The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 109

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

109

Then the missionary came and established Chris-
tian schools, where children were happy; and as
they grew up, they united with the Church in many
instances and helped to shed abroad among their
people the light of the Gospel.

Convention of Synodical Conference. — The
Synodical Conference will convene in the congre-
gation of Rev. H. Meier, Lockport N. Y., August

18—24. At this convention plans will probably be :

formulated to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of
our Colored Missions next year.

The Negro Problem. — Out of every ten Ameri-
cans one is a Negro. In the last ten years more

than a million have left the South to invade’

northern industrial centers. Almost one-third
illiterate, they are in danger of succumbing to the
evil influences of the worst elements of the cities.
They are the most religious of Americans, and the
religious work done among them has brought rich
returns.

Other Missionary Opportunities. —In many
sparsely settled agricultural regions of our country
the unchurched element offers great missionary
possibilities. In the rural industrial field, also, we
find thousands of lumberjacks and probably a full
half million of unchurched miners. From coast to
coast the Home Mission enterprises of our Church
have the best chance to prove our missionary spirit.

The Metropolitan Quartet. — We mean the four
Lutheran deaconesses that are now working in the
Metropolitan District. Miss Martha Eber was the
first in the field, being called as parish deaconess by
Immanuel Church, Geo. Schmidt, pastor. Miss
Esther Tassinari is assisting our Italian missionary,
Rev. A. Bongarzone, in West Hoboken and Union
City, N. J. Miss Randt is assisting Pastor Gallman
in his great field as city missionary. Finally, Miss
Buegel is the parish deaconess of St. Matthew's
Church, A. Wismar, pastor.

Orientals in America. — Orientals comprise
14 per cent. of all the foreign-born living in our
country. But 95 per cent. of the Japanese and
.50 per cent. of the Chinese live on the Pacific coast.
People have become alarmed at their coming be-
cause of the influence it might have on our indus-
tries; but those who know the situation are more
alarmed because of the influence their pagan faiths
may exert. Oriental religions are spreading among
the Occidentals from New York to San Francisco.
There are seventy-four Buddhist temples in ‘the
United States to-day!

Latin-Americans in America. — The Latin-
American problem includes not:only the immigrants
from Mexico, but likewise those from Spain, Por-
tugal, the West Indies, the Philippines, Central and
South America, and, above all, the thousands upon
thousands of immigrants from Italy. In California
alone there are to-day more Latin-Americans than
there are Hindus, Chinese, and Japanese in the
whole country.

The Immigrant Problem. — The great European
immigrant zone comprises 18 per cent. of the area
of the United States. Into this section are crowded
more than half of the entire population, three quar-
ters of all the foreign-born, and thirty-two of the
fifty-two cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants.
Nearly half of our people are city-dwellers, due to
the immigrant invasion and the industrial evolution.

Foreign-Born Population of Our Country. — The
foreign-born population of the United States in
1920 was 13,920,692. The wonderful missionary
opportunities offered by these millions — for many,
if not most of them, are unchurched —are in-
credibly great. However, the Church has made
comparatively little effort to break through this
wall of the spoken word and reach the hearts of
these strangers who have come to live among us.
Past missionary endeavors among these immigrants,
especially from Southern and Eastern Europe, have
done little more than scratch the surface.

Burning Up $24,000,000.—It is not every
nation that would burn up such a fortune for the
sake of upholding the right. Yet that is what
officials of the Chinese government did some years
ago, when they burned thousands upon thousands
of opium chunks which had been taken away from
smugglers.

“Will You Baptize Us?’ —“Will you baptize
us? We want to be Christians. We know the Ten
Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. We have
torn down our heathen thans [idols]. Will you not
baptize us? Please!” Such is the plea that comes
to missionaries in India again and again from
whole villages. Of course, the missionary would
like to go to these villages, to every one of them;
but how can he do so when he already has thou-
sands of Christians to look after and only a few
native helpers? ‘The only trouble with the mis-
sionaries is that there are not enough of them.

Lutheran Mission in Mexico. — The work which
the Missouri Synod is doing among the Germans in
Mexico City is meeting with much success. A church