The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Sheet 69

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

We may iruthfwly say that upon the whole
the religious conditions in Mexico are much like
those in the other Latin countries of the Western
Hemisphere and loudly call for attention. A study
of facts concerning the Mexican religious field can
only shock the earnest Christian and bring the
blush of shame to every American that claims to
be a follower of Jesus. For such a study will bring
the most humiliating discovery, that the nearest of
all foreign mission fields to us, a field lying at our
very doors, is without a doubt one of the most
needy and neglected of all fields to-day.

Missionary Opportunities.

It is a mission-field whose peculiar needs should
particularly appeal to us Lutherans of the Synod-
ical Conference. Mexico has no publie school sys-
tem and will probably not be able to establish one
for years to come. Our Church, with its years of
experience and as a consistent exponent of the
Christian day-school, is here offered an opportunity
most wonderful in its possibilities. The people of
Mexico are clamoring for education, the church-
schools that have so far been opened by other de-
nominations are crowded to the limit, and the de-
nominations that have entered the Mexican field,
realizing the effective missionary value of the
school, are planning the establishment of many
more.

Besides this hunger for education a spiritual
hunger has been showing itself in recent years.
Gospel-preaching to the lower classes has met with
a welcome response. As a result of evangelistic
efforts put forth by a few Protestant missionaries,
congregations have been founded despite the bitter
opposition and even persecution of the Roman
Catholic Church.

The more than five million Indians particularly
offer a fine missionary opportunity. Only two or
three Protestant missionaries are working among
all these millions of virtual heathen. Just think
of it! An unoccupied foreign mission field with
& population of more than five million heathen
Indians at our very door! Among these Indians
are tribes numbering from 200,000 to 500,000
members. ;

The Missionary Occupation.

Till now mission-work has been carried on by
the Northern and Southern Methodists, Northern,
Southern, and Reformed Presbyterians, Disciples,
Congregationalists, Baptists, and Episcopalians.
The first Protestant worker in Mexico was Miss

67

Melinda Rankin, who in 1855 opened a mission-
school in Monterey. About ten years later Rev.
James Hickey, a Baptist clergyman, founded the
first Protestant church at Monterey. Some years
ago the mission boards of the denominations men-
tioned above assigned a portion of the entire
Mexican field to one or another of the mission
boards. But the fields thus assigned have by no.
means been as yet occupied, and so there are states
with populations of a million or more in which
no foreign missionary is actually working. There
are less than 200 ordained Protestant ministers,
foreign and native, in the whole field, to preach
to fifteen million people. It is said that American
capitalists have invested a billion dollars in Mexico

Indian Women Making Baskets.

to develop the material resources of the land, but
to save the fifteen million immortal souls of that
country the churches of America have invested
only one five-hundredth part of that amount.

The Protestant churches in Mexico number 272,
and, besides, regular preaching is done at 298 other
places. All told, there are about 25,000 Protestant
communicants in these congregations. The 378
Sunday-schools have 24,000 pupils, and in the 147
elementary mission-schools about 11,500 children
are receiving a secular education under religious
influence.

The Missouri Lutheran Synod has been working
in Mexico City for several years. Also at Agua
Nueva, Gonzales, Monterey, and Tampico our
Church has been at work.

The influence of Protestantism is already mak-