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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. 0 Jesus, King Most Wonderful! 0 help us to rely On Thee, Lord Jesus st.rong ! For Thee, our Joy, we sigh, Sweet Hope, ior Thee we long; Our henrts and souls to Thee, the Friend of friends, belong.
wns not successful. Next, t he Dutch made nu attempt at Bahia, Brazil; bnt this also failed. It wns not t ill n. ccntm y lnte1· that the ) foravi::ms begn11 t he first lasting nnd ucce sfnl Protc tant
Show forth by us Thy praise! Extend Thy great rcno\\'-n, Make known Thy saving ways, And every foe put down, Till gladly all Thy saints in hea\"en King Thce'll crown. H. 0STEllllUS .
Reclaiming Christ's Heritage. XIV. SOUTH AMERICA (Ooncluded) .
In the early days after the discovery of South America the Catholics showed not a little missionary spirit. Monks and priests, at first largely of the Franciscan and Dominican orders, accompanied the early expeditions. At a later period the Jesuits put forth great missionary «;fiorts. But because these usually made use of the civil arm in their work and forced -the Catholic religion on the natives, and then again, because these missionaries often sacrificed the spirit of the Christian religion just to get the people to accept the outward rites and ceremonies of· the Roman Church, it is not wrong to say that Roman Catholic missions in South America were largely a failure and that they
:&ulna of a Jesuit Church in Brazil.
left the nati"e Indians "irtually what· they were before - heathen. The first Protestant missionary attempts in South America were made as early as 1555 by a
number of French Huguenots.
But this attempt
A Missionary nnd His Wife on Horseback.
missions in Guinna. Another century found James Thompson working in Buenos Aires under the auspices of several missionary societies of England. From Argentina he extended his work into other republics, c,·e1r ns far north as Peru, where his success was remarkable for a while. But soon the reaction set in, ancl six years after l,1e had begun his work, he and those who had assisted him were forced to return to England. In a few yen.rs all results of their conscientious work had disn.ppeared. Captain Allen Gardiner.
Next looms up on the missionary horizon of · South America the heroic figure of Captain Allen Gardiner, the noble British naval officer, who gave UP. all earthly preferments and honors that he might make known the Christ whom he had found so precious. He turned his attention to whnt was thought to be the most degraded people on enrtb, people whom Darwin, the father of mod~rn e"olution, had called the sought-for "missing link" between beast and man and of whom he had said that they were wholly inca.pablc of morn.I n.nd religious training. Though Gardiner's labors among these pitiable people were of very short duration, they were of sufficient length to prove to Da1·win that he was mistaken. Concerning Gardi.ner's work, Darwin wrote to the missionary society under whose auspices the former na"nl cn:ptain worked: "The success of the Tierra del Fuego mission is most wollClerful and charms me, as I always prophesied utter failure. It is a grand success. l shall feel proud if your committee think fit to elect me an