The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 114

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114

There Is Still Much to be Done.

In looking over the non-Christian world, one
cannot escape the conviction that in a period so
full of promise for every worthy enterprise the one
great task of the Church has not made the progress
that other enterprises have. Yet every Christian
knows, and in his heart will confess, that the most
important work before us—the bringing of the
Light of the Gospel to those peoples that are still
sitting in ‘darkness and in the shadow of death —
is one that cannot be set aside or delayed without
inviting dire results for the Christian world that
are difficult fully to estimate and awful to consider.

Not one man in a thousand can fully realize the
multitude of people still awaiting the coming of
the Gospel among them. Though it is almost nine-
teen hundred years ago that the Lord said to His
followers: “Go ye into all the world and preach
the Gospel to every creature,” the task which the
Lord thereby laid upon His disciples is far from
being accomplished. While the Christians have
theoretically recognized through all the centuries
since their Lord has gone on high that their one
great object in life should be to bring the nations
of the earth to acknowledge His sovereignty, the
fact remains that the greater part of mankind has
not yet bowed the knee before Him. It requires

. but a glance to convince us that the results have

ar

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hitherto not been what they should have been had
the Christian nations, through their churches and
missionary opportunities, applied the necessary
vigor to the task. As long as we Christians spend
dollars for gasoline to run our pleasure cars and
pennies to bring the Gospel to the heathen, so long
we are not working at missions, but only playing
at the game.

I wish the kind reader would take his geog-
raphy and look up the places and countries as
I mention them: In Chinese Turkestan the larger
part of a population of 1,200,000 is still in heathen
darkness. Into Tibet, with its population of at
least 2,000,000, scarcely a ray of Gospel light has
penetrated. Nepal and Bhutan, two principalities
of Northern India, with a population of more than
6,000,000, have not seen the rising of the Gospel
sun. Afghanistan, with its 6,000,000 people, is
spoken of as one of the darkest places on the earth.
And Beluchistan, which lies south of Afghanistan
‘and has almost a million inhabitants, still lies in
the shadow of death. F

Turning to Africa, the situation is just as de-

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

plorable. Areas including thousands of square miles:
are utterly without the Gospel of Jesus. Though:
much work has been done on the continent by self-
sacrificing explorers and missionaries, there are still
vast untouched regions that cry out aloud by their
very condition that the Church of Christ come to:
the rescue. .

In the very heart of South America there is:
probably the darkest region on the whole round
globe from a spiritual standpoint. Millions upon:
millions there are groping about in densest spiritual:
night. Brazil has seven large states without a single:
foreign missionary. Northern Brazil has -whole-
tribes which have never heard of Christ and His.
saving grace. Along the upper reaches of the
Amazon there are said to be 8,000,000 Indians who-
have never seen an evangelical missionary.

Tn islands like Borneo and New Guinea there-
are large stretches in the interior that have never-
been reached by the Gospel.

As God is so richly blessing the Christians with:
this world’s goods and is more and more opening
the doors to these heathen countries, the Church.
dare no longer look on in silence and sce these mil--
lions pass away into endless eternity without making
an earnest endeavor to help them from their awful.
doom. We Christians dare no longer leave these:
unevangelized millions die in ignorance of Christ’s-
Gospel. The time has come that the Church must
bend every energy toward carrying out the task the-
Lord left her to do. We Christians dare no longer
continue to try to carry on a million-dollar business.
on a penny scale. God has opened the door for us-
to enter, He has graciously given us the ability to-
take advantage of the opportunity to enter, — it
but remains for us to take advantage of our glorious-
opportunities ! F. J. L.

Reclaiming Christ’s Heritage.

XX.
ORIENTALS IN THE UNITED STATES.

All told, there are about 200,000 people in our
country whose native land is Asia. The principal
countries represented are China, Japan, India, and”
Korea. Those from China practically all come
from a district lying between Hongkong and Can-
ton. : Their language is said to be quite different.
from that spoken in most parts of China. ‘This:
makes missionary work among them quite difficult,
since very few of the missionarics from China are
able to speak the language used by the Chinese: