The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 125

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

125

and fill the skin with hot pebbles to dry it. As it
shrinks, they keep pressing it inward on all sides
so carefully that it keeps its shape and has the same
features as when in life, although it may be no big-
ger than a man’s fist. The heads are then baked in
the sand, after which they will last for years. For-
merly such heads were offered for sale to travelers,
but the government has now forbidden the practise,
and any Indian caught with a dried human head is
punished. — In Ecuador there are also Indians who
make blankets and skirts from the bark of trees.
This cloth is said to feel as soft as felt.

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The Joys of Stewardship.

A certain Christian, when he heard that a friend
of his had given a large sum for a mission enter-
prise and had promised more in the future, said:
“Tsn’t that good news! ‘These missionaries who
leave friends and home to work in far-off and lonely
places should not be permitted to suffer for the
want of what they need. We should gladly help to
support them and their work.”

This particular Christian himself had a relative
who at the time was working among a people which
is largely downtrodden and not greatly liked by
many Americans. It was an open secret that this
missionary was supported by this Christian in his
work and that he had been thus supported for some
length of time.

But what this man was doing thousands among
us could also do if we only fully understood our
opportunities. Not a few families could do what
a Lutheran family is doing in Lakewood, 0. — take
over the support of a missionary all alone. Or
a number of individuals could band themselves
together to support some missionary enterprise.
Without in any way interfering with our regular
church contributions and offerings to the church
benevolences, many of us could add to the joy of
life greatly by helping to support some missionary
or missionary work directly. Dear reader, there is
@ special joy in store for you; don’t you want to
experience it?

One day, while conversing with this same Chris-
tian, his pastor asked him: “Of course, you have
decided how you are going to dispose of your
property?” The prompt answer was: “Yes, every-
thing is settled. Among other things my last will
will set up a memorial for my mother, so that her
influence for good will continue for years to come.”

Thousands of our Christian men and women

could easily establish memorials to their parents,
or wife, or husband, or son, or daughter, or other
relative, or to some other person who has been
a blessing to them and others and whose influence
could thus be perpetuated. The writer has often
thought it strange that parents among us who have
lost a dear son or daughter do not establish memo-
rials to their child with that money or part of that
money which they, would have given it had they
lived. What a satisfaction it would be to parents
to think that at some place in the Southland, in
distant China or India, or in some city of the home-
land there is a chapel erected in memory of their
beloved child where the Gospel is preached to bring
poor sinners to that heaven where their son or
daughter has already gone! F.J.L.

The First Christian Indian Church
in America.

It will probably be of interest to our readers, in
connection with what we wrote last month about
American Indian missions, to hear something about

Moravian Church at Schoenbrunn.
Drawn by H.L. from description in records.

the first Christian Indian church built in America.
This church stood by a beautiful spring in the
eastern part of our good State of Ohio, and having
for its builders German Moravians, it was given the
name Schoenbrunn, “Beautiful Spring.” This first
American Indian church, not far from the present
site of New Philadelphia, was built under the
direction of that indefatigable missionary David
Zeisberger.

But here is the story in brief. In 1770 David
Zeisberger decided to invade the Northwest Terri-
tory, and in the following year he visited the Dela-
wares, who had their chief encampment, or capital,
on the site of the present city of Newcomerstown, O.
In the following spring he decided to locate the-
mission he intended to open at the Big Spring to
which the chief of the Delawares had called his

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