The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1923, Page 73

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PuBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SYNODICAL CONFERENCE oF NortH AMERICA.
REV. F. J. LANKENAU, EDITOR.

Published monthly by Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo.
Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo.,

Subscription price, 50 cts, per annum, payable strictly in advance,
under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 5, 1918.

Vol. 2S

ST. LOUIS, MO., OCTOBER, 1923.

No. 10.

OUR MONTHLY MISSIONARY MOTTO.

Let us preach the Gospel wherever we can, and leave the result to Him who
bade us proclaim it.

Training Our Children to be Interested
in Missions.

If the great cause of missions is to be properly
furthered among us, our children will have to be
trained for missionary ‘activities. ‘This training
should be begun in the home. Our Christian
mothers should endeavor to arouse in the hearts of
their offspring a lively and sympathetic interest in
those poor children who sit in darkness and the
shadow of death because they have not the light
of the Gospel. By contrasting the benefits and com-
forts of the Christian home with the squalor and
degradation in which heathen children are raised,

and by telling their children of the great love of

Jesus, the Savior, of which heathen children know
nothing, Christian mothers can do much to animate
the hearts of their little boys and girls with a zeal
for missions. Such a spirit on the part of the
parents would lead their offspring to be grateful
for the blessings of the Gospel which they possess,
and encourage them to do their share in having the
Gospel sent to their less fortunate brothers and
sisters in other lands.

The tender hearts of the little ones are easily
aroused to sympathize with the poor children who
know not God when they hear of the many miseries
of soul and body, which are their daily portion.
And this interest and sympathy, once awakened,
would probably never leave them. The impression
which the unhappy lot of these less fortunate chil-

dren would make upon their plastic and impression-
able minds would probably have a lasting influence
upon their whole lives. The sad pictures which
their imaginations would draw while mother would
tell them of the sad lot of many Negro babies and
children of our Southland and of the millions of
little boys and girls of India, China, and Africa,
would Dosey remain with them unanas all their
later years’ experience.

And our mothers can do yet another thing in
helping along the blessed cause of missions: They
can encourage their children to make little savings
for the work of spreading the Gospel, thus not only
aiding in the greatest of all Christian enterprises,
but at the same time also giving the little ones
a wholesome lesson in self-denial and self-conquest.
In this way parents will create a pleasing interest
in the lives of their children and keep alive in them-
selves and their offspring an ever-increasing love
for the Gospel and the Crucified One whom the
Gospel exalts and glorifies.

With the knowledge and love of missions thus
already implanted in their hearts, the children, on
entering school-life, should find the same spirit for
missions in the Christian day-school and the Sunday-
school. Our teachers should take a warm interest

in fostering mission thoughts in the hearts of the

children entrusted to their care. In season and out
of season it should be impressed upon the minds of
our boys and girls how blessed they are to know
their Savior, and how they can in no better way