The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 8

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_ no use; nothing can be done!”

8 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

children, say 10,000,000, and we should still have
no Jess than 55,000,000 adults in our country who
make no religious profession whatever! Do you
grasp the stupendously sad fact? It means that
there are more people in the United States not
professing Christianity than there are men, women,
and children in all of Germany, or all of France,
or all of the United Kingdom, or even all of the
whole continent of South America. The Church will
not dare cease its home mission work until the last
one of these millions of souls has accepted Christ.

These millions of unchurched persons constitute
a standing challenge to Home Missions. They are
a constant reminder to the Church that her task
is far from being finished. They are a menace
to the American Church. They are a test of the
Chureh’s life and vigor. Either the Church must
seek to win these millions, or these millions will
overwhelm and destroy the Church. When the
early Church of Asia Minor lost its missionary zeal
and did not seek to win the followers of Mohammed
for Christ, the Church there soon became a thing
of the past, and the houses of worship, instead of

_ the cross, held aloft the crescent. The ruined Chris-

tian churches of Northern Africa are a most elo-
quent testimony of the fact that when once a church
loses its home missionary zeal, it soon loses its life.
And let us not be deceived into thinking that this
great number of unchurched persons of our country
is due to the large number of immigrants that have
come to our shores, for the fact of the matter is that
the vast majority of these unchurched Americans is
‘made up of old native stock. There is no denying
that this is a most appalling situation indeed, but
it should not fill us with discouragement. Let us
not wring our hands in despair; let us not say, “It’s
But, rather, may
the seriousness of conditions arouse us to greater
zeal, wiser methods, and a more general participa-
tion on the part of our whole membership. Our
purpose must be to have a program so comprehen-
sive as to reach all the unchurched throughout the
length and breadth of our country and so intensive

"as not to ignore one single soul not yet committed

to Christ. : ;

You say, “A great task!” ‘You are right; it is
a great task, a stupendous task, a task so great that
with might of ours it cannot be done; a task so
stupendous that it calls for divine power to accom-
plish it. But that power is ours. The Gospel that
we have is the power of God unto salvation; and
Jesus assures us that He will be with us till the
end of days with His grace and His power and His

wisdom. Trusting in His Gospel and in His pres-
ence, let us go forward in carrying out the work
He has given us to do in our homeland. In the
spirit of Caleb and trusting in the Lord that Caleb
trusted in, let us say: “Let us go up at once and
possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.”
F. J. 1.

* Our Missionaries.

The laborers who carry on our great work of
missions at home and abroad are a devoted band
of men and women. They are a carefully selected,
a well-trained, and, what is even far more valuable,
a consecrated band of Christians, — fine types of
Christian character and culture. One cannot know
our mission-workers without receiving from most
of them a strong impression of patient fidelity,
level-headed wisdom, and brave, though generally
unacknowledged, devotion to duty.

These mission-workers of ours are among the
very best persons the Church has at her -disposal,
—men of big heart, level head, and ready resource,
able to grapple with the larger issues of the work
as well as deal with individual souls, and fired with
an earnestness not unlike that of the fathers.
Among them are men of scholarship and general-
ship, as well as preachers with rare evangelistic
powers.

We have heard much of the courage and hardi-
hood of the pioneers of our own and other countries,
we have again and again had sung the praises of the
soldiers on the battle-fields of sanguinary war, and
far be it from us to belittle the services of the
former and the unselfish sacrifices of the latter.
But what shall be said of that thin, red line of
soldiers of the Cross who form the skirmishing lines
of the army of God? Are they less self-sacrificing,
less hardy, less brave? Do they not practically form
the outposts of civilization as well as Christendom
everywhere? Is there a place on earth where man
lives that they have not visited and in which they
have not lived? Is there a region so cold that they
have feared to endure the exposure to bring to its
people the Gospel of Jesus? Is there a place so
wretchedly hot that its climate has induced the mes-
sengers of Jesus to refrain from bringing men the
tidings of salvation? Does war, pestilence, or
famine hold them back from doing their duty?
Only indifferently equipped, these men and women,
lonely, ‘but patient and full of holy determination,
have stood face to face with death again and again,
carrying on their God-given work with undaunted