The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 171

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

100X200 feet was acquired, and the members set to_

work to make plans for a modest chapel.

The necessary funds, however, were still lacking
to bring about the actual realization of the new
chapel. “Here again,” writes Pastor Dvorovy, “the
Church Extension Board, the finest institution of
our Church, came with the much-needed financial
assistance. A loan of $2,000 was secured from this
board, and the members raised the remainder,
about $2,500. A building, modest, yet attractive in
appearance, was erected and dedicated within one
year from the first service held in Highland Heights.
A feature of the church is the illuminated cross
above the entrance, the only one in this part of the
South. The publicity gained through this one feature
alone has gained for Immanuel Lutheran Church
the motto: Just follow the Cross to Immanuel
Church !”

The important réle which the Church Extension
Fund played in this undertaking is expressed by the
pastor, who writes: “It is needless to say that with-
out the assistance of this board, Immanuel Church
* would not have had the success which, by the grace
of God, it enjoys at the present time. The assistance
and help extended to this congregation is keenly felt
by the members and appreciated with sincere and
heartfelt thanks.”

And remember there are hundreds of places just
like this mission which started in a cleaning and
dyeing establishment that appeal through the
Church Extension Board to our Church for in-
creased funds, so that they can adequately carry on
the work of Christ. z

Shwe Dagon Pagoda.

“Rangoon, strictly speaking, is the capital city
of Burma, but one feels that it is India, and it is in
reality a province of the Indian empire. Many of
the customs are the same as those one sees in Indian
cities, and the people one sees in the streets have the
‘same fine, dark, keen faces, and the same picturesque
garb. Rangoon is a river city, with the mark of
prosperity in her broad streets and splendid, almost
European, public buildings. And yet, writes Mar-
garet L. Reid in the Cunarder Magazine, if one
wants to know he is truly in the Orient, there is the
Shwe Dagon Pagoda, and there are numerous other
signs of the exotic East in this modernized city of
the Orient. .

“Of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda so much has been
written that it is probably as well known, even to

171

people who have not had the good fortune to see it,
as the Taj Mahal of Agra. When your steamer
approaches the city, the shaft of the great pagoda
gleams so golden that it is the only thing you have
eyes for. The temple is on a double terrace, on
a platform nearly 1,000 feet long, and is encircled
by small shrines and kiosks. Beneath the shaft,
which is really as golden as it seems, being covered
with gold leaf, is the bell-shaped temple, tapering
into narrower and narrower rings and finally into
the shaft. The charming part of the rings strikes |
one as being something like a place in a fairy-tale.

Shwe Dagon Pagoda.

_ They are hung with silver and gold temple bells, and

their tinkling is as sweet as the falling petals from
a fruit-tree. All the imagery that arises in the mind
when some one sings of temple bells has an actual
counterpart in the little silvery-sounding bells of the
Shwe Dagon Pagoda. ©

The Guardian Lion-Griffins.

“Probably the most delightful features of the
Shwe Dagon Pagoda, however, are the huge leo-
gryphs which keep guard over its south entrance.
These, in case the fantasic leogryph is not among
the familiar animals in your vocabulary of menager-
ies, are enormous, strong creatures, half lion and half
gryphon. Surely such a medley of wild animals has