The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 11

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

11

learn letter by letter; but, of course, you have no
brains for such work. What is the use of wasting
time in teaching you?”

The natives were disappointed that there were
no quick and “royal roads” to learning. But their
pride and self-esteem, as well as their curiosity, had
now been piqued, and they begged for a school that
they might learn to understand the language of the
books. ‘The missionaries made no undue haste to
comply with the request of the people, though their
seeret joy was great. Their apparent indifference
was met by greater importunity on the part of the
natives, and when the missionaries thought that
enough determination had been mustered to carry
them over the first and hardest stages of learn-
ing, they made the necessary preparations and
began a very successful work of education and evan-
gelization.

Gainful Employment.

Missionaries are greatly hampered in_ their
activities because of caste restrictions and social
conditions. No man can enter the houses of the
people of caste or the homes of Mohammedans to
offer Christ or the Bible to the women. Only
women may enter the purdah. For this reason
missionary societies and agencies employ so-called
Bible-women, whose duty it is to visit the women
in their homes, teaching them to read and then
inducing them to buy a Bible or parts of it.

One Hindu woman of caste gathered some
knowledge of Christ from hearing her husband read
aloud from the New Testament. What she heard
induced her to learn to read and buy a Testament
for her-own use. The Gospel proved to be to her
the power of God unto salvation. Having learned
the truth for herself, she, like Priscilla, instructed
her neighbors in the truth which she had found.
Her many visits to the houses of the villagers drew
the attention of the head man of the village to her.
Her visits seemed to be too numerous to be social
calls, and he could not believe that a woman of
her ‘high social’ standing would engage in any
gainful occupation. i

So one day he respectfully accosted the lady
thus: “Mother, you walk about in the sun day after
day and talk to people; what do you gain by it?”

“You are my gain,” was her prompt reply.

“T your gain!” exclaimed: the head man in: sur-
prise. “What do you mean, Mother?”

“Tet me tell you,” was the lady’s answer.

“IT come and tell you of Jesus Christ,” and she held
up her Testament, “and the forgiveness which He
offers for sin, and the heaven that is open for those
who are forgiven. Is that no gain for you?”
“Good,” said the head man, well pleased with
her answer. “Go to every home in the village and
tell them these things. May your gains be many!”
Thus in India even the most exclusive are ac-
cepting Christ and learning to win souls for.their
Savior. Having found peace and riches in Christ,
they feel compelled to tell others of their happiness,
so that they may share it with them. Does not
this Hindu woman put many of our people to
shame in her zeal to lead souls to Christ and
eternal happiness ? F.J.L.

Items of Missionary Interest.
By the Eprror.

Our Synodical Conference in the Central District.
Tndiana has fifty-four cities of more than 5,000
population, and twenty-seven of these are unoccu-
pied by us. Ohio has ninety-three cities with a
population of over 5,000, and in seventy-three of
them we are not represented. In Kentucky there
are twenty-one cities of over 5,000, and we have no
churches in seventeen of them. In the fifteen
cities of West Virginia with more than 5,000 people
we’ are without a single congregation. Are we
heeding Christ’s command, “Occupy till I come”?

The Mission-Field at Home. — The missionary
opportunities and, therefore, the missionary obliga-
tions of the Church in the homeland are simply
enormous. ‘There are said to be 10,000 rural com-
munities in our country without churches and
30,000 other communities without resident pastors.
While it is perfectly proper that we never lose sight
of our duty to carry the Gospel into distant lands,
and while such efforts deserve the hearty cooperation
of every loyal church-member, it is no less true that
the field at home is just as extensive and demands
an effort fully as great as that devoted to carrying
the Gospel into the Far East.

Five Typical Cases. — A promising mission-
church in a large city is forced to hold its services
and conduct its school in an old warehouse. The
walls are common boards, and the floor is damp
and cold. There is seating-room for about 90 people,
but there is an average attendance of 120. The
school has 44 children. About twenty more have been
turned away for want of room. For the same reason