The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 7

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

a

men’s souls. But how much greater must be the joy
of the Savior, who has privileged us to assist in this
great work! Indeed, let us hasten to do this work
while it is day, ere the night comes, when we can-
not work.

Are you going to help save more boys like
Archie ? Pavut J. G. WEEKE.

oo

“A Little Child Shall Lead Them.’’

The importance of personal missionary work
when practised even by children is illustrated by
an incident told by Pastor L. Winfield Wickham,
who is in charge of our Niedringhaus Mission in
St. Louis.

One of the little girls, who attended services at
this mission, heard the pastor say that it was the
duty of Christians to help win others for Jesus.
And so this little girl invited her little unchurched
friend, named Florence, to attend the service at the
mission. Although Florence was eleven years old,
she had never gone to Sunday-school and had never
been baptized; but she came and soon brought her
sister Hattie, aged nine. They, in turn, persuaded
their brother Roy, thirteen years old, to join them.
Roy liked the Sunday-school so well that he induced
Milford, his fourteen-year-old brother, to drop his
paper route and to come. After the necessary
instruction the four children were baptized, and
Roy and Milford were confirmed. During the year
and a half which has elapsed since then none of the
four has missed a single session of the Sunday-
school or a single church service unless kept at home
by illness.

But the missionary conquest of these children
was not yet complete. The mother was the next to
be brought to church. Strange to say, she had been
confirmed in a Lutheran church, but for fifteen years
had not been inside of a church. She, too, was
moved by the message and was happy to know that
her Savior would receive her again. The mother
and the four children now began to plead with
Arthur, the twenty-one-year-old son, who was en-
tirely out of touch with the Church. Arthur was
persuaded to come along and from the very outset
took such an interest in the work that he soon
received instruction and is now a member of the
church. The prayers of the six now pleaded for
the one unchurched member of the family, the
father; but after months of invitation and promise
he was still as far away from the Church as he had
ever been. Then God stepped in. The father lost

his work, and the family was reduced to destitution.
It so happened at this time that the mission required
the services of a sexton, and the pastor gave this
employment to the father, so that he might have
food for his family, but especially in order that he
might be near the church and its services. By the
work of the Holy Spirit the janitor became a lis- ©
tener, and the more he heard of the message, ,the
keener was his conviction of sin and grace.

he asked to be baptized and confirmed. Thus
entire family, eight precious, blood-bought so
were led to Jesus in one of our missions thro
the work of one little girl.

And to show their gratitude and to prove th
their love for Jesus is genuine, they have off
their gifts, poor though they are, in a way t
puts many of our more bountifully blessed Ch,
tians to shame. From the time that they joi
the Church the little girls gave five cents ev;
Sunday, the boys fifteen the mother thirty-five,
the older brother forty cents, an amount, consider-
ing the circumstances of this family, which wo
an the average family, be equivalent to a figure
times as great. And even in the period of de
tution, when the father was without employm
these gifts never faltered, but were brought e
before food was obtained.

~

LIB

aaeM

CONCORDIA SEMINARY

B.

le

Deaf, Dumb, and Blind.

One of the most interesting confirmations on
record in the annals of, our Church is that which
took place in Milwaukee when three girls, Eva Hal-
liday, Minnie Dunck, and Anna Johnson, all three
deaf, dumb, and blind, pledged their allegiance to
their Lord and Savior in our Emmanuel Church
for the Deaf in Milwaukee. The only way of
instructing these three girls was by the sense of
touch, either by spelling into their hands the lesson
or teaching them by the raised letters of the
American Braille system for the blind. An un-
usually hard task it was, to say the least. Hach
lesson had to be written out separately for them,
and each one had to be instructed separately. But
Pastor Duemling, with due gratitude, says that in
the twenty years of his experience among the deaf
he has never had more diligent or more earnest con-
firmation pupils than these three blind-deaf girls,
who are all about of one age.

The confirmation was most unique. With his
right hand the missionary spelled into the left hand
of the first blind-deaf catechumen. She simulta-

eT. + I at 7