The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 25

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

journey to Urga in four days, while it takes the
camels forty. In summer ox-carts carry most of
the heavy freight. As they must stop long hours
to pasture the oxen, they average but ten miles a
day and take two months for the journey. There
are hundreds of thousands of these crude carts car-
rying gasoline, wine, flour, cloth, tea, and all sorts
of Chinese products northward and returning with
loads of salt and soda from the Gobi or furs from
the far North. Tens of thousands of horses and
cattle and hundreds of thousands of sheep are an-
nually driven down over this route. Likewise, thou-
sands of tons of wheat and other food products
raised in South Mongolia are carried across the
border to feed the crowded population of Northern
China.”

Concerning the dangers of their trip these mis-
sionary explorers have this to say: —

“We did not come up with any bandits, though
they take a heavy toll from the overland trade.
We passed by one caravan which had been robbed
just the night before. These highwaymen, for the
most part, are Chinese ex-soldiers, though some-
times they have a few renegade Mongols in league
with them. WNearer:the Siberian border the Rus-
sians terrorize the people. One of the officials who
was so kind to us when we visited Mongolia before
has since been murdered by Russian robbers to-
gether with eleven others of his clan.”

A Frontier Mission-Station.

At Hallong Osso they found a Swedish mission-
station in charge of Dr. Eriksson. This station is
doing evangelistic, educational, and medical work.
The medical phase of the work is naturally most
appreciated by the Mongols, especially since Dr.
Eriksson is a very skilful physician and surgeon.
The patients come to him from far and near for
hundreds of miles. Dr. Eriksson visits patients as
far as sixty miles away over almost impassable roads
and at times when the temperature is well below
zero. The buildings of the station are quite prim-
itive, but are kept neat and clean in spite of many
handicaps. A little room of only 10X12 feet has
to serve the doctor as an office, dispensary, and
operating-room.

“A Chinese cupboard, two store boxes fitted with
shelves for medicines and instruments, a rough
operating-table, a small stand, and a stool complete
the equipment. Here, with the help of his wife,
he treated 560 patients last month. One morning
when we observed their work, they treated twenty-
four patients in an hour and a half with the assist-

25

ance of the two single lady missionaries. ‘The pa-
tients squatted on the cement floor. In fair weather
there is a stream of men, women, and children,
many in advanced stages of disgusting diseases.
Small-pox claims a very heavy toll. We were told
that the Mongols do not trouble to register a child
until it has been vaccinated against this disease;
for they consider its chances to live very slight.
The Chinese are almost universally afflicted with
trachoma and other eye troubles, and some come
with tuberculosis, contracted before they came to
this Denver-like climate.

“Patients are not charged a fixed fee, but each
is expected to give according to his means. This
may be a chicken, a few eggs, or a sheep from the
poor; a horse or cow from the well-to-do. The
total is not even enough to pay for the medicines’
used. Two days after our arrival a Chinese officer
was brought in. He had been seriously wounded
in a fight with robbers a few miles away and surely
would have died but for the skill with which the
doctor handled the case. During his month here
his soldiers and the members of ‘his family have
been in constant attendance. They have been pro-
fuse in their expressions of gratitude for the prac-
tical Christian work being done. We have held
special religious services for them in Chinese.”

The educational phase of the work of the station
has had. many difficulties to contend with since the
parents cannot see the need of any sort of an edu-
cation. But at present the school is attended by
twenty children, half of whom are inmates of an
orphanage conducted by the good missionaries.
Four or five Christian girls are the first-fruits of
this school.

Patience Bears Fruit.

Though from the very beginning every endeavor »
was made to have every effort bear spiritual fruit,
the work was most discouraging for years. “The
wife of the first missionary had laid her life on the
altar before the first convert, her Mongol language
teacher, was brought to Christ. ‘Then there was
another long six years’ wait until the next converts,
a group of seven, were baptized. But now the day
has’ begun to dawn. Only three weeks before our
arrival seven more converts were added to the
Church, making twenty-seven in all, of whom
twenty-four are Mongols. Most of these are giving
their lives to the service of the mission.

“At Gulchaggin, sixty miles north of here, there
appears to be a particularly promising opening for
a branch station. It is being established at the