The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 38

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38

Africa are undermined and removed, the Christian-
ity which may be brought into Central Africa will
be unceasingly exposed to its assaults. Moslem
Africa in the North needs Christ as much as does
pagan Africa in the South, and into this great field
the Church is called to send its well-trained workers
in companies, instead of in units, as she has done
in the past. If the present missionary forces of
Africa are augmented by the addition of a thousand
laborers within the near future, this increase of
workers would have no difficulty in finding many
opportunities for strenuous labor. And the doub-
‘ ling of the present force in the next ten years would
by no means overcrowd the field with workers.

LuTHeran Missions IN Arnica.

While we Lutherans of the Synodical Confer-
ence have as yet not entered the African mission-
field, other Lutheran bodies have worked there with
success for years. In South Africa ten Lutheran
societies are working at 1,230 stations and out-
stations. The work is carried on by 393 foreign
workers and 1,701 native helpers. The total mem-
bership of the South African Lutheran missions is
236,454. In West Africa the Lutheran missions
have a membership of 54,878 at 708 stations and
outstations, and they are cared for by 190 foreign
missionaries and 1,109 native assistants. In Bast
Africa the Lutherans have 349 stations and out-
stations, with a total of 10,215 members, who are
served by 199 foreign and 600 native workers. On
the island of Madagascar the Lutherans of Norway
and two Norwegian bodies of America are working
at 899 stations and outstations having a total mem-
bership of 85,534. Sixty-eight foreign missionaries,
assisted by 1,117 native workers, are ministering to
the wants of these Christians and seeking to gain
more for Christ’s kingdom. F.J.L. -

The Negro and His Needs—a Study.

II. The Physical Condition of the Negro.

At the close of the Civil War, General O. O.
Howard, Chief Commissioner of the Freedmen’s
Bureau, came to Atlanta, Ga., to address the pupils
of one of the many schools for Negroes which this
agency had established in the South. When he had
finished his address, he expressed a desire to take
a message back to the people of the North. “What
shall I tell them for you?” he asked. From a little
_ black boy in the front, who after some years became
the head of the Georgia State Industrial School at

Fen

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Savannah, he received his message. Almost imme-
diately after General Howard had asked the ques-
tion, this boy replied, “Tell *em, Massa, we is
risin’ !”

The reply of this little black boy proved to be
a prophecy of the progress of his race, which ful-
filled itself, and is still fulfilling itself, in the re-
markable development of the American Negro. To
the average man this forward step of the Negro
people may not be so amazing, but to the student
of history it resolves itself into a task to find an-
other people which in a like period has advanced
so generally and so much. The Negro of 1925 is
just threescore years in advance of the Negro of
1864. Not so long ago the distinguished [English-
man Viscount Bryce declared that the American
Negro had made greater progress in the first thirty
years after his release from slavery than was ever

A New Orleans Negro Dwelling.

made by any Anglo-Saxon in ‘a similar period.
Thirty years more have come to those first three
decades since their emancipation, and these have
brought even greater changes.

In slavery the Negro owned no homes; to-day
Negroes own 500,000 homes. To-day the landhold-
ings of Negro landowners equal the area of all
Ireland, while after the close of the Civil War the
land owned by Negroes amounted to nothing. And
thus the progress has been generally. Econom-
ically, socially, physically, mentally, morally, and
religiously the Negro has advanced. In fact, the
race is steadily continuing to rise.

It is hardly within the scope of this paper or
even within the realm of possibility to set down at
what cost this progress was achieved. Still, any
one making a study of the Negro should never lose
sight of the fact that behind all that progress and
achievement are years of toiling, struggling, and
battling with every conceivable problem, difficulty,
and enemy. We are inclined to think that only the