The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 45

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

45

Items of Missionary Interest.
By the Eprror.

The “Why” of the Church Extension Fund. —
The Rev. C. W. Berner, of Faith Lutheran Church,
Los Angeles, Cal., writes: “How happy we are soon
to be in a position to relinquish our present hall!
It was only last Sunday, when we had an attendance
of almost two hundred, eighty-eight in Bible school,
and one hundred in divine services, that we had to
face the bitter disappointment of a filth-filled room,
with rugs rolled, displaying an unsightly, but highly
waxed floor, and hundreds of burst balloons strewn
thickly upon the floors, hanging from chandeliers,
furniture, and everywhere, still writhing in the
thrill of the preceding night’s balloon dance.”

The Widow’s Mite. — Recently a draft for $200
reached the treasurer’s office for “Mission-work in
India.” A banker, who sent the check for the donor,
writes: “She is a widow in very meager circum-
stances. Two of her daughters died on the threshold
of youth, and a few years ago her husband was also
called home. She is now over sixty-five years of
age and during her threescore years and five has
experienced much poverty and many hardships.
When she asked me to forward the $200, I tried to
prevail upon her to send only $100, for I knew that
she could well use the money for herself and her
younger children. But she insisted that the whole
sum be sent for missions in India.” The banker
then concludes his letter. “Such joyful giving,”
he says, “makes many of us who have a comfortable
living sit up and take notice.”

Little Friends of Missions. — Having read of the
pitiful conditions in Africa and of the great need of
the Gospel there, the Lutheran school for colored
children in St. Louis decided to take part in the
effort to bring Christ to those people. More than
twenty children went without their dinner in order
to help bring the Gospel to the boys and girls in
Africa. Those who brought their lunch money would
share it with those who put their lunch money into
the fund. When the sum of $45 was reached, all
sang: “We give Thee but Thine own, Whate’er the
gift may be; All that we have is Thine alone, A gift,
O God, from Thee.”

If! — If every communicant member of the
Synodical Conference would give a cent a day for
home and foreign missions, the annual total for
missions would be almost $3,000,000. But this is
about all we make up for all church benevolences
within the bounds of the Conference.

A Letter. — This is what a young colored girl
wrote who was offered an opportunity to work her
way through a missionary school, but who could not
leave home for several months: “Please don’t give
my chanct to no one else, i will be there on the
sicon’ of janery sure, if life lasts and nothink don’t
happen and the lord wills, but don’t give my chanct
away.” In the corner of the envelope addressed to
the principal of the school were the words, “Go in
@ hurry.”

Inconsistent Parents.— Funny how some people
force their children to drink milk and eat spinach
because they say it is good for them and then turn
right around and say that they are going to let
those children grow up with little or no religion.
They give their children milk for the body and then
deny them the sincere milk of the Word, for
the soul, that they might grow thereby. This is
a strange world in more than one way.

0. W. L., in Good News.

First American Preachers Were Missionaries. —
In 1646 after studying the Algonquin language for
four years, John Eliot preached his first sermon to
the Indians. The story goes that he talked for an
hour and a quarter and that his audience was so
interested that it stayed for two hours more, asking
such questions as, “Can God understand prayers in
the Indian language?” and, “Were the English ever
so ignorant of divine things as we are?” Missionary
work, therefore, began in North America as soon as *
the first settlers arrived. In fact, many of the first
preachers actually were missionaries to the colonists,
being sent out from the older churches in Europe.

Death of a Missionary Patriarch.— When El-
wood M. Gerry graduated from Princeton Seminary
in 1867, he and his wife set out for Calcutta on a
sailing vessel, taking the long and wearisome voyage
around the Cape of Good Hope. All the subsequent
years of his life, from 1867 to the day of his death
on October 5, 1927, he spent in the service of mis-
sions. Iorty years he labored in India.

Bad Roads in Alabama. — A Negro preacher in
Alabama was asked to help make a certain canvass
in his county. “I?ll do it when the roads is better,”
he promised. When pressed to give his help at once,
he scratched his head and said: “Look here, folks,
if you knew how deep the mud is down our way and
how poor my mule is, I don’t believe you’d expect
me to go round and make that canvass at a teetotal
sacrifice.” When we read this, we thought of our
poor missionaries plowing their way through the
mud of Alabama roads.