The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1927, Page 188

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188

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

They Sat on Her! — Many stories are told of the
courage of Chinese teachers, students, and servants
in aiding the departure of the foreign missionary
workers. One group of little schoolchildren tied up
their foreign teacher in a piece of oil-cloth, the
Chinese substitute of a tarpaulin, and sat on her for
hours as if she were a piece of baggage, while the
soldiers were ransacking the whole building to
find her.

Read and Ponder! — In the State of New York
there are at this time 1,750,000 young people ten
years old and over receiving no religious training.
How long can this nation endure when seven out of
ten of its children and youth receive no regular in-
struction in religion? Not long ago there were
twenty-two men in the death-house at Sing Sing,
and nineteen of these were under twenty-one years
of age. In New York City the commission of one
particular felony increased 540 per cent. in three
years, and the average age of conviction was under
twenty-one.

One Hundred Years Ago! — One hundred years
ago the foreign missionary enterprise was in its
infancy. At that time there were only a few
Protestant missionaries in India and China and in
scattered parts of Africa, but there were no evangeli-
cal missions in Japan, Korea, Central Asia, or
Central Africa. In our country but little progress
had been made in Christianizing the Indians. Since
then the Church has made great progress in mis-
slonary vision, in missionary giving, and in all kinds
of missionary activity. But there is still much land
to be possessed, still much work to be done.

Korean Heathen Superstitions. — In traveling in
Korea, one may see strips of cloth hanging on the
branches of trees. Upon inquiry as to the purpose
of these rags, the foreigner will be told that there is
a devil in the tree and that this devil is very curious.
So the natives take advantage of this curiosity of
the devil and tie a strip of some colored cloth to the
limb of the tree, and while the inquisitive devil
examines the rag, the native dashes by as fast as he
can. — When an epidemic of cholera breaks out, the
natives of Korea are of the opinion that a demon rat
has gotten into the body; so they make paper cats
and place them at their doors in the foolish hope
that the demon rats will be frightened away by these
‘paper animals,

Eskimo Missions in Alaska.— Presbyterian work
among the Eskimos of Alaska looks back upon a
history of fifty years. Rev. S. Hall Young, the

Presbyterian missionary who founded the first Prot-

estant church in Alaska, would. have been eighty
years old on September 12 had he lived only ten days
longer. He died as the result of an auto accident
near Clarksburg, W. Va., on September 2, 1927. He
was a missionary in Alaska for almost fifty years.

The Bulus Hear the Word of God.

The Bulus are one of the Fang divisions of the
Bantu-speaking people of Africa. Dr. Good was a
worker among the members of this tribe for years.
Of his various interesting experiences among the
Bulus, Ellen C. Parsons writes in her book, A Life
for Africa. What Dr. Good says concerning the
Bulus’ natural knowledge of God and His Moral
Law she quotes in the following : —

“In nearly ever case the Gospel seemed to make
a profound impression, at least for a time. The
truth of what I said was rarely questioned. You
will wonder at this in a people who never before
heard even a rumor of [revealed] divine truth, until
you understand how wonderfully the truth we
preach harmonizes with, and supplements, what
they already believe. They believe in an eternal
Being who made all things, to whom all men return
at death; but they do not think of this Being as
observing their actions, or that after death.He may
call them to account for deeds done in the body.

“The fundamental truths which they hold seem
like fragments of a broken chain, which they are
too thoughtless to connect; but when the missionary
comes along and connects these several fragments,
they cannot help seeing how they fit together. I ask
them who made them and all things, and they
reply at once, ‘Nzam.’

“Who gives you all the blessings you enjoy?”

“Me does.’

“To you love Him and worship Him and thank
Him for all His goodness?”

“ ‘No.’

“Why not?

“At once they see that their conduct must be
displeasing to God.

“Are lying, stealing, and killing right or
wrong ?”

“Wrong, of course.’

“How do you know?’

“They cannot tell; they just know it. To the
suggestion that these things are written in their
hearts, like the words in a white man’s book, .they
assent at once as a satisfactory explanation.

“Who wrote these things in your hearts?”