The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 92

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92

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

ities in the future. The plan is to make Atlanta
University in the course of time a postgraduate
school. These three institutions look back upon
many years of fine work. Spelman Institute has
existed almost fifty years and the other two almost
seventy years. During these years they have exerted
a powerful and far-reaching influence upon the
colored race, and not a few of the Negro leaders of
to-day are graduates of these schools. Morehouse
College and Spelman Institute are Baptist, while
Atlanta University was established and promoted by
the Congregationalists of New England.

Foreign Mission Relief Work. — During the
World War the Schleswig-Holstein Mission in India
was saved by the United Lutheran Church in
America, and this body at that time also took over
the Shantung field of the Berlin Mission in China.
The Joint Synod of Ohio took charge of the entire
Hermannsburg Mission in India. The Iowa Synod,
with the help of the United Lutheran Church in
Australia, took over the fields of the Neuendettelsau
Rhenish societies in New Guinea. German East
Africa’s Lutheran missions, carried on by the
Leipzig Mission Society, were taken over by the
Augustana Synod. The taking over of these various
missions probably cost our American Lutheran
bodies almost one million dollars. The United
Lutheran Church has returned the India field to the
Schleswig-Holstein Society, without making a claim
for reimbursement, after serving it for twelve years
at a cost of a quarter million dollars. The Augustana
Synod has returned the Tanganyika (formerly Ger-
man Fast Africa) field in Africa to the Leipzig
Society and is now working in an adjacent ter-
titory.

Interesting! — Dr. C. G. Salisbury, at present
a missionary among the Navajo Indians, ‘spent
twelve years among the Hainanese in China before
he went to Ganado. So similar are the languages of
the two peoples that Dr. Salisbury was almost able
to understand a Navajo conversation from his
Knowledge of the Hainanese dialect. The word
hogan, for example, means house, or dwelling, in
both languages. Of the numerals from one to ten,
four are similar, and three are identical. Many of
the common words of every-day speech are either
similar or identical. The Navajo bears a striking
resemblance to the Hainanese both in personal char-
acteristics and general features. Dr. Salisbury be-
_ lieves the Nayajo is a Chinaman and that he came
to America when this continent was joined to Asia.
‘Quite interesting, is it not?

Gruesome Famine in Belgian Congo, Africa. —
Dr. Church, British missionary, reveals the terrible
details of the ravages of famine in the Ruanda dis-
trict of the Belgian Congo. The cause of the famine
is lack of rain and insufficient cultivation since
August. Thousands of natives are in a desperate
plight. No food can be procured, and Belgian dis-
tribution centers are unable to cope with the vast
number of starving, owing to the difficulties of
transport. Dr. Church affirms that many thousands
died before November, after which the plight be-
came more serious, the final blow coming in Decem-
ber, when the Uganda government prohibited the
export of foodstuffs to Ruanda and the natives,
trapped in the fever-stricken area, staggered with
failing strength out into the country.

Lepers in the Philippines. — The largest leper
colony in the Philippines is at Culion. It is, in
fact, the largest leper colony in the world. No
fewer than 6,000 of the most miserable human
beings on earth are to be found there, men, women,
and children, exiled from home and their loved ones
—unelean, the accursed of the world. It is said
that in the last seven years 1,700 of these wretched
ones have been cured of their dread malady. The
total number of lepers in the Philippines is about
12,000, while there are three million in the entire
world. What a light of comfort must the Gospel of
Jesus bring into their dark and dreary lives!
A number of denominations are doing a blessed
work among them.

A Missionary Honored. — Rev. G. Raymond
Haaf, a missionary of the United Lutheran Church
in India, has been awarded the Kaiser-i-hind medal
for distinguished service. Dr. Anna S. Kugler, of
the same Church, was accorded the same honor by
the Indian government several years ago.

‘‘Whoscever Shall Confess Me.” — Some years
ago a lad died, and after his death his parents re-
ceived a letter from one whom they had never seen.
He wrote: “I owe to your son what I can never ex-
press. He brought me to God, and yet he never
knew it. A good many of us slept in the same room
at school; there was a great deal of talking and
noise; no one thought of praying. I slept next
your son and often wondered why, when I was
longer in going to sleep, I heard him rise from his
bed and go to the chair on which his clothes were
laid. I found out why—it was to pray. So quietly

‘and simply was this done that I felt it go to my

heart. He taught me to pray.” Thus we may never
know the effect of our actions, but if we live as