The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 86

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86

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

general use of the Bible by Korean Christians.
A Korean Christian takes his New Testament along
wherever he goes, and he takes it along for a pur-
pose: he reads it whenever he has an opportunity
to do so. Nowhere in the whole Christian Church
are there so many Bible classes as there are in
Korea. It is said that besides the weekly meetings
of Bible classes annual classes are held in every
church for several weeks, and that these classes are
attended by seventy-five per cent. of the members.
Besides these local Bible classes there are station
and district classes, and Bible institutes, lasting two
or three months, which offer special training to
Bible class teachers. The third reason for the
Korean Church’s rapid growth many have seen in
the fact that it was thrown upon its own financial
resources more than any other mission church in
modern days.
Statistics.

The foreign mission staff in Korea to-day num-
bers in all 598 persons: 160 ordained men, 57 un-
-ordained men, 187 wives of workers, and 194 un-
married women and widows. The foreign residence
stations in Korea number 61. Korea has a native
Christian missionary staff numbering 4,042 workers:
566 ordained men, 2,566 unordained workers, and
755 women. The work is carried on in 2,013
organized congregations, of which 114 are self-
supporting, and in 1,741 other places in which
regular services are conducted. The Korean Chris-
tian Church has 112,059 communicants, 182,125
baptized members, and, besides, 88,088 persons
under Christian instruction. In the 4,199, Sunday-
schools there are 240,954 teachers and pupils. In
1923 the native members contributed $433,545 for
church-work. (The daily wage in Korea is not
more than fifteen‘to forty cents.) In 847 elemen-
tary Christian day-schools 44,100 pupils are being
instructed; in the 39 Christian high schools and
middle schools there are 5,863 pupils; the ten in-
dustrial schools conducted by missionaries have 288
students; the five teachers’ training-schools have
880 students; 320 students are attending the three
Christian colleges and universities; 541 are in
attendance at 16 theological and Bible training-
schools; the two medical schools have 57 students
and the five nurses’ training-schools have 55 in at-
tendance. Christian missions in Korea are support-
ing 24 hospitals and 26 dispensaries, where a for-
eign staff of 36 physicians and 19 nurses and a
_ native staff of 10 physicians and 241 trained assis-
tants served at 4,049 major and 3,683 minor opera-
tions and gave 409,282 treatments. The Christian

missions in Korea are conducting one orphanage
with 30 inmates, three leper hospitals with 848 in-
mates, two homes for untainted children of lepers
with 21 inmates, and one institution for the blind
and deaf with 45 inmates. F.J.L.

Prof. F. Pieper, D. D.

A few weeks ago a staunch friend and supporter
of our Colored Missions was permitted to celebrate
the fiftieth anniversary of his public ministry in
the Church —the venerable and highly esteemed
Dr. F. Pieper. He looks back upon a service of

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Prof. F. Pieper, D. D.

forty-seven years as professor of theology, and dur-
ing that period has been the President of Concordia
Seminary, St. Louis, for thirty-eight years. From
1899 till 1911 he also served as President of the
Missouri Synod. When the writer of these lines
entered the ministry as a misssionary among the
Negroes of New Orleans, Dr. Pieper was chairman
of the Mission Board and evinced much interest in
the young worker and his future field of labor.
Whenever the Doctor’s duties took him to New Or-
leans, he never failed to visit the various mission-
stations, especially the schools, even after his many
other duties had compelled him to sever his con-
nection with the Mission Board. The interest he
showed in the work of the schools was an encourage-
ment and inspiration to the teachers and mission-
aries, and the good counsel he so kindly gave was
most welcome to all those to whom it was given.