The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 171

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

171

own rural districts and see the number of un-
churched before you talk to us about the poor
heathen of China and India. Consider the teeming
thousands at your own door who never enter a place
of worship and for whom the spiritual world has
practically no existence. Think of the drunkenness,
the corruption, and the crime in our country before
you speak of sending missionaries to
the savage Africans. Remember the
poverty and misery which cry aloud
to all who bear the Christian name
to do something to relieve or, still
better, to prevent it. Look at home
by all means before you go abroad.
Convert the heathen in your own
land, and then it will be time enough
to carry the Gospel to the heathen
of foreign lands.” Does this not
sound very familiar to you, dear
hearer? Perhaps you yourself have
already spoken in similar accents.

Whenever we hear a man talk in
the above strain, we are reminded of
an Arab story. The Arabs call the
ostrich the “camel bird” because it
can run so fast. The story runs
thus: “The ostrich was told to carry
a load, but it answered, ‘I cannot,
for I am a bird.’ Then it was told
to fly, and its answer was, ‘I cannot,
for I am a camel.’” So you say to
a man, “Let me present to you the
claims of Foreign Missions and show
you why you should support them.”
His answer is, “I cannot so long as
there is so great need of missionary
work at home.” Then you say to
this same man, “Well, then, let me
present to you the claims of Home
Missions and enlist your benevolence
in their behalf.” And his answer is,
“JT cannot as long as two-thirds of
humanity is sitting ‘in the darkness
of heathenism abroad.” Of course
“cannot” means “will not.” ‘There is no doing any-
thing with such a person nor getting anything out
of him until the Lord puts the good will into him.
God will first of all make of him an Israelite in
whom there is no guile. And until the Lord does
this, we have little hope that he will see the open
heayen and the vision of angels.

The Sunday-school Times had the following in
its columns a matter of sixteen years ago which is

still as true to-day as it was then: “Whose fault is
it that there are any poor heathen? A missionary
speaker at a recent meeting drove this challenging
question into the consciences of his Christian
hearers: If your father left in his will an inheri-
tance for you and your brother, and your brother,
being at a distance, could only receive his inheri-

Christian Chinese Children in America.

tance if you sent it to him, would you feel free to
send it to him or not? And if you did send it to
him, would you take considerable credit to yourself -
for doing so? That's Foreign Missions. People talk
complacently about the ‘poor heathen.’ Why ‘poor’?
Because the heathen have not received their share of
the inheritance which the Father left to them. What
shall we do about 1?”

Yes, what shall we do about it? What can we do