The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 60

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60

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

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again awoke from a short snatch of slumber, he
noticed that a pair of friendly eyes were fixed upon
him. A little thinking enabled him to place the
face behind the eyes. It belonged to a lady whom
he had met in a frontier town where he had organ-
ized a church a number of years before. After
mutual greetings the missionary inquired concern-
ing her traveling and received the reply : —

“T have been to visit the family of Bill Donavan
up in Montana. You remember ‘Wild Bill’ ?”

The missionary surely did! He never would
forget him, the worst “tough” of the Montana town
where he lived. ‘Wild Bill” was a cowboy, gambler,
drunkard, and bartender all in one. A_ typical
Western “bad man” was “Wild Bill.”

Bill was a big, brawny, two-fisted Irishman and
the very embodiment of mischief. An evangelist
who had gone to preach in the town had been roped
by Donavan on the streets, and upon another occa-
sion he had tried to ride his horse through the door
of the hall in which the evangelist was holding his
meetings. While all these things came crowding
the mind of the missionary, the woman said: —

“Bill and I were talking about you the other
day.”

“Ts that so?”

“Yes. He said you talked to him many years
ago about his sins and how he could get rid of
them. And he also told me that you spoke to him
again a few years ago in Denver.”

“But I fear it did no good.”
looked sad.

“You are greatly mistaken. Bill was baptized
two years ago and has become an active church-
member. As we talked about you, he said he wished
you could find out that he had become a Christian.”

When the missionary heard this, he could not
hold back his tears. He gave all glory to God for
Bill’s conversion. He was happy that Bill had
become a child of God and that Donavan had
remembered the missionary’s interest in his spiritual
welfare.

Soon after this the missionary spoke at the
anniversary of a little church for white people
which had grown up as a by-product of one of his
Indian missions. For years the white people of the
neighborhood had opposed all the missionary’s
endeavors in behalf of the Indians. But God had

The missionary

taken them in hand, and now the former enemies
of Christ were enthusiastically planning for Christ’s
kangdom.

In the course of his remarks the missionary
related what the woman had told him on the train

about Bill Donavan. An old cowboy in the meeting
became quite excited while the missionary was
speaking, and when the opportunity was offered
him, he said : —

“T’m an old pal of Bill’s. I guess he’ll be as
much surprised to hear of my conversion as I am
to hear of his.”

As the missionary sought his bed that night, he
realized that he was tired in the work, but not of it.
It seemed almost as if such results were worth the
shortening of one’s life by five years; and who will
say that many a missionary by his continuous and
fatiguing labor has not done it?

A Noted Lutheran Medical Missionary.

Forty-five years ago Anna Kugler, an attractive
American girl of fine family, set out for India under
the American Lutheran Board: She had the best
medical training that America could give her.
A brilliant career opened before her in America.
But she received a letter from a missionary appeal-
ing to her to come out to help the needy women of
India. When she asked her board to send her, they
replied that they were not ready to start medical
work and that if she wanted to go out, she must go
as a teacher and worker in the India home —a
zenana worker. Dr. Kugler accepted this appoint-
ment. She was so eager to serve India that she was
willing, if necessary, to give up her medical career
to do so. Yet she believed that the medical work
would somehow open up. A present of a hundred
dollars made it possible for her to take a few instru-
ments and medicines with her. With this equip-
ment and a brave heart she landed in South India—
the first woman missionary physician to go to the
great Madras Presidency of India with its millions
of suffering women and children.

All the equipment for medical work that she
had at first was a small cupboard with a few instru-
ments and medicines. Yet patients began to come
to her from the day she reached Guntar, and it was
not long before they came so fast that she had little
time for zenana work. After a while she fitted up
a little storeroom with a table and a few shelves as
her “hospital.” A veranda served as a waiting-
room. Working in this way, she treated six hundred
cases in her first year. But soon the medicines
were exhausted, and the work had to be dropped.
Dr. Kugler used this interval for the study of
language and for zenana- and school-work. Then
her fellow-missionaries, out of their own meager in-