The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 134

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134

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

The Eastern Colored Mission-Field.

Immanuel Lutheran Conference held its sum-
mer sessions at Salisbury, N. C., August 27—30.

Statistics of the Eastern Field. — This field at
present comprises a total of thirty-five stations.
The number of communicant members is 1,594;
174 were baptized in the first half of this year; the
Sunday-school enrolment is 1,909; the day-schools
have 853 pupils; 161 were confirmed from Jan-
uary 1 to June 30; the pastors made a total of
13,348 missionaries and pastoral calls, and the
teachers visited 3,170 families during the first half
of the present year. The total contributions were
$7,424.64.

Student C. David did supply-work at Washing-
ton, D.C., during July and August. In response
to 332 visits made during one week thirteen adults
and one child attended the services on the Sunday
following.

A son arrived at the home of Rev. and Mrs. P.
Trumpoldt on July 17. God hold His protecting
hand over mother and child!

More than 500 children attended the Bible-
schools conducted at various mission-stations of the
Eastern Field during July. Wa. H. Geurxe.

Negro Mission in Texas.

Our brethren in Texas have opened the first
Imtheran colored mission in Texas. This mission
was begun about the first of the year by the Rey. H.
J. Peimann, Pastor of Zion Lutheran Church at
Vernon, Tex. Services are held every Sunday after-
noon at a cotton-picker’s shack, owned by Mr. Karl
Haseloff, one of the members of Zion Lutheran
Church. ‘Besides the regular sermon a lesson in
Drewes’s Catechism is studied at each meeting.
These Negroes not only listen attentively and sing
well, but have insisted from the beginning that
they raise an offering at each meeting to pay the
teacher. :

The children have been taught every Saturday

-afiternooon by Mr. A. Lehenbauer, the regular

teacher of Zion Lutheran Church. During the
summer yacation he has been conducting school
with eight of these children every morning. Let
us pray the Lord that the seed here sown in school

"and church service may bring forth much fruit unto

eternal life.

Do Missions Pay?

An old gentleman, living in a quiet Eastern
village, had a visit, the first in many years, from
his son, a prosperous storekeeper in Western
Canada. On Sunday father and son went to
church, where they listened to a sermon on Chris-
tian missions.

Throughout the service the old gentleman was
restless. “I’m sorry,” he said, as they left the
church, “that I brought you here to-day.” “Why,
father?” asked the younger man. “I’m sorry,” he
replied, with a shrug of his shoulders, “that you
had to listen to that sermon. I don’t believe in
missions. They’re a stupid waste of men and
money.” The younger man made no reply at the
time, but when he reached home, he asked his
father and mother to let him tell them a little
story.

“A few years ago,” he began, “a young man

‘ left his father’s farm to seek his fortune in the

Canadian West. He got into bad company and was
left one day by the roadside, drunk and unconscious.
At that place, living in a little sod-covered shack,
there was a young man who had been sent out by
a missionary society. He loved men and sought
them in the spirit of his divine Master. He found
the drunken fellow, who had been left by his com-
panions to die from alcohol or exposure, and car-
ried, him to his shack, placed him in his bed, and
worked over him until he brought him back to con-
sciousness. Then, after he had fed him, he remon-
strated with him for wasting his life and prayed
earnestly with him. The young man confessed his
sin and sought pardon. His after-life proved the
genuineness of his conversion. He has become an
honored citizen and, as the world goes, a prosperous
man. He is an officer in his church, and in order °
to add to the comfort of his aged parents, he sends
them gladly five hundred dollars a year. Father
and mother, I am that man, and I tremble to think
what I should have been but for that faithful mis-
sionary.”

This is but a single episode in the life of one
of the devoted men and women laboring in the
Western mission-field; yet how much it meant
in happiness and comfort for the old people, in
the value to the community of the alert, efficient,
honorable citizen, who might otherwise have died
a drunkard; above all, in a joyful life of service
and the assurance of life eternal to the man who
was saved ! — Selected.