The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 19

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

mission-stations have been opened along the borders
of Afghanistan, and its staffs are ready, as soon as
they will be permitted to do so, to bring the light
of the Gospel into this country, which is generally
looked upon as being in a moral sense one of the
darkest regions of the earth. Whoever reads the
description given in the report of the Edinburgh
World Missionary Conference of conditions in
Afghanistan cannot but admire the heroism of those
who are never ceasing in their attempts to bring
into this country the Gospel of grace and mercy
in Christ. j

The regions just mentioned comprise an area
almost equal to that of the United States and are
populated by no less than 25,000,000 people. But
there is one region of Asia that has not yet been

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south of the great Sahara, comprising a number of
large and densely populated states. In this ter-
ritory, Central Sudan, stretching eastward from the
junction of the Benue and the Niger to the Upper
Nile, a distance of 1,500 miles, there is no Christian
missionary. It is as if the United States, with its
100,000,000 people, had one missionary in Maine
and one in ‘Texas and not a ray of Gospel light
between. South of this territory lies another great
stretch among whose many tribes there is no mis-
sionary to show these more than 25,000,000 heathen
the way to Christ.

It was truly said at the World’s Missionary Con-
ference at Edinburgh: “Africa has suffered many
wrongs in the past at the hands of the stronger
nations of Christendom, and she is suffering wrong

A Praying Mohammedan in the Sahara Desert.

mentioned, which is actually as little touched by
the Gospel as the countries mentioned. We refer
to French Indo-China, situated in the southeastern
part of Asia, with a population of more than
20,000,000.

From these paragraphs, then, the reader has
seen that there are almost 50,000,000 of Asia’s
population living in sections practically unoccupied
by missionary agencies.

Unoccuriep TERRITORY IN AFRICA.

It is nearly two hundred years since George
Schmidt, the Moravian missionary, first landed in
South Africa. Others have, to the best of their
ability, continued the work which he began, but
which he was not permitted to do very long. But
despite all missionary efforts there are still vast
regions that have no Christian missionary, for in-
stance, that great expanse of country lying to the

at their hands to-day; but the greatest wrong, and
that from which she is suffering most, is being -in-
flicted by the Church of Christ. It consists in
withholding from so many of her children the
knowledge of Christ.. The flags of Christian na-
tions float over nearly the whole of Africa, but
there are large domains in which not a missionary
station has been planted. The untouched regions
of Africa are a clamant call to the Church.” All —
told, there are probably in Africa 70,000,000 living
in regions without any missionary. ‘Truly, over-
whelming!

Unoccurrep TERRITORY IN SouTH AMERICA.

“The greatest stretch of unevangelized territory.
in the world lies in the center of South America,
including the interior of Brazil, Venezuela, Colom-
bia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay. An
irregular territory some two thousand miles long