The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 88

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88

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

“At five-thirty I reached Oargaum, one of the
stations in the Kolar Gold Fields, where the hus-
band of one of the Bible women met me. As he
had not been able to hire a bandy so early in the
morning, he gave my camp cot and baggage to a
coolie to carry, and we started out walking to his
home, a mile from the station. It was still dark;
the high heaps of gray soil, or cyanide (as the
natives call the soil from which the gold has been
removed) on either side of the road were dimly
visible.

“Dawn was breaking slowly when we reached
the house, where the Bible women welcomed me
warmly. Beside their dwelling was an empty hut,
the property of our mission. This they had swept,
set in order, and furnished with a table and a chair.
As I had brought a camp cot and bedding with me,
I was soon comfortably installed in a house with an
ordinary mud floor, walls of straw matting, and
a tin roof. Most of the huts of the native mine-
workers are constructed of these materials on ac-
count of the frequent rock bursts down in the gold-
mines, which at times are very severe, causing the
earth to shake and tremble. An ordinary mud wall
would not hold up very long under the circum-
stances.

“TI found that the Bible woman had just re-

covered from a week’s illness. As she still did not
feel. well enough to go out making calls, she had
asked all her pupils to come to the house for in-
struction. In the afternoon about twenty-four wo-
men of all ages and sizes came, one after the other
sitting down on the floor in the room. I asked the
Bible woman to go ahead with the regular lesson.
After she had finished, I asked the women ques-
tions, covering more or less their whole course of
study. ‘To my joy they seemed well instructed.
Then I talked to them on the passage in Josh. 1, 8,
first explaining the Bible-text and then admonish-
ing them to continue learning the Word of God as
faithfully as they had been doing in the past. For
nearly three hours we talked to the women, some
of whom had lately been confirmed, while others
were getting ready for confirmation and baptism.
After they had all gone, I called on the wives of our
teachers in the mission-school. :

“The next morning I went over to visit the other
Bible woman, whose husband is stationed as teacher
of the second mission-school in another part of the
gold-mine district. I found her ready to go out.
We spent the forenoon visiting the various Chris-
tian women of the congregation. In the afternoon

we went out to the homes of Hindu women. At one
house the women were very much interested and
kept us busy for two hours, listening to the stories
about Christ which we told them. Before I realized
it, it was time to get ready for the train, which left
at 6.30 in the evening.

“As I left, I was glad to have had the oppor-
tunity of meeting such a large number of women
who had left their idols and were beginning to walk
in the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But
there was also an undertone of regret, regret of not
having more workers in the field to carry the Gospel
to greater numbers of those still ‘sitting in dark-
ness.’ The serious financial condition of our Synod
makes it necessary for us to cut down on our
mission-work, and that in view of the fact that new
converts are gained in ever-increasing numbers. It
is true, times are hard, but the work of saving souls
must go on. There can be no standing still in the
kingdom of God.”

+ Pastor Philip Wambsganss. +

A true friend of missions has passed from
among us— Pastor Philip Wambsganss of Fort
Wayne, Indiana, the friend and untiring helper of
those in spiritual and physical distress. THe was
among the pioneer promoters of home-finding so-
cieties for children in the Synodical Conference, an
enterprise that has proved a blessed missionary
agency for thousands of forsaken children, securing
for them Christian homes and Christian training.
He was also among the first to put forth efforts to
introduce the female diaconate among us, another
missionary agency of great possibilities in home and
foreign fields.

Pastor Wambsganss was a most successful or-
ganizer and executive. The large Fort Wayne
Lutheran Hospital, the Lutheran Deaconess As-
sociation, the Associated Lutheran Charities Con-
ference, all of which largely owe their existence and °
progress to him, give eloquent testimony to his great
organizing abilities. But he was more than a hu-
manitarian organizer and executive; he was a man
of heroic faith. All his efforts were “watered and
tended in the spirit of prayer and love to Christ.”

God signally blessed his efforts as a Christian
philanthropist and crowned his work with success.
We call him a Christian philanthropist, for such he
was. His purpose in founding home-finding so-
cieties was not merely to find “good” homes for
the foundlings and little vagabonds. His heart’s