The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 22

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22,

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

done before in Little Rock, to continue the good
work until a resident missionary might be secured
to take permanent charge of the promising mission.

Doescher next proceeded to Mobile, Ala. Here
he also opened a mission, which soon gave promise
of good success. With the help of an advisory board
he, in a short time, had a Sunday-school of over
200 pupils, of whom one-third were grown people.
The bright prospects seemed to demand the speedy
call of a missionary and a teacher for the field.
A short visit to Florida convinced Doescher that
this State was no less promising as a mission-field
than the others which he had so far visited.

At the End of the First Year.

The Colored Missions, at the expiration of
scarcely a year, had already made fine progress.
Four stations, Little Rock, New Orleans (two), and
Mobile, had been opened, and promising prospects
warranted the opening of several more at once.
There was work for at least six missionaries besides
Doescher.

After reviewing the first year’s work the secre-
tary of the Board, the venerable Pastor Sapper,
thus closed his report to the Synodical Conference:
‘We, therefore, have every reason to thank the
Lord for what He has permitted us to do and mu-
tually to encourage one another to continue in the
work begun. If others work among the heathen
thousands of miles away, in regions difficult to
reach, and if the reader of their reports often vainly
waits for years to hear of but one person who has
been brought to Christ, how much more should we
be ready to help the poor Negro, brought here by
the avarice of the white man, who can be so easily
reached by us and who seems so anxious to have us
come to his rescue! If we refuse to help him, shall
we not be like the unfaithful servant who tied his
talent in a napkin and buried it?” F.J.L.

Two ‘Letters.

The Editor wants his readers to share with him
parts of two letters which came to his desk about
the same time. Both letters were written with
reference to an article that had appeared in our
columns under the title “Pastors as Missionary
Leaders.”

The first letter came from a layman, an old
friend of the Editor’s boyhood days. Here are por-
tions of his letter: “I just now read your article
in the PrionzER, ‘Pastors as Missionary Leaders.’

I say, you are right about it. If our pastors don’t
talk missions and our people don’t read mission-
papers, well, then one may say ignorance will pre-
vail. What you say I am noticing right along.
I have read the ProNEER ever since its editor had
his ‘window’ in Bingen, good old Bingen.

“T believe the PronEER is read by more non-
Lutherans in my county than by our own people.
How is that accounted for? Well, it’s this way.
For many years I have placed the Lutheran Witness,
the LuTHERAN PIONEER, and the Colored Lutheran
on the news-stand of the public library in B. B. is
a well-churched town, but all are non-Lutherans.
The Lutheran papers are a fine ornament on that
news-stand. The librarian says that they are read
very much. She also told me that she takes the
PIoNEER to the Women’s Missionary Society meet-
ings because it contains so much missionary statis-
tics and information in general. So you see the

Pioneer gets to many non-Lutherans here in,

W. County.

“J am placing the PronEER and the Colored
Lutheran also in our County Infirmary. When
I visit the old men there, they tell me that they like
the papers very much. Even an old, feeble-minded
man thankéd me for sending the PronEER because
he liked to read the stories and look at the pictures.
Then, too, I place two copies of the little Lutheran
Guide in our County Detention Home, where the
children that are county wards are being cared for.
The County Juvenile Board, all of whose members
are non-Lutherans, told me that the children appre-
ciate this little paper very much.

“J read all these papers myself, but I don’t keep
them. After I have read them, I hand them to my
non-Lutheran friends, among whom are also some
ministers.

“Before I close, I want to tell you something
else. These same non-Lutheran friends of mine tell
me that they like to listen in when KFUO is on the
air or Pastor Dannenfeldt in Cincinnati or Pastor
Schutes on WRBC. Some time ago Pastor Baer,
of Fort Wayne, broadcast a sermon on ‘Jesus, the
Bread of Life.’ A few days later I met a friend of
mine in the old F. congregation, and he told me
that an unchurched English-speaking neighbor of
his, who had heard Pastor Baer’s sermon, said to
him, ‘I have lived forty years among you German
Lutherans and never knew what the Lutheran
Church taught and believed; but now I get it on
my radio!”

Dear reader, isn’t there much food for thought
in this letter from my old friend?