The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1932, Page 77

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER 7

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Five churches were dedicated in the District Home
Mission field. A number of these had been used
by sectarian congregations, now defunct. Two par-
sonages were also acquired. Most of the services
are held in English, the ratio being one German
service to four English.

Home Missions in the Kansas District. —
Fifty congregations, with thirty-three pastors, four
teachers, two students, and three woman teachers,
are under the supervision of the Kansas District
Home Mission Board. This staff of workers serves
4.700 baptized members. The communicant mem-
bership is 2,355. Two hundred eighty-one children
are attending the day-schools, 1,284 are enrolled in
Sunday-schools, and 339 pupils attend Saturday-
and summer-schools subsidized by the Board. In
1931 the missionaries baptized 177 children, and
129 were confirmed. During the same period nine-
teen adults were baptized, and fifty-four were
confirmed.

Blessings of the Flood in China. — We cull the
following sentences from the letter of one of our
missionaries in China: “Because of the flood, thou-
sands of refugees have been gathered on a hill a few
miles out of Hankow. These people are now hearing
the Gospel of Christ Crucified from the mouths of
our Hankow missionaries. With the help of our
congregations there our missionaries have opened
five schools, with 300 pupils each. The children in
these schools are taught mainly religion. Can all
the losses brought about by the devastating waters
be compared with the great eternal blessings which
these benighted heathen are receiving? Indeed not.
Though these people have lost all but their lives,
they are, by the grace of God’s Holy Spirit, obtain-
ing something far more precious, namely, eternal
salvation. It must indeed be a pleasure to work
among so many people and to bring them the one
thing needful.”

Another Extract. — We must bring another ex-
tract from the same letter, for it shows a spirit
which we rejoice to see in our missionaries. We
ought humbly to thank God on bended knees for
giving us missionaries who are so willing to sacrifice
comforts for the sake of the cause of the Gospel.
We sead: “You no doubt have also heard from the
folks that we are living in a Chinese home with mud
walls and paper windows. We are well satisfied with
our Jiome and would not care to exchange it for
a nice, foreign-style house. Then, too, we have
beautiful scenery all about us. The other morning
the mountain tops were covered with snow. This

was a most wonderful sight. Some day you may
be able to see a movie of our home and its sur-
roundings.”

Silver Anniversary. — A sincere friend of our
Colored Missions, Mr. Edmund Seuel, the manager
of Concordia Publishing House, which prints the
PrIoNEER, and the Treasurer of the Missouri Synod,
which furnishes much of the funds with which our
Colored Missions are carried on, on March 18 cele-
brated his silver anniversary as manager of the
largest exclusively religious publishing concern in
the United States. A banquet was given in his
honor at the Claridge Hotel, St. Louis, on the eve-

Mr. Edmund Seuel.

ning of March 31. We feel certain that all our
readers will want to join us in tendering our best
wishes to the genial jubilarian.

Expressive Language. — A converted China-
man met a Christian Fiji on board a ship. Neither
understood the language of the other, and yet they
expressed their thoughts most intelligently by means
of two words. One said to the other “Hallelujah,”
and the other replied with “Amen.” If you have
Christ in your heart, it does not take many words
to let others know it.

The Bible in Great Demand. — It is nothing
unusual to read that the Bible continues to be the
world’s best seller and leads all other books in the
number of volumes distributed. When, however,