The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 184

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184

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Under a tree in the midst of the mela, or re-
ligious festival, stood a man who somehow struck
a different note in his plain black coat. Some
thought he was a juggler; others guessed that he
was a hypnotist. Curiosity impelled them to go
closer.

“Jesus Christ died to save sinners,” were the
words that came to the ears of the bystanders.
Others came up and asked, “What is it?”? And
then they heard, “The Son of God came down to
earth and gave His life a ransom for all men.” At
these words a woman shifted her child to an easier
position as if unconsciously preparing to stay.

Then the fortune-teller came up too, for his
audience had left him to see the new attraction,

A Village in Southern India.

and now stayed on to hear. He elbowed his way
roughly to the front and in derisive anger laughed
the black-coated man in the face. “Why, fool, do
you come here thrusting your nose into affairs that
do not concern you?” And then he contemptuously
spit on him and, as he did so, pronounced the one
word, “Dog!”

This term, connected with the indignity of being
spit upon, would under ordinary conditions have
been the easiest way of starting a quarrel, but this
preacher of the Gospel merely looked at the hand
that had been spit upon, and the blood slowly
mounted to his face. “Jesus was spit upon, so why
should not I?” was all he said. A gasp of astonish-
ment went up from the crowd to think that this
man did not flare into anger at the insult offered
him by the fortune-teller.

Just then the sun caught the preacher’s hand,
and the spot of spittle seemed to glow and sparkle
. like a diamond. In the mean while the preacher

went on telling the village people about the Savior
—of His love, His life, and His death. “He died
to save you, to save me, to save all men,” this was
the burden of his address.

Then a shower of stones, thrown by unseen
hands in the rear of the crowd, cruelly reached its
mark, and two streams of blood showed, trickling
down his face; but unheeding, the man went on
with his story of God’s love.

“Surely,” said a big villager, “there must be
something in what he says, that he minds neither
insults nor injury.” “Indeed, so it seems to me
too,” said one, then another, and then many. The
crowd stayed on, and that native man of God told
all that was so dear to his heart to the heathen
villagers. They listened on, drink-
ing in his words as they came from
his lips.

The blood had dried on his face;
the setting sun shed a golden halo
upon him like a blessing; and, be-
hold, the two streams of blood on his
left cheek had met to form a cross.

F.F. W. J. L.

It Can Be Done.

It can be done! What can be
done? Answer: Providing a mis-
sionary institute for the training of
-lay workers in our Lord’s mission-
fields. We know of no such institu-
tion within the bounds of the Synodical Conference,
but we do know of institutions for the training of
missionary lay workers in other denominations, and
it is owing to them that these church-bodies far sur-
pass us in obeying the Lord’s command: “Go ye
into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
creature.” We Lutherans seem to be afraid to give
our people a chance to bring Christ’s saving Gospel
to perishing sinners and to train them for that
blessed cause. Why that is the case we do not know;
it has always been a mystery to us. But it is time
for us to wake up and to act on our constant prayer,
“Thy kingdom come,” more strenuously.

In Acts 4, 36.37 we read: “And Joses, who by
the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is,
being interpreted, The Son of Consolation,) a Levite
and of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it
and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’
feet.”

In our Synodical Conference we also have such