The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 14

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14. THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

touch and offering advice and counsel, without be-
coming patronizing, would surely be productive of
good results.

In a-book published by Charles Scribner’s Sons,
Four Years in the Underbrush, the author brings
the charge that in all the four years that she spent
in the slums of New York as an unskilled working
woman she never met or heard of a Protestant min-
ister of the Gospel. She claims that she saw Prot-
estants sicken and die in the slums without ever
dreaming of receiving a call or so much as a word
of inquiry from their pastors. On the other hand,
this same writer makes the assertion that not a day
passed that she did not meet at least one Catholic
priest, and that during the terrible influenza epi-
demic some years ago the priests were everywhere at
all times, day and night, ready to serve the sick,
comfort the dying, and bury the dead: She makes
the assertion that she had occasions to call for the
services of a priest and that her call was always
promptly answered. And then she adds, bitterly,
that she never had occasion to call on a Protestant
minister since the sick and dying Protestant in the
slums of New York has learned to die as he lived,
without the attention of a spiritual adviser! The
writer is not a Catholic, and this causes her re-
peated assertion that she never met a Protestant
minister in the slums to be the more serious and
worthy of searching consideration. However, we
cannot but feel that the author of Four Years in

- the Underbrush only by some freak of chance never

met a Protestant minister in her daily visits in the
slums of New York. It seems incredible to us that
the Protestant pastors having members living in the
city’s tenements should all without exception be so
unfaithful to their trust.

However, there can be no doubt that just fre-
quent visits to the unhappy tenants of the tenements
would go far towards relieving the awful conditions
in’ which they are living and opening their hearts
for the blessed message of the Gospel. Just in pass-
ing permit us to say that we think that trained
deaconesses can in just this kind of work be of great
service in bringing souls to the Savior.

An Opportunity for Street-Preaching.

Most of the people living in tenements cannot
be persuaded to attend the ordinary services in
church. Realizing that they are not as prosperous
as the usual churchgoer and that circumstances do
not permit them to dress as well as he does, they

__ will not consent to worship with him. Fear that
_ they may be made to feel their inferiority keeps

many away from the churches. Therefore special
services must be arranged for them in most cases.
The success which a number of religious’ organiza-
tions have had with services held in mission halls
and on the street seems to point out the best way
of reaching the tenant of the tenements. In this
way one organization in one year reached two hun-
dred thousand men and women and succeeded in
finding and bringing home many a lost sheep to
the fold. Street-preaching is, after all, an old way
of proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation. Our
dear Savior and His apostles were street-preachers,
and why should we refuse to do such preaching if in
this way we may induce those in the highways and
hedges to come in and fill the Lord’s house? Our
missionaries in foreign lands do not disdain to do
street-preaching; why, then, should we not make
use of this method of bringing the Gospel to men
if it can be shown to be effective? A number of
energetic preachers who would be ready to go into
the congested tenement sections could, we are sure,
do a most blessed work. Such “soap-box” preach-
ing of Christ’s pure and saving Gospel carried on
among the variegated slum sections of New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, and other large cities, by
God’s grace would prove to be an enterprise that
would go far towards spiritually enlightening many
a soul now walking in darkness and in the shadow
of death. F.J.L.

A New Congregation at Ackerville, Ala.

Again we have the pleasure to report that a
new member has been added to our congregational
family of Lutheran Colored Missions in Alabama.
The new station has been named St. Mark’s and is
located at Ackerville, Wilcox Co., Alabama.

Our nearest congregation to Ackerville is Tilden,
one of the oldest mission-stations in the field. Years
ago a number of Lutheran families moved away
from Tilden and settled at Ackerville. Although
they moved away from their home congregation,
they still remained faithful to their Lutheran con-
firmation vow.

Time and again they sent requests to us to come
and serve them in their new community. We were
not able to comply with their requests. » Still they
remained faithful. However, about a year ago
Pastor Thompson, who is now at Tilden, started to
serve them in a small way, as his time permitted.
Fierce opposition immediately arose, so that for
various reasons, after about three months, Pastor
Thompson discontinued the work at Ackerville.

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