The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 137

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

137

man shall die.” Some time later the slow chameleon
arrived with its contrary message. A mighty voice
was heard from the interior of the palace: “The
lizard arrived first, and its message will be enforced.
In future the men on earth will be subject to death.”
From that time on death has reigned on earth. Both
animals are hated on earth; the chameleon is
poisoned wherever found, and the lizard must ever
flee from the presence of man; for if the Bushman
catches it, he devours it and holds his hand before
his mouth lest one particle be lost.

This legend is also found in other parts of Africa
with variations. Thus in Togoland it is the frog
who distorts the message that the dog was sent to
carry to the Creator, asking that men should live
forever. The Akomba people say that it was the
thrush that drowned the message of life which the
chameleon had been sent to deliver. Among the

the light of revelation. All sicknesses and death
are the result of black magic. But is there not even
in this view an indication of the fact that there
remains with these poor, blind heathen at least an
inkling of the fact that Satan, the Prince of Dark-
ness, is the enemy that brought death into the
world? Does not this distorted view of the origin
of death plainly show that the savage is not the
primitive man, but rather that the savage African
is the remnant and ruin of a better and a nobler past?

Thus the very superstitions of the heathen loudly
proclaim the high estate from which man fell. And
equally forcibly do these superstitions of the poor
heathen plead with us to help man to step upon that
path on which he can once more walk to reach his
former state of holiness and live forever in the
delightful presence of his Maker, who desires him
to live. F.J.L.

Gibeon, a Christian Mission-Station among the Hottentots.

Ashanti tribes there is a tradition that the goat was
sent with the message of life, while the sheep outran
the goat with the message of death.

One thing all these variations of the legend bring
out with great force, namely, that in the natural
order of things man was not to die and that it was
only by way of an accident that death came on earth
and began its work of destruction among men. In
West Africa there is a tribe which personifies death
as a great hunter. While on his way to the great
forest to find his prey, he meets with a company of
women near the village well. With his arrows he
shoots among them, and many fall dead. Then death
discovers that he need no longer go into the dense
forest to hunt, but that he can find game enough
among the men and women of the earth.

This belief of the African that death is only an
accident and not the natural course of events leads
the African to seek magical causes for death. That
death is the wages of sin he does not see except in

A Never-Ending Procession.

Ever since the World War we have learned to
express the most immense figures with greatest ease.
Million, a hundred millions, even billion, roll most
glibly from our tongue. We find it no harder to
say “billion” than we do say “million.” But do
we realize what a “billion” means? The best among
us have only a faint conception of the term.

Let us make an attempt at getting at the im-
mensity of a billion. At this time there are about
1,850,000,000 — 1,850 million — people on our
earth. About 680,000,000 — 680 million — of these
are Christians, either actually or in name only;
about 210 million are Mohammedans; 350 million
are Confucianists and Taoists; 150 million call
themselves Buddhists;* 250 million are Hindus;
25 million are classed as Shintoists, 135 million as
Animists, and, finally, about 51 million as mis-
cellaneous. In other words, almost 1,200 million