The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 118

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118 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

not be the last Lutheran service they would attend.
They came to us Sunday after Sunday, and only
one of our Sunday services have they missed since
they first came to our church. But this is not all;
they have now also “made a good profession before
many witnesses” at the Lutheran altar. They are
consistent members of our church.

Yes, it often is a hard struggle our confirmed
children and adults must go through if they wish
to remain faithful to the true doctrine they have
learned in our Church; but it is a blessed struggle,
a struggle which redounds to God’s glory and the
welfare of other souls. Only recently I heard that
Mae’s mother and her brothers and sisters are now
going through the same hard struggle that she ex-
perienced. May God graciously grant them strength
to remain faithful to God and the Lutheran Church !

E. H. WiLpGRuBE.

Real Man Esono’s Determination.

The missionary was sitting in his mission-school
surrounded by the dusky forms of a number of
pupils. Suddenly he became aware of deep silence,
a strange thing in an African schoolroom with its
crowded benches. Something must have happened,
something very remarkable. But what? Glancing
up, he noted that all eyes were staring in the direc-
tion of the door. Some faces had even a smile of
amusement. The missionary followed the eyes of
his pupils and saw—but we shall let the missionary
continue the story : —

Yes, they were from the interior, those two
shapely youths, clad only in bark loin-cloth and
a string of dog’s teeth about the neck. Long and
well-made spears they carried. After the manner
of their tribe they entered as soon as they saw me
look their way, entered with a sort of awkward
rustic grace. Were they not the bearers of a request
of great import to their tribe and its future?

“And whence are you, and what thing is it you
bear in your hearts?” I asked. A quick glance of
questioning searched my face to see whether I really
meant what I said, to see if I could be ignorant
of the nature of their errand, then: —

‘ “We are sons of the Yelinda, of Real Man
Esono’s town. He has sent us for a teacher.”
Then came the thing I always dread, the expla-
_ nation, which never convinces a native, why I could
_ not send a teacher. Jong was our talk, long their
pleading. But at last the inevitable. They went

away very heavy of heart with my message to Real
Man Esono.

Two weeks passed. Again one morning the
strange silence in the schoolroom. ‘This time there
were six of the bark loin-cloth and dog-teeth-neck-
lace-clad youths in the door. The greater number
was to make a more favorable impression on me as
to the power of their chief and the importance of
the message they bore.

All that day we talked about that schoolteacher.
If I left the house by the front door, the six were
awaiting me to renew their appeal. If it was by
the back door I left, even there they were. Wher-
ever I went they followed, always pleading. Food
I gave them and salt to season it, salt that was

African Village.

selling at one dollar and fifty cents a pound. “Even
though we take it, can it rest well in our stomachs,
will it help our hearts when they are filled with
sorrow because of the answers you give to our
pleading ?”

At last, towards evening, their spokesman called
in through the open door, “We are leaving, but our
parting is not the parting of friends. Your heart
is indeed very hard towards. our tribe, us of the
Yelinda.” Out into the darkening evening, to
a darker corner of the earth, they went, and joy
did not go with them. —

“Me, I am Real Man Esono, the head of the
Yelinda! Twice have I sent my people to you,
white man of the hill, for a teacher. Twice it has
been you have refused to send a teacher. Why do
you look down upon us of the Yelinda? Myself

bai s