The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 18

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. 18

Reclaiming Christ’s Heritage.

II.
Unoccupied Mission-Fields.

The rapid progress of missions during the past
century and the extent of the Church’s missionary
activities should, however, not lead us to think that
the work of evangelizing the world has been largely
accomplished. Past successes, wonderful though

they may have been, especially in recent years, must
not blind us to the sad, sad fact that still two-thirds
of mankind are sitting in darkness and in the
shadow of death. Of the 1,700 million people on

A Heathen African Village Where No Missionary Has Yet Come.

earth about 1,200 million are not even nominally
Christians. Despite the wonderful opportunities
that have challenged the Church in the past and
are still challenging her, despite all the missionary
efforts put forth, there are to-day whole nations
without any organized missionary enterprises within
their bounds, not to mention the work that yet re-
mains to be finished in every country of the globe.
There are still great areas where Satan holds sway
unchallenged, just as if Jesus had never died on
Calvary, had never gloriously risen, had never tri-
umphantly ascended, and had never sent His Spirit
to baptize the nations. There are still many
famine-stricken portions of the world where the
people have never heard of the Bread of Life that
came to satisfy the hunger of men’s famishing

THE LUTHERAN PIONERR.

souls. There are still immense regions where the
darkness of superstition and the hideous gloom of
idolatry has never been expelled or even disturbed
by the brightness of Christ’s Gospel.

What might appropriately be called the heart of
each of the great continents of Asia, Africa, and
South America is still unoccupied by the forces of -
the Gospel.

Unoccuriep Terrirory or ASIA.

The unoccupied territory of Asia starts in M/an-
churia, at approximately the 125th degree of east
longitude. From here it extends westward through
the province of Halung-kiang with a population of
one and a half million and
only one single mission-sta-
tion some years ago. Then
there are the vast and, for the
most part, desert stretches of
Mongolia, where probably two
million nomad Mongols, out
of a total population of
2,600,000, have not come in
contact with the Gospel of
Christ. Southwest of Mon-
golia lies the great expanse
of the province of Sin-kiang,
which is practically also un-
touched by the message of
Jesus. As we go southward
from Sin-kiang, we come to
the mountain fastnesses of
Tibet, which have indeed
been entered, but in which
no foreigner has to this day
been permitted to remain.
Various missionary attempts
have been made, but practically no impression has
been made, the only thing accomplished being that
some Tibetan territory has been itinerated over.
South of Tibet are the native states of Bhutan and
Nepal, with an aggregate population of possibly six
million. But among these millions not a single
Christian missionary is to be found.

Farther west lies Afghanistan, with a popula-
tion of 4,000,000. Its government observes a rigid
policy of exclusion toward all foreigners, though
last spring several Presbyterian medical mission-
aries were permitted to visit the capital, and it is
possible that in the course of time the Gospel,
through the preparatory work of these medical mis-
sionaries, may have an opportunity to be heard in
this stronghold of Mohammedanism. A number of

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