The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 30

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Christ. His wife did the same.
years ago this couple removed to San Francisco.

30 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Taking the Bible into the Homes. — The Amer-
ican Bible Society at present has about 3,200
workers. They distribute nearly 10,000,000 copies
of the Bible annually. One colporteur, seventy-five
years old, has traveled 65,000 miles, visited 185,000
homes, and distributed more than 110,000 volumes
of the Scriptures in the mountains of West Virginia.
Recently a Brazilian colporteur in ome month vis-
ited 841 homes, spoke to 8,335 persons, and sold or
gave away 1,748 Bibles; Testaments, and gospels.

Abyssinia. —- A year ago nine missionaries
opened a mission-station at Addis Ababa, Abys-
sinia. Some months later two more stations were
opened in Southern Abyssinia. In October last
seven more workers went out to enter this field.
The missionaries expect to open several new stations
in the near future.

What One Bible Did. — Many years ago a Jew
bought a Bible in a Bible house in Constantinople.
He wanted only the Old Testament, but because he
could buy the whole Bible for less than he could get
the Old Testament alone from the Jewish publishing
house, he made the purchase. He became interested
in the New Testament and in due time accepted
About twenty-five

Their ruling passion was to'spread the Bible among
the Jews. When the man died several years ago,
he left all he had to the San Francisco agency of
the Bible Society, reserving for his aged wife no
more than an annuity during her life.

Missionary Enterprise of the Mormons. — The
Mormons of Utah are annually spending $10,000,000
for missions. They are very busy in Germany and
Austria, where 300 active missionaries are working
and are said to have made 15,000 converts.

N.L. CG. B.

Those Ministers’ Children.— At a commence-
ment of the Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga.,
President J.R. McCain said that, while only ten

_ per cent. of the students of the school were the

daughters of ministers and missionaries, more than

_ fifty per cent. of all the honors had been carried off

by them. What Dr. W.'T. Ellis says is probably
trud, “It is better to be the child of a minister than
of a millionaire.” Dr. Ellis is not a minister! -
Leprosy in Porto Rico. — This beautiful island
has no less than 60,000 active cases of leprosy and

‘tuberculosis out of a population of Jess than one

and a half million. The government has established

*  & camp for lepers and a sanitarium for tubercular
patients. A missionary is supervising the religious

The Introduction of Christianity
into Denmark.

Far up towards the North, cradled upon the
waves, lies Denmark, a little country, but rich and
beautiful, a free country, inhabited by a free-born
and noble people, the only land and race in the
world which from the earliest times has never been
vassal to another power or has bowed down before
a foreign ruler. In the olden days the race that
lived in Denmark was a warlike people; from it the
Cimbrians set forth, who ravaged Rome; from it
the Vikings set sail to harass the coasts of England
and France. They worshiped various gods, among
them the war god Thor, who was greatly esteemed ;
and the Danes considered it to be the greatest hap-
piness to die in battle in order thereby to go forth
to the highest of the gods, Odin, who hospitably
regaled the brave warriors. Also upon this land the
eye of God rested, and the time came for His mes-
senger to journey there in order to plant the Cross
upon Danish soil.

The man to whom God gave His call was a Bene-
dictine monk by the name of Ansgar, a Frank, born
801 A. D. at Corbie, on the river Somme, in
Northern France. The son of an officer in Emperor
Charlemagne’s army, he lost his mother when he
was five years old and, while still a boy, entered a
monastery in the neighborhood. Later, as a young
monk, he lived in the monastery: Corvey, on the
river Weser, in Germany, founded by the monks
from Corbie. He is called the Apostle of the North
because he labored not only in Denmark, but also
in Sweden. Although he was not the first mission-
ary in these lands, — since missionary work had
already been done in 822 by Bishop Ebbo, of Reims,
— Ansgar is entitled to the name, as it was owing
to him that the Gospel obtained a firm footing in
the North.

_ The original cause of his journey to Denmark
was that one of the Danish petty kings, Harald, who
was at loggerheads with other chieftains, sought
help from the German emperor Ludwig, whose land
adjoined Denmark on the south. The emperor, who
was a Christian, promised to help King Harald, but
made it a condition that Harald and his fellows be
baptized and take Christian priests with them to
Denmark. é

Since nobody at the emperor’s court cared to
undertake the journey to the land of the warlike
and pagan Danes, attention was focused upon the
pious Ansgar; and when he was asked whether he
was willing to go, despite the fact that his brother