O Jesus, King Most Wondedul I

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. 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. wns not successful. Next, the Dutch made nu attempt at Bahia, Brazil; bnt this also failed. It wns not till n. ccntmy lnte1· that the )foravi::ms begn11 the first lasting nnd ucce sfnl Protc tant

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

honorary member of your society." After about six years o.f arduollS and ad,·enturous experiences in his heroic efforts to plant mission-stations among the debased natives of extreme southern South America, he died of starvation in the month of September, 1851, in pani h Harbor. But eYen with sta1·vation sta1·iug him in the face and while dying because of the ingratitude of those whom he wished to save, C-l-a1·diner left behind him nn earnest pi-ayer that the work he hacl begun might be continued. The sad fate o.f Gardiner ancl his faithful 'companions aroused Englancl to great missionary activity and helpecl much to make the last century the beginning o.f a new epoch in the deYelopment of missions.

Present. Missiona1-y Wo1-k.

Merely referring to pioneer missionaries of the fast hal£ o.f the last century and to the self-denying labors of the many Bible colporteurs who have sought to spread the Word of Life in every country o.f outh America, let us now turn our attention to the present missionarY, situation in our sister continent.

Our own Church has been ;working among the immigrants of German extraction for yea1·s, especially in Brazil and A1·gentina. Our own Synodical Conference, in particular, has been doing very successful work in the two countries mentioned for the last quarter-centuq. Contrary to the general belief, our brethren have also worked in the Portuguese and Spanish languages for years, aµd have even begun promising work among the Negroes of

Brazil.

While proselyting among "Christians of other

South American Mission Church and Parsonage.

denominations is a most 1·eprehensible way of doing missionary work and for this reason deserves severe condemnation., the nominal "Christianity" of the Roman Catholics in South American countries is of such a nature a.nd the ~ajority of nominal members take such an attitude toward the Roman Church that missionary work among them can only be commended tn mo t instances. To such an extent have Roman priests adapted the doctrines, ceremonies,

Doctor Pfotenhauer and Two South American Missionaries.

and symbols o.f their Church to the religious traditions and notions of the native Indians and others that nothing but the mere husk of Christianity any longer remains.

So far, only the coast fringe of South American countries has been reached by Christian missionaries, except where Lutheran workers have followed immigrants deeper into the interior. for example, th~ northern, central, and western parts of Brazil have hardly been touched at all by evangelical° missiona1·y agencies. The greai est stretch of unevangelized territo1·y in the whole world lies in the center of South America and includes Central and Western Brazil and the interior of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay. In this "ast stretch of territory, nbout fayo thousand miles long and from five hundred to .fifteen hundred miles wide, there are only two or three missionaries at work. There are seven states in Nol'thern Brazil having millions of inhabitants without a single Protestant worker. Colo~bia, ·which is ten tin1es as large as the State of New York, has only twehe ordained missionaries for ~ts six million inhabitants. Iu Ecuador, th1·ee times the size of Ohio, there isn't a single Protestant mission. . In Chile are a few very promising missions. In the cities of Uruguay the Methodists and Baptists are doing aggressive work. In Uruguay is a colony of Italian Waldeusians numbering over 6,000 people, which is exerting a wholesome influence over a wide territory. In Paraguay missionary work has scarcely