The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 172

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172

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

never existed, although these examples are amiable
enough and smile as though they enjoyed the proces-
sion of pilgrims buying candles and flowers on the
stairway leading to the beautiful Buddhist temple.

“There are thousands of pilgrims not only from
all parts of Burma, but from Korea, Siam, and
Ceylon, who come to this Mecca to pay respect to
the relics of the great Buddhas enshrined there.
You must take off your shoes and stockings if you
want to ascend to the pagoda platform. If you could
ascend in an airplane and examine the weather-vane
which crowns the whole structure, a veritable wealth
of the Indies would greet your eyes. For that is no
ordinary weather vane; it is covered with literally
thousands of rubies, diamonds, and emeralds, votive
offerings of those selfsame pilgrims who have come
so far to see the sacred edifice.

Venders of Gold Leaf.

“The human drama is interesting to watch all
about the Shwe Dagon Pagoda. The venders of gold
leaf, sold in little squares, to be put on the various
shrines, the people who buy it to acquire merit, and
the foreigners make a picture that is never lacking
in interest.

“When you get tired of the religious setting, you
can leave the pagoda and go to Dalhousie Park,
where gilded and intricately carved barges bore
royalty along the royal lakes. Burmese royalty dis-
appeared several generations ago, however, and to-
day the lakes are parts of a public park.

“Rangoon offers a number of additional attrac-
tions ‘to the traveler in search of aspects of life
different from those to which he is accustomed at
home. There is the Sule Pagoda, for instance, not
so magnificent nor so important as the Shwe Dagon
Pagoda, but interesting because it was built in
honor of the Shwe Dagon’s spirit guardian, called
Sule Nat. Nats are the spirits powerful for evil and
for punishment, in whom the Burmese believe with
implicit faith. There are no less than thirty-seven
of these spirits in the Burmese category, and each
and every one of them has to be propitiated, or evil
will fall upon the delinquent one. A cocoanut, for
example, is kept hanging in every house to soothe
the House Nat.”

Spirits are supposed to be in almost -every in-

. animate object. The fish-tank near the Shwe Dagon

Pagoda is considered sacred and is protected by a
special monastery. On the roof to the entrance of
the Shwe Dagon Pagoda the tortures of the damned
are graphically depicted. sf

Thus we see how the heathen find nothing too

AW

beautiful to put into the service of their false
religion, and they bring their richest offerings in
great profusion to their idols. To propitiate the
nats, the evil spirits, they bring the greatest
sacrifices.

And all this in vain! All this in the service of
gods that can give no help, and of a religion that
can give no real comfort!

Are we as grateful as we should be for the light
and life and comfort we have obtained through the
Gospel of Jesus Christ? Do we all we can do to
bring the light and life and comfort of Jesus to
others? F.J.L.

' Items of Missionary Interest.
(By the Eprror.)

Fifteen Years Ago. — “This month it will be
fifteen years ago that work for women was begun in
our foreign mission fields. Miss Ellerman, our first
worker, reached India in November, 1913. It is
a very short time compared with the thousands of
years of heathenism that go before, but it is a be-
ginning in a branch of the work that strikes at the
heart of things.” — A. A. Z.

The Lutheran Church in Lithuania. — The Gus-
tavus Adolphus Society of Lithuania has recently
published the following facts and figures concerning
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in that country:
The Lutheran Church in Lithuania at the present
time has 75,000 members, listed as follows: 40,000
Germans, 20,000 Lithuanians, and 15,000 Letts.
Eighty-five per cent. of the 2,300,000 population of
the land belongs to the Roman Catholic Church.
Almost the entire population consists of farming
and laboring classes, and in the few cities about
eighty per cent. of the people are Eastern Jews,
intermingled with Poles, Russians, and Germans.
The Lutheran congregations are, for the-most part,
rural, their members being recruited from the farm-
ing classes. However, there are Lutheran congrega-
tions in several of the cities, particularly in Kovno,
the capital of the country, and Mariampol and
others. — Australian Lutheran.

Cost of the World War. — The League of
Nations Committee estimates that the late great
crusade for culture, civilization, freedom, and de-
mocracy cost thirty-seven million human lives. Ten
million of these were killed outright, six million
were carried off by the pestilence that followed the
war, and twenty million failed to be born; the birth-
rate went back to that extent in consequence of the