for foreign missions
alone they are doing as much as we are ‘doing for
all missions. ‘To put it in another way: All Prot-
estant Christians outside of the Lutheran Synodical
Conference give an average annual contribution for
foreign missions of about one dollar, while we mem-
bers of the Synodical Conference give for foreign
missions a little over ten cents a year! Besides the
millions which, for example, the Methodists and
Baptists give every year for foreign missions, they
have pledged the enormous sum of $215,000,000 to
cover their other benevolences for the next five
years.

Not to speak of the needs of the homeland, dare
we members of the Synodical Conference — dare we
who have the Light of Truth—sit idly by while
we see two-thirds of the world — 1,200 million im-,
mortal souls — marching in spiritual darkness to
endless perdition, or, at most, offer ten cents a year
of our income, less than a thousandth part of what
we waste for useless things every year, to prevent
the disaster? And, friends, can we be sincere in
our profession and yet ‘have no more than about
ninety cents to bring salvation to the millions of
our own country and other so-called Christian
countries, to the Negroes, the Indians, the late
immigrants; the deaf-mutes, the submerged classes,
and all the others?

Lack of interest in the work of missions can
be due only to a lack of knowledge of the great
need in the various mission-fields or to a lack of
conviction that it is the duty of every Christian to
help carryout the Savior’s great missionary com-
mand.

Now is the accepted time! A year from now
it may be too late. The doors are now open every-
where; the near future may see them closed and
the opportunity gone forever. What will we do?
It is for you and me to decide right now. ‘The
prize is surely great — millions of immortal souls
bought with the Savior’s blood. What will our
answer be? We can give only one answer if we
are sincere in our profession. F. J. 1.

oe y

Teachers’ Institute at Holy Ark, Ala.

Holy Ark—the name brings to mind Noah’s
ark, “wherein few, that is, cight souls, were saved
by water.” But the ark we are writing about is
different, for it is the name of a community in the
Black Belt, thirty-five miles from Selma. Now,