The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 10

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10

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

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This hall is flanked by a room which is fifteen feet
square. Racks against the walls will accommodate
the boxes and tin trunks which the boys bring from
home. A 9-foot-wide veranda extends all along the
front and on one side. This veranda serves as
dining-room, unless there is too much wind. Walls
are of solid brick construction, plastered, and white-
washed, while doors and windows are of the world’s
most durable wood, teak. The floor is of tiles. The
roof also is tiled, and the tiles are protected against
heavy winds by vertical strips of mortar.

At present we have nearly forty Lutheran boys
in boarding, some of whom come from as far as
Negapatam, four hundred miles distant. We have
no less than twelve castes represented — Reddiar,
Velallar, Mudaliar, Naidu, Naicker, Maapillai,
Chettiar, Maravar (or Kallar), Moopar, Paravar,
Nadar, and Panchamar. The last-named is an out-
caste, of whom we have just one; but of Maravars
(robber caste) we have nine. May God grant us
His further benediction for success among all castes,
even Brahmins! T. H. Merzen.

Pastor Paul F. Heckel.

The name of the Rev. Paul F. Heckel, M.A.,
who was called home by our Lord on the 16th of
August, will be remembered long not only by his
many friends and fellow-laborers in the United
States, but also in India, where he served with great
distinction as a foreign missionary from 1921 to
1931.

Born in New York City (Brooklyn), Septem-
ber 18, 1891, he received his elementary and
secondary education in our Lutheran schools near
his home. In 1914 he was graduated from Con-
cordia Theological Seminary, St.Louis, and after
a year of postgraduate work at Columbia University,
New York, became associated for two and a half
years with the Rev. O. Sieker at St. Matthew’s
Church of that city.

During and immediately following the World
War he served as chaplain in the marine of our
country, where he had special opportunity to declare
the Word and to meet people of this or that as well
as of no religious conviction. Under the dispensa-
tion of God all the foregoing was only preparatory
training to Brother Heckel’s life-work, which was
that of a foreign missionary.

In the late fall of 1920 he accepted a call into
Foreign Mission service and arrived at Nagercoil,
India, in February, 1921. Highly gifted linguisti-

cally, he mastered the Tamil language of his field
very rapidly and soon engaged in active work, first
ds manager of the Boys’ Boarding-school and later
fis supervising missionary of the recently formed
South India‘ Evangelical Lutheran Church. In
order to be nearer to the churches in his charge, he
removed to Madras and later to Tanjore. In 1928
he returned to the United States for his first home
furlough and again engaged in postgraduate work
at Columbia University.

His second term of service in India was far
shorter than he and his friends had hoped it
would be. After returning to his field of labor in
March, 1930, he was allocated by the Board to
Ambur, where he was to become the headmaster of
the local high school. But in 1931 he broke down
with a severe heart trouble and very much against
his wishes was forced to return to our country on
sick-leave. On his return journey he was met at
Naples by his parents, Dr. and Mrs. F. Heckel of
New. York, who had gone to Europe for the express
purpose of bringing him home. Here his recovery
was far more rapid than had been expected. Already
in the winter of that year he was pronounced well
and strong enough to accept the call which had been
extended to him by Concordia Ey. Luth. Church of
Bronxville, New York, where he was installed as
pastor on January 10, 1932. It did not please the
Lord, however, to permit him to labor longer than
seven months in his new congregation.

But in this short period of time he had already
tndeared himself so much to his people and to the
faculty and students of Concordia Institute, whom
He served as pastor, that all felt his death as a direct

personal loss. He was given Christian burial in a
Tiltheran cemetery on Long Island.

Pastor Heckel was united in marriage in India
on December 16, 1924, with Miss Gertrude Emily
Stileter of Seward, Nebraska, who had gone to
Indib in 1923 as an educational missionary and had
been stationed at Nagercoil as superintendent of the
largé\Girls’ Boarding-school in that city. The mar-
ried life of Brother and Mrs. Heckel was excep-
tionally happy, the more so since both of them had
a very keen desire to bring Christ, the Savior of the
world, to the inhabitants of India. The union was
not blessed with children. Mrs. Heckel was there-
fore far more foot-loose and able to back up the
work of her missionary husband among women and
girls than is frequently the case with wives of mis-
sionaries who are blessed with large’ families.
Mrs. Heckel survives to mourn the early death of
her beloved husband.