The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 46

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46

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

among whom they had come to live. One day a
man, bound hand and foot, was being taken past
the missionaries’ house in a canoe to some conve-
nient place where he was to furnish a feast. The
poor victim was very quiet till he came opposite the
house, when he suddenly and at the top of his voice
cried out, “They are taking me away to kill and
eat me!”

This happened about six o’clock in the morning.
A number of station boys, hearing the cry, rushed
to the shore, pushed out one of the boats into the
water, and pursued the boat loaded with the can-
nibals and their poor victim. The pursuers rapidly
gained on the pursued. The latter, though armed
with bows and arrows, were afraid to attack their
pursuers, ran their boat to shore, leaped out, and
hid in a bush. The boys from the mission-station

A Mission-Station on the Congo.

calmly paddled alongside the other boat, tied it to
their own with a rope, and returned to the station,
rejoicing because of their success in rescuing the
“feast” from the cannibals.

The next day these bloodthirsty fellows came to
the station and begged most humbly for the return
of their dugout. ‘The missionary replied that the
boat had been found with a man in possession of it,
and that they would have to arrange with him re-
garding its return. After considerable arguing with
their intended “‘feast,” the cannibals agreed’ to pay
him a considerable sum of money, and nothing was
said by the man to them concerning their savage
designs upon him nor by them about their lost
dinner. :

It was with deep interest that the missionaries
watched the influence of the Gospel among these
people. A school which was opened before long was
soon filled with a Jarge number of boys. But when

' the missionaries asked that the girls also be sent,

many objections were offered by the fathers. Then,

too, the boys objected to having girls in the same
class with themselves, since they claimed that the
girls could not learn anything. However, there
were some very astonished boys in that school some-
what later when the boys learned to their great
chagrin that the girls were surpassing them. Two
girls in particular were excellent students, who were
surpassed by only a few of the very brightest boys.
The school-work proved to be the main evangelistic
agency in the first years of the mission, since it was
hard to break the older people away from their old
habits and superstitions. A large proportion of the
pupils of the school, by the grace of God, gave their
hearts to Christ and became active Christians.

Early in the history of the mission-school a
young boy came from a tribe living to the north
and east of Lake Mantumba. This boy took great
interest in the Gospel from the very first and soon
accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. In the
course of years he grew up a tall, manly fellow and
in time became a helper to the missionary in the
school.

Up to this time the missionaries had had no
translation of the gospels in the language of the
people among whom they had been laboring, but had _
been compelled to use a translation in a tongue
which the men had learned on their trading expe-
ditions, which, however, the women and children
did not understand. The missionaries therefore de-
cided to make a tentative translation of the gospels
into the language of the tribe among which they
were working with the aid of the native helpers.

One of the group of intelligent helpers who met
four or five evenings every week for the study and
translation of the gospels was Epunda, the young
man spoken of above. With two African versions
of the New Testament before him, he gave the
missionaries great assistance. Later Epunda was
with the missionaries when they corrected the proofs
for two of the gospels and showed great interest in
the work. Just then circumstances called the white
workers away with the copy unfinished. Epunda
was called in and asked whether he thought that
he could complete the task of proof-reading. This
proof-reading was all the more important because
the men who were to do the typesetting were of
another tribe and were not acquainted with the lan-
guage. Jpunda promised to do his best, and the -
missionaries were elated to think that they had a
native young man at the station who could he en-
trusted with such important work.

Not many years before Epunda had been a little
ignorant savage boy, living in a village where can-