The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Sheet 45

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

are pleased to be able to report this fine example set
by Pastor Roeper’s Sunday-school and hope that we
may have the happy privilege to tell our readers of
many other instances of missionary interest shown
by our children and youth.

Bulletin of the Eastern Field. — Prof. Wm. H.
Gehrke, the new superintendent of the Eastern
Mission-field, is publishing a bulletin to serve as a
broadcasting station for announcements to be
brought to the attention of his field. Such a bul-
letin is sure to be of great service to superintendent
and stations.

Recognition of Services.— From a letter to
Director Drewes, written by our colored missionary
in Los Angeles, Cal., Rev. John McDavid, we cull
the following item: “To-day (January 6), at con-
ference, Rev. H. Gihring gave me a beautiful silver
electric coffee set in token of my twenty-fifth anni-
versary in the ministry. At conference I thought
it came from the brethren, and I thanked them;
but since I came home, I have begun to think it
over and have come to the conclusion that it came
from the venerable Board through you [Director
Drewes]. I cordially thank you and them.” We
wish to add that we do not know whence the wel-
come recognition of faithful services came, but we
do know that the recognition was in place; for
Rev. John McDavid has been a faithful laborer
among his people, and God has richly blessed his
labors. Our sincere prayer is that God may grant
him yet many a year of service.

Home Mission Opportunities in Kansas. —
There are twenty-one cities and towns ranging from
3,000 to 10,000 in which the Synodical Conference
is not represented, and there are thirty-seven coun-
ties in the same State in which we have no congre-
gation or mission-place. Plainly, here would be fine
opportunities to place a large portion of the 190
theological candidates and 90 normal graduates that
will be ready for work in a few months. The field
is ripe unto harvest, the laborers are ready to go to
work; upon our contributions it will depend
whether these laborers are to gather the ripening
grain. ;

Home Missions of the Minnesota District, Mis-
souri Synod. — This District had fifty missionaries
in its employ last June. Since then it has added
several workers. ‘These laborers are ministering
directly to the spiritual wants of over 8,000 per-
sons. The annual expense is over $70,000. A recent
survey shows that there are vast opportunities for
expansion in the District. y

43

Church Survey of Omaha, Nebr. — Of the first
4,000 families visited by the canvassers, 935 pre-
ferred the Lutheran Church; 810 had a preference
for the Roman Catholic, 410 preferred the Meth-
odist, 406 the Presbyterian, 215 the Baptist, 211 the
Episcopal, 199 the Congregationalist, 147 the
Hebrew, 123 the Christian, 118 the Christian
Science Society, and 48 the United Presbyterian.
If this partial survey is an indication of what the
complete canvass will show, it is an indication that
Omaha is strongly Lutheran in sentiment.

The Least-Churched Large City. — This is the
doubtful claim to fame made by San Francisco, Cal.
San Francisco has a population of 637,000, but only
17,000 belong to Protestant churches.

Katherine Mayo on India Missionaries. —
“One of the two active influences which have
affected the status of the untouchables [in India]
was, and is, the reclamation work of the Christian
missionaries. ... It is now some sixty years since
that work began, and of the five million present-
day Indian Christians a large majority are un-
touchables in origin. The devoted workers [mis-
sionaries] have plunged into mud waist deep and
set their shoulders to the burden of the slaves. The
material result wherever these people have dug in
is cleanliness instead of squalor, health instead of
rottenness, courage instead of cringing, a percentage
of literacy high above that of the Hindu body, and,
education once, received, a frequent willingness to
return to the village and live for the less fortunate
of the same blood. The fact may as well be faced
that the decisive agent in affecting this metamor-
phosis has been the militant teaching and the full
acceptance of the doctrines of Jesus Christ. . . »
From this grim religious obsession of soul-slavery
(forced upon the untouchables by the insistent
social pressure of the caste system) only an an-
tipodal creed, brought by men themselves white. hot
with belief in the supreme efficacy of their own
faith, could set the victim free. These missionaries
have done a job of humanizing work, have aroused
a volume of outspoken gratitude and affection, have
developed a propagandizing power, not without
potentiality in future India.”

Kugler Hospital, India. — The American Lu-
theran Mission Hospital at Guntur is in future to
bear the name “Kugler Hospital” in honor of Dr.
Anna S. Kugler, who founded the hospital in 1883
and served as its head for forty-seven years.
Dr. Kugler’s death occurred last summer. iF