The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 6

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

fon)

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

where everything speaks of its managers’ thought-
fulness and keenness of vision, one need only spend
a day or two within its hospitable gates to become
conscious of the fact that Lutherland in its incep-
tion, planning, purpose, and management is a great

Boat Landing.

Christian missionary enterprise, which aims at
benefiting the soul as well as the body. As the
medical missionary, while healing the body, puts
forth sincere efforts to redeem the soul, so Luther-
land has the frank purpose of benefiting its guests
spiritually by the Christian atmosphere which: per-
‘vades all as well as by the conscious efforts it puts
forth while affording relaxation and recreation to
the body and mind. —

Lutherland is beautiful. When on a calm sum-
mer evening you stand facing the west at sunset
time, the air is full of golden lights, and the moun-
‘tains you look upon are often violet against the
Tich rose of the clouds; and as your eye rests upon
the gorgeously painted canvas of God’s heaven, you
realize that you have been privileged to see one of
the beneficent Creator’s masterpieces of beauty.

But there is something that transcends the
beauty of nature at Lutherland, and that is its all-
pervading Christian atmosphere. While not bla-
tantly obvious on every hand, yet it is persistently
‘and insistently present. In and through His Word,
which dominates Lutherland, Christ is invisibly,
but no less perceptibly, present all over Luther-
land. If you go to the boys’ and girls’ camps, you
‘eannot escape noticing the blessed effect which the
“Word exerts upon the young and active inmates.
‘Counselors have repeatedly told me that they have
‘boys and girls in the camps who before coming to
‘Lutherland had never been under the direct in-
‘fluence of God’s Word; but in a few days, they say,
at is quite noticeable how the leaven of the Word

as it comes in contact with these youngsters in the

morning and evening devotions and in the Sunday-
school and Sunday services obviously changes their
viewpoint and conduct. The Editor is able to say
from his own experience that he has never ad-
dressed a more attentive audience than just these
four or five hundred boys and girls of the Luther-
land camps. During the long years of his public
ministry he has had the privilege of speaking to all
kinds of audiences, but never to apparently more
receptive hearts than to the worshipers in the
Junior services of Lutherland. And then the large
aitendances at the Sunday morning services for
grown-ups and at the wonderful vesper services on
the shores of Lake Naomi! Among the outstand-
ing privileges that have come to the writer in the
course of years there are none he prizes higher than
the opportunity granted him to address the eager
throngs that came to these services during his visits
at Lutherland. These Sunday services have be-
come so well known among the guests at the various
resorts within a radius of fifteen to twenty miles
that they crowd the spacious auditorium every
Sunday and necessitate the providing of more seats
from time to time at the romantic spot where the
vesper services are held. We know from the volun-
tary testimony of not a few that these Lutherland
services are attended by many unchurched people
and that they have made deep impressions upon a
goodly number. And what a blessing these Luther-
land services are for our own members! If the
truth were known, we are sure that many could

The Library.
Where the afternoon Bible hour is held.

testify to the blessed influence these services have
had upon their after-lives. We judge this to be the
case because of the number of people that have
come to us after these services with questions on
their lips which clearly indicated that the Holy
Spirit had blessed the Word in their hearts.
When speaking of Lutherland as a missionary