The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 72

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12

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Our Shihnanfu School.

To left Rev. A. Gebhardt, in center Rev. E. Riedel. Some of
are blind; they were taught a trade.

tary to this port. The city has a large foreign
section, with buildings in Western architecture that
would grace any city in the United States or
Europe. ;

Our Work in the Province of Hupeh and Szechwan.

In Hupeh Province we now have four stations:
Hankow, Shasi, Ichang, and Shihnanfu. In Sze-
chwan we have two: Kweifu and Wanhsien. All
these stations are in populous cities, some of which
are said to have more than 100,000 inhabitants.
Shihnanfu is the only station situated a distance
from the river and is difficult of access. The over-
land trip, which necessitates crossing several moun-
tain ranges, consumes four or five days by the
shortest and eight to ten days by
the longest route. This must be a
done by foot or chair, as there are 2 oe
no vehicle roads. However, Shih- |
nanfu is the chief city in that dis-
trict and opens the door to some
8,000,000 Chinese, among whom
very little mission-work of any kind
is being done. That section of
China is also said to harbor many
aboriginal tribes which have never
yet been touched by the messsage of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If it
pleases God, we shall in the course
of time occupy that whole district.

The School as a Missionary Factor.

Our method of beginning work
when locating in a new city is to
open up a Christian day-school as
soon as possible. The Chinese were
a literate people for hundreds of
_ years before the birth of Christ.

While millions of that nation never

these children

learn to read, education itself is
highly coveted. Jormerly an edu-
cated and lettered man ranked far
higher socially and politically than
a wealthy person. It is therefore
comparatively easy to win pupils for
a school. Except for the port cities,
and there only in isolated cases, co-
education has not been in vogue.
In fact, education for the girls was
formerly not considered at all nec-
essary. Even now schools for girls
are comparatively rare. The grow-
ing girls are carefully segregated
and must receive separate instruction from women.
For this reason we have opened a girls’ boarding-
school, and in the near future we hope to do still
more work in this line.

We make no secret of the character of our
schools. The very sign on the school proclaims it
to be Christian. All pupils are required to take
part in our religious work. We are not in China
for a mere educational enterprise, nor in order to
“ereate a Christian atmosphere.” Nor do we play
at politics or endeavor to introduce Western cul-
ture. In many respects Chinese culture is far
superior to our American. We are in China for
the propagation of the good news of salvation in

COLE FFAS OTSA Ch CARR A

i BE ep HE ae

Rev. Bentrup’s Pentecost at Yinwuchow.

Ten heathen converts were baptized. Mr. Ma, the evangelist, to the right of the
missionary. ‘Some in this group were catechumens.
at Yinwuchow, who had been converted in the Norwegian Lutheran Mission,

Three Lutheran Christians

applied to us for an evangelist and o teacher.