The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 133

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

133

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martyr had died. The queen herself graced the oc-
casion with her presence. At the annual New Year
celebration, a few weeks later, native Christians
were among the invited guests, but no idols or pa-
gan priests. In her address the queen said: “This
is what I have to say to you, my people. I have
brought my kingdom to lean upon God, and I expect
you, one and all, to be wise and just and to walk
in the ways of God.”

Less than two months after, the queen and her
prime minister were baptized, and only four months
after their baptism the two, who had become hus-
band and wife, partook of the Lord’s Supper.

When the idol-keepers begged the queen to rec-
ognize them in their capacity of idol-keepers, she
refused and said: “I shall not lean upon idols or
trust in them again, for they are blocks of wood, but
upon God and Jesus Christ do I now lean, and in
Him I trust.” On the other hand, she refused to
lend a hand in coercing those who wished to worship
idols to desist, insisting upon full liberty of con-
science and worship.

The Progress of Christianity.

During the first fourteen years after the corona-
tion of Ranavalona II no.less than 700 churches
were built in Madagascar, almost one church a week.
In 1867 there were ninety-two congregations and
about 11,000 baptized members. In 1881 there were
over 1,300 congregations and about 300,000 baptized
members. At present there are over 2,600 Protes-
tant congregations with about 400,000 baptized
members in the island.

The work of Protestant missionaries has suffered
much at the hands of Catholic missionaries ever
since 1862. It was by their intrigues that the French
government was led to establish a protectorate over
the island as early as 1883, the same year in which
Ranavalona II died. In August, 1896, France found
a pretext to declare Madagascar a French colony.

Since the French occupation the Protestant pop-
ulation has not increased; in fact, due to the French
government’s opposition to Protestantism, an oppo-
sition which at times almost grew to downright per-
secution, the Protestant population to-day is 500,000,
100,000 less than it was in 1896. Since 1906 the
French government forbids the use of churches for
school purposes, which means that three-fourths of
the schools open in 1906 have been closed.

Apart from Christianity the Malagasy have no
organized religious system, which means that two
andahalf million people on Madagascar are unevan-
gelized. Humanly speaking, probably a million and

a half would be members of an evangelical church
if it were not for the machinations of the Jesuits
in earlier days and the anticlericalism of the French
government in later days. F.J.L.

Philadelphia, Pa.

One of the largest mission-fields, if not the
largest, under the supervision of the Synodical
Conference is our Colored mission-field in the city
of Philadelphia. Here, in this historic city, we have
a colored population of approximately 175,000 souls.
For these many thousands of people we have only
one small mission. Our mission here is still com-
paratively small for several reasons. First of all,
because of ignorance concerning our Church; but
this ignorance has, to some extent, been overcome
during the last few years. The second reason is
misconceptions and a consequent lack of faith in
our Church. The third, and probably main, reason
is the lack of proper accommodations for church
and Sunday-school pusposes. Our mission in Phila-
delphia is located in a very fine and promising field.
In the vicinity of our mission we have an excellent
class of people to deal with, people who come from
the South or other sections of our city and who
come to this section, buy fine homes, and beautifully
furnish them. The large majority of them are not
of the moving, transient class.

Our services ‘and Sunday-school are conducted
in a very unattractive and old-fashioned store, which
has been too small for some time. Because of its
appearance it is by no means an attraction for the
people of the neighborhood. Our store cannot com-
fortably seat more than fifty people at a time. Our
Sunday-school has an enrolment of over one hun-
dred. For Sunday-school both floors must be used for
classrooms, but it is at best only a makeshift. Proper
work cannot be done. The classes are too large, for
we have no room for more classes. One teacher must
hear what the other is saying, one child hears what
another answers, and the noise from the various
teachers trying to make themselves heard by their
classes is at times terrible. But there is no way out
of the predicament. Though our store seats only
fifty, we have had over one hundred crowded into it
for services on more than one occasion. Several
times we have been compelled to drop a service, for
we knew we should not be able to accommodate the
crowd that would come. Several services haye also

tion in our vicinity, and at each of these services we

been held in the church of a white sister congrega-