The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 13

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

13

———$——$——————__ $$ $$ KL

The work, which is to be published in the Stuttgart
translation, will consist of twenty-seven volumes.
It will be distributed to the blind without cost.

A Church-Building Record. — The Gustavus
Adolphus Society, which met in September at Frei-
burg-Breisgau, Baden, Germany, reported that since
its organization it has financed the erection of 3,000
Lutheran churches in different parts of the world.
Two hundred of these, it was stated, have been built
in Posen, a province of Poland.

Floating Church for Islanders. — A floating
church for the people of the northern islands of
Norway will become a reality if the government at
Oslo accepts a proposition submitted by a Nor-
wegian Lutheran pastor. The pastor based his
petition upon the fact that particularly in Finmark
many of the people must walk more than seventy-
five miles to reach a church. For that reason mar-
riages have remained without religious sanction,
and large numbers of children are growing up un-
baptized. If the government builds the ship, as
suggested, it will travel from island to island to
bring the Gospel to the entire population. It is
proposed to equip the ship also with a circulating
library and a complete stock of medicine and
drugs. — Ex.

Industrial Mission Products.— No less than
733 tons of copra were produced on the New Guinea
mission-field of the Iowa Synod during last year.
In the Finschhafen District the crop. amounted to
5,551 sacks, valued at about $40,000, while in the
Madang District there were 4,085 sacks, valued at
about $26,000. Copra is the dried meat of the
cocoanut, from which cocoanut oil is expressed. It
is the principal article of export from many trop-
ieal countries.

A Bantu Bible.— The Bantu natives of the
Belgian Congo now have the Bible translated into
their own language. This language, the Luba
Lulua, is the 169th language into which the Bible
has been translated, exclusive of several hundred
dialects.

His Prayer. — A woman missionary had a little
boy named Shadi, a Hindu orphan. One night,
when he was six years old, she said to him: “Now
pray a little prayer of your own.” What do you
think Shadi’s prayer was? It was a good prayer
for any little child to make. It was this: “Dear
Jesus, make me like what you were when you were
Six years old.” — Pz.

Loyalty. — A native pastor in Central China

“was offered a salary ten times as large as the small
sum which was given him by the missionary board.

But he replied: “Matthew left the customs to
follow Christ, and do you think I am going to
leave Christ to follow customs?” With him it was
not a question of easy position or money, but one
of loyalty to Christ.

Death of a Pioneer Missionary. — The mission
of the Iowa Synod in New Guinea -has sustained
a severe loss in the death of Rev. J. G. Bamler.
The nature of the accident which caused his death
is not known at the time of this writing. “Mis-
sionary Bamler was sixty-five years of age and had
been working in New Guinea since 1887. At the
time of his death he was working on the Siassi
Islands, about forty miles from the Finschhafen
Coast; in fact, he was the only missionary on the
islands. A young recruit, Missionary Herrlinger,
was on his way to New Guinea to become. the
assistant of Pastor Bamler at the time of the latter’s
sudden death.

————_____.

Sowing the Seed.

A train is pulling into the railroad junction at
Texistepeque, Salvador. As it slows down, a man’s
head appears in one of the windows. To the people
in and around the station the man calls out to
attract their attention. He gives away bright-
covered booklets to those who come near him. Soon
a growing crowd gathers. Only with difficulty do
those on the outer edge get near enough to secure
one of the coveted gifts. As the signal is given to
start the train, the railroad employees join the
crowd. The station begins to seethe in turmoil as
those who have not secured a copy excitedly see
the train about to start.

While many are calling “Adios” to those on the
train, some of the younger men run for a hand-car.
It is quickly mounted on the rails, and although
the train has started and is gaining speed each
moment, the hand-car hastens to overtake it. Will-
ing hands speed the controls. ‘The cries of the
crowd at the junction call the attention of those
on the train to what is taking place. Muscle is
being matched against piston. Youth and vigor
win. Friendly hands hold the hand-car to the rear
platform of the train while the victors are rewarded
with the little books they have so courageously
pursued. Then the hand-car and its crew return
to the junction from which they came.

Who was the man on the train, and what were
the books that he distributed so dramatically?

He was a colporteur of the American Bible
Society. The books were the gospels in Spanish.