The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 108

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108

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

From the worst stricken provinces the terrified
and frenzied people are trekking northward, only
to drop by the way or to arrive, too faint to go
farther, in villages already barren of food.

In the: deserted countrysides the village dogs
have tasted human flesh and hunt in mad packs
like the wild wolves of Siberia. Savagery and
desolation are setting in. Ten million people are
facing starvation.

Items of Missionary Interest.
(By the Eprror.)

Missouri Synod.—The Fiscal Conference which
recently convened in St. Louis budgeted the follow-
ing sums for its missions: Deaf-mute, $50,500;
European, $62,400; Foreign, $270,000; Foreign-
tongue, $25,000; General Home, $200,000; Immi-
grant and Seamen’s, $7,600; Indian, $17,145;
Jewish, $4,954; Negro, $145,000; South Amer-
ican, $76,500. The sums appropriated for Home
Missions comprise the subsidies granted by the
General Body to several of the smaller Districts,
which are too weak to take full advantage of their
mission opportunities in their territories. The
Home Missions of this body annually need about
$700,000.—In most cases the several Districts
carry on their Home Mission enterprises without
the help of the General Body. This is also true
of the Inner Mission work, including Institutional
Missions. The great number of orphanages, hos-
pitals, hospices, and like institutions are all spon-
sored by individual*organizations, and the large
sums needed for their up-keep are raised by these
organizations, by their own initiative and enter-
prise. The Negro Missions are an enterprise of the
whole Synodical Conference, and the sum men-
tioned above constitutes the Missouri Synod’s share
of the cost.

A Good Example.— While recently in New
Orleans, the editor was told by one of our mission-
aries of an old widow in his congregation who, when
promising to give the sum of twenty-five dollars
for her church, said, “I am sure the Lord will help

me keep my promise.” ‘Though feeble because of
her old age and consequently unable to earn much
by her daily toil, she paid her whole subscription
in three months. The promise 4vas made by the
aged widow just prior to last Christmas. She
brought her first five dollars to her pastor on
Christmas — it was a present she had received from
the lady for whom she worked. When a few weeks
Tater she brought a second payment, she said to

her pastor, “The Lord is surely blessing me since
I promised to give those twenty-five dollars to my
Chureh.” Her last payment of seven dollars was
made shortly before Easter. The editor is just
“old-fashioned” enough to believe with this good
old Christian that she was especially blessed by God
because of her promise. How about you, dear

reader? Would you not like to have a similar
experience ?
Liberia, Africa. — This little country was

founded by repatriated Negroes from the United
States and is situated on the West Coast of Africa.
Beginning with 1821, shipload after shipload of
freed Negroes came to Liberia. Many of these
had bought their own freedom by the labor of their
hands. In 1847 Liberia became an independent
republic. It has had a hard time to hold its own
because of the covetousness of European countries
and the unfeeling indifference of our own country.
The total area of Liberia is about 45,000 square
miles. A narrow fringe of civilized settlements
along the coast is populated by about 10,000
descendants of the American freedmen colonists,
while the interior is filled with the members of
about fifty native tribes, numbering approximately
1,500,000. The government of Liberia is pat-
terned after that of the United States, but its
power actually extends only over the civilized coast
fringe. All the government officials are Negroes,
of course. Several denominations are working
along the coast. The American Episcopal Church
has eighty-six mission-stations with ‘forty-nine
churches, served by four foreign and thirty-six
native pastors. Besides seventy day-schools, this
denomination has a hospital, a college, a divinity
school, three boarding-schools for girls, two
boarding-schools for boys, and an agricultural
school. Almost 4,000 pupils are attending their
Sunday-schools. One parish is self-supporting.
The United Lutheran Church has the so-called
Muehlenberg Mission under its care. It has thirty-
one foreign laborers in its employ. The people in
the interior have been only slightly touched by
Christian influence, though the Episcopalians have
been working in the hinterland for almost a hun-
dred years.

As over all North Africa, the Mohammedans
have exerted their baneful influence over the native
tribes of Liberia. In the Vai country area and
farther into the hinterland may be found strong-
holds of Islam in a very debased form. Though
they accept Allah as the one and only god and keep
the fast of Ramadam in the usual way, many of