The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 157

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

157

member afford the services of a trained nurse? Can
such a person afford to pay forty and fifty dollars
a week for nursing? That is impossible. What now?
Shall a poor church-member be left without a com-
petent nurse? God forbid! The Lord has placed the
poor among us to give us an opportunity to prove
that our faith is genuine. Happy is the pastor who,
upon being informed that there is serious illness in
a poor family of his congregation, can ask a dea-
coness to minister to its needs. Such a trained
woman helper can also call on the invalids in the
congregation whom the busy pastor is not able to see
as often as he would like to. He will tell the dea-
coness what portions of Holy Writ she is to read to
the individual invalid. She may also advise the
young girls in the congregation and warn them
against the peculiar dangers that threaten them.
She may be a splendid help also in Sunday-school,
and should occasion arise, she may substitute in the
Christian day-school while the teacher is ill or
attending a conference. Some parish deaconesses
are engaged in kindergarten work as well as in
teaching older girls needlework and similar useful
arts. here is plenty—more than plenty — of
work to be found for the parish deaconess.
The Lutheran Deaconess.

Items of Missionary Interest.
By the Eprror.

Missionary Opportunities. — Within the bounds
of the Northern Illinois District there are twenty
counties. The population of this territory is about
4,000,000, and only about half are professedly con-

‘nected with any Church. The Synodical Conference
is represented in this area as follows: In Cook
County we have 109 pastors; in DuPage County, 18;
in Kane, McHenry, and Will counties, each 11; in
Kankakee and Iroquois counties, each 5; in Lake,
Livingston and Stephenson counties, each +; in
De Kalb, La Salle, and Winnebago counties, each 3;
in Boone, Carroll, Jo Daviess, and Lee counties,
each 1; in Bureau and Ford counties, none! ‘There
can be no doubt that in this territory there is still
much land to be possessed by the army of the Lord.

A: Lutheran University Church. — The Jowa
District of the Missouri Synod has provided the
students of the State University at Iowa City with
a resident pastor and built for them a pretty and
very practical chapel where they may assemble for
worship and for social purposes. A commodious
parsonage is connected with the chapel. Early this

‘any church or profess any religion at all.

year a congregation was organized. The congrega-
tion at present has fifty-seven’ voters, thirty-nine of
whom are students at the university. — Besides
student welfare work Pastor J. A. Friedrich is doing
also much institutional work among the more than
two thousand patients of the five large hospitals in
lowa City and vicinity. Hundreds come under his
ministrations, and many has he been able to bring
to the Cross of Christ. The university pastor is so
faithful in this part of his work that it has caused
much favorable comment on the part of those that
are without. This institutional mission-work alone
more than justifies the maintenance of a resident
pastor at Iowa City.

A Northern Negro Colony. — Lawnside, N. J., is
a year-old borough governed for and by Negroes.
Lawnside’s population includes 2,000 Negroes and
only forty whites. The mayor, who draws no pay as
head of the town, makes his living as a steam-roller
pilot. The volunteer firemen and six policemen
receive no salary. When trouble arises, they rush
home, don their uniforms, and hurry to the scene
of disorder. There has, however, been no felony in
the year. The borough has an eight-room school for
248 pupils, a park, a swimming-pool, and a boating-
pond. Ninety per cent. of the citizens own their
homes.

Some Communities Are Not Overchurched! —In
spite of all that may be read in certain papers con-
cerning the overchurching of communities, there are
still not a few places that are not churched at all.
Here, for instance, is an extract from a letter
written by one living in a southwestern State:
“This is a good community, but lacking in one
essential. They have no church of any kind within
miles of here, and very few of the people belong to
I told
the story of the Christ-child the other day to a
group of children from ten to twelve years of age,
and three out of the five did not know whom I was
talking about. I could hardly think that such con-
ditions could actually exist in a so-called Christian
country, but it is true.”

An Alasken Pioneer. — Rev. S. Hall Young, now
of Seattle, Wash., organized in 1879, at Wrangell,
the first Presbyterian church in Alaska. Following
his dog-sled, he pioneered not only in the coast
towns, but far in the interior, and more than any
other man laid the foundations of his denomina-
tion’s work in Alaska. He found it a country of
totem poles and savagery; he has lived to see it
a land of homes, of good government, and of a fast-