The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Page 173

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

173

mediately on the banks of the river. This territory
is quite thickly populated, and the mission is coming
in contact with probably a million natives. The
mission at present has ninety-three stations and out-
stations, over 28,000 communicants, and 35,000
under instruction for membership. The Sunday-
schools are attended by 33,000 persons. Last year
4,739 persons received Holy Baptism. The contri-
butions of the native Christians in 1930 amounted
to about $100,000.

China’s Greatest Need. — China needs peace
among its warring factions. China needs millions
of dollars to bring to light the concealed treasures
now hidden away in every province. China needs
railroads to transport her coal and iron and all her
other products. But China’s greatest need is the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of salvation. Oh,
that the hundreds of millions that China spends
every year in idolatrous worship might be used to
bring to them the good tidings of Jesus!

A High Tribute to Missionaries. — James
Bryce, former British Ambassador to the United
States, wrote in Daybreak in Turkey, 1908: I can-
not mention the American missionaries without a
tribute to the admirable work they have done. They
have been the only good influence that has worked
from abroad upon the Turkish Empire. They have
shown great judgment and that in their relations
with the ancient churches of the land, Orthodox,
Gregorian, Jacobite, Nestorian, and Catholic. They
have lived cheerfully in the midst, not only of hard-
ships, but latterly of serious dangers also. They
have been the first to bring the light of education
and learning into these dark places and have rightly
judged that it was far better to diffuse that light
through their schools than to aim at a swollen roll
of converts. From them alone, if we except the
British consuls, has it been possible during the last
thirty years to obtain trustworthy information re-
garding what passes in the interior.”

Seventh-Day Adventists. — This active body is
now working in 139 countries. Its total mission-
staff comprises 8,297 evangelists, physicians, nurses,
colporteurs, and teachers. It issues literature in
141 languages and maintains 2,175 schools, with an
enrolment of almost 90,000 students. Last year the
Seventh-day Adventists sent into the foreign field
183 missionaries, of whom 126 were from the United
States. Lest our readers should think that this is
a very large body, we wish to say that it hardly
numbers 125,000 communicant members, that is,
less than one-sixth the membership of the Synodical
Conference.

Missionaries as Disturbers. — Such they are
indeed. Such the apostles were in their day. Mis-
sionaries, in fact, the whole Church, have the
important business of arousing people slumbering
in sin, so that they may live a life in Christ. The
Church, the pastor, the church-member, and the
missionary, — they all should look upon such dis-
turbing as their business in life.

The Onward Progress of Islam.—Mr. Benning-
ton, a missionary who recently made journeys
through French Equatorial Africa, writes: “There
are two tribes, the Mossi and Bambara, which a few
years ago were absolutely heathen. The former is
as yet little touched by Islam, but the latter is
rapidly giving way to this blinding darkness. Unless
occupied quickly and with force, this tribe of a mil-
lion people will succumb to the Moslem peril. Then
in the hinterland of Dakar there are the Serreres,
numbering 200,000, and the Dolas in the Lower
Casamance, numbering more than 100,000. There
are three tribes around the northwest of the British
Gold Coast, including the Lobis, and there are un-
reached peoples in the Ivory Coast and Liberia.
I have come in contact with three pagan tribes on
the northern Guinea-Senegal border, and I hear of
six untouched tribes in Portuguese territory.” Our
attention has been directed to promising fields
in the vicinity of the tribes mentioned here by
Mr. Bennington; but due to the unfriendly attitude
of the French Government to Protestant missions in
the past it is with some hesitancy that we must
think of this territory as a future field of labor.

In the Dark Places.

We can never forget that we are here in the
midst of heathenism and wickedness. I must tell
you of just one instance among many which came to
our notice.

There is an old chief who is very important, pays
the government eight thousand francs annually in
taxes, and has more wives than he knows what to do
with. One of these, having dressed herself in red-
wood powder in place of anything more protective,
came in and sat down on the chief’s bed. They have
no chairs. Now, the old chief prides himself on his
cleanliness; so this appeared to him a deadly sin.
He proceeded to punish his wife accordingly. First
he gave her a severe beating. Then, not satisfied
with this, he invented another punishment. He tied
the woman’s hands and feet to a stake, so that she
could not move;. then he sent for a nest of biting