The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 24

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24

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

illustrated his talk with slides which he had pro-
cured’ from the Board for Colored Missions, 3558
S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, Mo.

The whole lecture would be worth bringing in
our columns, but we can give only the outline.

In opening his lecture, Pastor Schliepsiek first
showed a few typical scenes of the Southland, which
he briefly described, after which the audience was
put into a receptive mood for what was to follow
by singing, ‘’Way down upon de Swanee River.”
A slave auction sale in New Orleans was next
thrown on the screen. A slaveholder from Missis-
sippi raises his walking-stick and points to a little
slave boy, as though he were saying, “I'll just take
that there boy!? While the five-year-old boy goes
to the Mississippi planter, the mother of the boy is
sold to a man from Texas. Thus mother and son
are parted forever.

Next, scenes of plantation life in Mississippi.
The little boy is liked by his master and mistress.
They call him “Pleasant.” Pleasant grows up.
Slides shown permit us to get views of old slave
shacks. We see “uncles” and “aunties” going about
their work. One of the slides shows a religious
meeting held by Negroes. The lecturer gave a
sample of their “hymns” and of the ignorant
“uncles’” preaching. In this way he gave his in-
terested audience a slight idea of the gross spiritual
darkness of the Negroes in slavery days.

The lecturer next showed slides depicting the
days when freedom came to the Negro of the South.
“Massa” Green, Pleasant’s quondam master, gives
him his walking-stick for a remembrance, and as
he does so, he says to Pleasant, according to the
latter’s version: “You all’ve been a mighty good
niggah, Pleas! Now, I want’s to gib you somethin’
t? member me by. Heah, take dis ol’ cane. When
you gets old and gray and needs somethin’ to lean
on, den lean on dis stick and *member dat youah
bes’ frien’ gabe it to you.”

Pleasant, who now gives himself the additional
family name of Green, begins to travel. He gets
into trouble more than once. He meets preachers,
but they are the wrong kind. They are morally far
from being what they should be and are about as
ignorant as were the preachers on the plantations in
slavery days. The lecturer here gave a few illus-
trations of the way in which these Negro preachers
preach, and he also described in a vivid way the
manner in which the meetings are carried on.
Blind leaders of the blind!

Pleasant Green finally finds the Lutheran
Chureh. What a revelation for him! He learns

‘Clarence Smith.

that Jesus is the merciful and mighty Savior!
A number of slides which now followed showed
Mount Zion Church, where Pleasant was a member,
and also other chapels and their congregations.
Pleasant wasn’t the only Negro who found the
Lutheran Church!

Nor is the Gospel only for the grown-ups. No,
thousands of children Pleasant Green lives to see
go to our Lutheran colored schools. Slides show
some of these thousands of happy schoolchildren.
One slide even presents a children’s Christmas ser-
vice with the Christmas-tree.

A number of slides which the lecturer next
showed, brought his audience face to face with some
of Pleasant Green’s old friends: Mother Wright,
Uncle and Aunt Rousseau, and a number of others.

In the course of his lecture, Pastor Schliepsiek
referred to a little Negro boy by the name of
As Pastor Schliepsiek was about
to leave New: Orleans, the little rascal told him that
he wanted to be a Lutheran pastor some day and
then continued in this strain: “Well, Pastah, I done
understan’ dat you-all is gwine back ’cross de
Mason-Dixon Line. Well, tell, I’se mighty sorry
to see you-all go, but it seems to me it’s all right.
You kinda got us straightened out heah, an’ seems
to me de white folks could stan’ a little straighten-
ing out demselves; so I-all wishes you good luck
and God’s blessin’.”

The lecturer closed thus: “Green’s farewell
from me was pathetic. He and I had got to be
close friends. This is what he said to me as I bade
him good-by: ‘Well, Pastah, you’se gwine ter
leave us. Well, God’s will be done. But befoah
you-all leaves, I wants ter gib you somethin’ ter
remind you of youah ol’ friend Green. When my
ol’ mastah gabe me his stick, he said dat he was
my bes’ frien’. But he wasn’t. De bes’ frien’
I’se got is de Lord. An’ He’s youah bes’ frien’ too,
Pastah. Now when you-all gets ol’ and gray and
grizzly like me, you takes dis ol’ stick 0’ mine, and
when you leans on it, den you say to you’self: “Yes,
I done got dis from my ol’ friend Green. Good ol’
faithful frien’! But not youah bes’ frien’. Dis
ol’ stick could break in a minute; but de Lord
never changes. He always ready and able to help.
Lean on Him. I says, lean on Him?”

We can well imagine that this story-lecture held
the attention of Pastor Schliepsiek’s audience to the
very end. Wonder whether he couldn’t be induced
to give this same lecture elsewhere. We feel sure
that such a lecture would warm the hearts of many.

FE. J.L.