The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 20

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ministry of the Church. Gateways to large oppor-
tunities are standing wide open. What has been
done for these communities is as nothing compared
with what should be done. A river has been
spanned, but a whole sea lies just ahead. Poverty,
illiteracy, fanaticism, superstition, hatred, helpless-
ness — they tell the story. Great is the plight,
mighty and loud the appeal for succor.

In West Virginia alone there are 300 com-
munities that are spiritually destitute. We are not
exaggerating when we say that less than ten per
cent. of the highlanders of the South have adequate

Immanuel Lutheran Church at Fort Wayne,
where the Synodical Conference decided to begin our Negro Mission.
Inset: Rev. W. S. Stubnatzy.

church connection or receive religious instruction.
For generations these poor people have been taught
that education is wrong, evangelism foolish, mis-
sionary work unnecessary, and paying salaries to
ministers a sin. To contend against the lack of
education and against these settled religious opinions

“is a very difficult task. But it is not a hopeless

task by any means. Good results have already been
reached through the feeble efforts so far put forth.
Even now young men and women from the simple
mountain homes of the South are being fitted out
for the task of becoming the future teachers and

pastors of their people.

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

The Mountains and Our Church.
What are the Southern Highlands saying to us? ,
Have they a message also for our Church? Those
thousands of natives, honest, hospitable, eager, re-
sponsive, resourceful, but isolated and shut off from
the rest of God’s great, busy world, —all these
people in their little coves and narrow valleys, —
have they anything to say to us, to our Church? We
know that the cities with their squalor and
wretchedness, their wealth and power, their honors
and influence, are calling us loudly and insistently.
We know that the broad prairies with their busy
husbandry, the level stretches of our country with
their teeming millions, are beckoning us. But does
a call come to us also from the valleys and coves of
the Highlands? Yes, surely; our Church has a call
to go also into the isolation, the hunger, the sin, the
helplessness of the Highlands, where there awaits it
the fulfilment of the infinite promise of human life
made rich and beautiful by the touch of Him who
makes all things new through the working of the
Spirit by means of the Gospel. F. J. 1.

The Beginnings of Our Colored Missions.

In a few months it will be fifty years since the
Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference decided
to spread the pure Gospel also among the colored
people of our country. The proposal to enter upon
this missionary venture was hailed with delight by
the representatives of the several synods which
formed the Conference, which was then holding its

sixth convention at Fort Wayne, Ind. ' But few

missionary enterprises have been entered upon with
more enthusiasm. So fully in accord with the
opinion and wish of all present was this new ven-
ture, that it was found unnecessary to enter upon
a long discussion of the matter. Not a delegate
present seemed to have a doubt as to the needed
funds coming in to carry on the new enterprise.
And the great spiritual need of the Negro was so
apparent to every one that all seemed to think that
it was just he, the Negro, who should receive spir-
itual succor at our hands.

The First Mission Board.

But how was the work to be begun and car-
tied on? It was decided to elect a Mission Board
and to put the whole direction of the new mission
into its hands. The Board originally consisted of
three members. The first Board was composed of
the Revs. J. F. Buenger and.C. F. W. Sepper and
Mr. J. Umbach.