The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 23

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

23

the evil, imposed by the mastery of the white race,
while on the other was the unintentional good done
the Negro. He underwent much cruelty and im-
position, but it was not without much ultimate
profit to himself. While not justifying slavery, this
vindicates the ways of Providence.” (Life and
Times of Booker T. Washington, by B. ¥. Riley.)
There can be no doubt at all for the student of
history that during those two hundred and fifty
years of bondage the Negro was passing through a
time of sad and trying experiences, which, however,
proved to be stepping-stones to a racial progress
that stands without parallel in the history of na-
tions. For the student of Negro Missions the

An Old Colored Lutheran.

period of slavery has value only in that it helps us
to understand the Negro better and teaches us to
be more charitable in our judgment of him. We
are rather concerned about the sons of the ex-slave
than about the ex-slave. We have to do with a new
Negro, who has come forth out of slavery into and
through freedom morally, socially, economically, re-
ligiously, far in advance of his ancestor, who came
to these shores over three centuries ago.

The Mass Movement to the North.

And let us remember that we no longer need go
South to find the Negro. It'has not been long since
that we could justly speak of the South as the home
of the Negro. But things have changed. We can
still speak of the Black Belt in the South, but we
are surprised at times to discover that that Black
Belt is not so great in width as it was seven years

ago. Since 1917 there has been a tremendous
exodus of the Negro from the South into the larger
cities and industrial centers of the North, so that
the Negro no longer belongs to the South. In
1923 over half a million Negroes migrated to our
Northern States. To quote from the report of the
United States Department of Labor: “Not since
the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, has the
world seen such a cataclysmic sweep of human folk
from one part of the country to the other.”

And so the Negro has come to belong to the
nation. You will find him in the little town of
the North as well as in the rural districts of the
South; he is in New York City as well as in Bir-
mingham, Ala. You meet him on the train and in
the trolley-car; he works with and for you;. he is
your fellow-citizen and fellow-countryman. Twelve
millions of them are living with you in this great
country. But only approximately four and a half
million know that Jesus is their Savior, and herein
lies the challenge for the Church, for you as a mem-
ber of the Church.

So much by way of introduction. We trust that
as we go on in our study of the Negro, a better
knowledge of him will awaken in us a desire to
help him to better things for this life and the life
to come. He has been largely misunderstood, mis-
judged, and neglected. We have learned by years
of contact with Negro people to feel kindly toward
them and be very charitable in our judgment.
Above all, we have been taught to believe that the
best is not too good for them and therefore plead
with the Church of the pure Word to give the
Gospel, the greatest boon to any people, also to the
millions of Negro folk in our beloved land.

W. G. ScHWEEN.

An Exploration Trip into
Inner Mongolia.

Mongolia is divided geographically into Inner
and Outer Mongolia. While Outer Mongolia is
wholly unoccupied by Christian missions, there are
a few mission-stations in the extreme southeastern
part of Inner Mongolia. A missionary and his wife
took a vacation trip into the interior or Inner Mon-
golia about a year ago, and the report which they
give of their experiences while on this journey in
the columns of the Christian Herald will be in-
teresting reading for our readers in connection with
what we have said of Mongolia in the article treat-
ing of the unoccupied mission-fields of the world.