The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 7

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. 7
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and from the new mission places where the number
of children can easily be counted on one’s fingers;
they come from congregations that are in good
financial circumstances, and they come likewise
from churches that are groaning under a heavy debt.

The Director sent the editor a letter he had
received from Indiana. In the letter this plan is
mapped out: “Under the supervision of the teacher
our children elected a secretary and treasurer for
the drive. Tach child will be asked to give each
month till the close of the school-year (eight
months) as much as it can gather for its envelope.
The children have also the privilege from the con-
gregation to solicit members that have no children
for a gift.” The pastor adds: “Believe me, the
children are tickled that they are allowed to handle
the drive themselves. To-day when they elected
their officers by ballot, they had a great time. It
seems as if this collection has put a new enthusiasm
for Negro Missions into our parents and chil-

dren.... Will you please send me about 600 more
envelopes. Also add some more literature — 100
copies.”

The editor knows this congregation. It is made
up largely of working men and has lost some of its
best-paying members during the past few years be-
cause they removed to other cities for work. Work-
ing conditions have “slumped” greatly in the town
where this little congregation is located. But for
all these adverse conditions, this church has raised
over $40 per communicant member this year.

A little congregation in Iowa having only
twenty-one children in its Sunday-school raised
no less than $44.50 for Negro chapels on Thanks-
giving Day.

Our students at the St. Louis Seminary are mak-
ing most laudable efforts to swell the collection of
$13,000 which the Western District is gathering for
the Negro chapel in St. Louis. If the whole Western
District will show the same enthusiasm for the
sorely needed Negro mission plant in St. Louis that
the members of the Students’ Missionary Society
are showing, it will be an easy matter for this Dis-
trict “to go over the top.” In their monthly official
organ, The Macedonian, the Students’ Missionary
Society has this ringing appeal ‘to its members:
“Let us then be up and doing. The cause is worthy

of our support, and let us support it to the utmost. -

Instead of the old familiar line: Not a day without
a line, let us carry out the slogan: Not a day with-
out a dime! I£ we follow this precept, we need not
be ashamed of our Christmas present to the Colored
Missions.” . FIL.

Will There Ever Be an End to Missions
in the Homeland?

Never! Let us know it, once for all time, as
long as the Church of Christ will be mindful of its
duty, there never will come a time when it can
be said that no more mission-work is needed in
America. There may be a certain satisfaction in
a person being able to say at the close of the day, °
“The day is done and so is my task; not a loose
thread remains”; but the Church will never be able
to say that concerning its work in the homeland.
The time will never come when we shall be in a
position to say: “All that will be necessary in the
future is to keep on going; the men and means at
our disposal are more than able to take care of the
work given us to do.” As sure as our country De
growing and expanding, just so sure the Churche
if it desires to be faithful to its calling, will ha
to grow and expand and ever enlarge its progra
of work at home:

—

The day might come when foreign missions may.
no longer be a necessary duty of the Church
America, but missions in the homeland must nev
cease. The native Christian churches of India a
China and the other foreign missionary lands m
become so strong as to be self-propagating, se
supporting, and self-governing, and thus be able
take up and carry forward the task which foreifn’
missions started, but as long as this world stan
as long as sin and spiritual need have a home in
country, mission-work at home will have to be car
ried on by the Church of America.

When our fathers came to America a hund:
years ago, the pathetic cry for spiritual help y
heard everywhere, but the need for more of Chri
is vastly greater to-day than it was then. No coun-
try is clamoring so pathetically for the Gospel of
Christ or is in greater danger of perishing for lack
of Him than this our own dear land. While it may
be true that church-membership has increased more
rapidly during the past century than has the popu-
lation of our country, for all that it remains a most
deplorable fact that in the United States the
church-members are greatly in the minority. It
would be a liberal estimate of the present church-
membership in our country to place it at 45,000,000.
But the total population of the United States at.
this time is probably no less than-100,000,000. If
these estimates are correct, we have 65,000,000
people not connected with a Christian church in
America. But let us make. a liberal allowance for

CONCORDIA SEMINARY

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