The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Sheet 139

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Gospel, — circumstances prevent many from enter-
ing that office, — and yet God requires of you to be
a missionary. Whether you be a man, woman, or
child, whether you be old or young, rich or poor,
whether you be learned or ignorant, He requires of
you to open your mouth and tell others what great
things He has done for you.

Let none of you think that he has done his duty
toward missions when he brings an offering for mis-
sions once a year, on the occasion of the mission-
festival. It is to be feared that too many people
give their gifts for missions much in the same spirit
as a traveling man gives a tip to the boy who waits
on him at the hotel. He really does not owe the
boy anything. But it is customary to give him a
tip; and for the sake of decency, or in order to
do as other people do, he gives him a nickel or a
dime. In much the same way many people treat the
Lord with regard to missions. It is customary with
Christian people to give offerings for missions on
the day of the mission-festival. They want to do
as other Christians do, and hence they also drop a
little coin into the collection plate. They give God
a tip to get rid of Him, so that He will trouble
them no more until the mission-festival comes the
following year. God does not want any tips. He
does not want gifts for missions to be given in that
spirit. He wants all the Christians to take an inter-
est in the great work of missions. He wants their
hearts in this work. He wants every one to feel
that he has been called to be a missionary, and that
it is his life-work.

Every Cunristian 4 Missronary !—a wonder-
ful slogan for every Christian congregation. Where
this is put into practise, the kingdom of Christ will
flourish. J.C.B., in Lv. Luth. Herald.

A Letter from Darkest China.

Below we bring extracts from a letter written
by Evelyn W. Sites, a missionary worker in
Foochow, China. These extracts originally ap-
peared in the World Outlook.

A mother told me day before yesterday that she
had disposed of seven of her own daughters.

She told it with a laugh!

She had borne nine; of these she had given
away two, and the other seven she had drowned in
the slop-bucket.

When I tried to find some appeal to conscience,
to a sense of wrong, it simply was not there.

And the pastor’s wife, who was with me at the

137

time when I asked her what these people do regard
as sin, said, “Why, nothing! They do not think any-
thing is wrong! If they carry the idols round twice
a year, they may do as they like.”

I went home with the murderess just spoken of
and found her sweet young daughter-in-law, who.
has studied a little in our schools, very sad and
heart-broken because her two little daughters had
been killed at birth or thrown away by their father.
Of course, the mother-in-law had also insisted
upon this.

Her one son had been killed, when five days old, ~

by the malpractise of the midwife, who had taken
him in hand when some baby ailment developed
and burned his head, hands, and breast with live
coals. So the poor little mother was left childless.

“My little baby girls cling to my heart night
and day!” she cried. “I don’t know what became
of them. I loved them just as I loved the boy, all
the time they were with me before they were born.
I wanted them so! But he was unwilling, so they
had to die,” and she buried her face in her hands.

The whole question arose from the discussion
in our Genesis class with the mother-members, when
one declared that in this district all about Dai Ngie
not one baby girl in ten is allowed to live. They
all agreed that this was true, and some would lower
the number.

One woman, standing by, declared, “Girls are
of no use anyway; they have their feet bound early,
cannot work, and cost money. Everybody drowns
them, — of course they do.”

A trim-looking young woman in my Bible class
admitted freely to the pastor’s wife that she had
drowned four of her own little girls; and one little
lad who was there had been thrown out into the
stream by mistake, but had been picked up by some-
body and returned to his mother.

The dark deed has to be done by the parents
themselves; and I heard of one mother whose
daughter was born during the father’s absence,
who called out angrily for some one to come and
destroy the child; but they told her to do it herself.
She reviled them all roundly, put she was helpless,
and the child still lives.

On Saturday evening, after my -yisit to the home
of that woman who had murdered seven, I was com-
ing back to our boat, sick to the bottom of my heart,
when I turned into a heathen home to get out of the
rain. It was intolerably filthy, squalid, and clut-
tered, like practically every other house in town;
and never did I realize more poignantly than that
day that 2 woman’s home is the picture of her soul.