Items of Missiono.ry Interest

If it is God's will, I shall conduct services at Fort Wilkins every ~unday afternoon next summer; indeed, I shall also try to conduct s~1ch services at anothP.r park, which will give me au oppo1:tunity to conduct two outdoor services e,·ery Sunday. I:f I can have several of my members who possess enough courage to go with me to help along with the singing of hymns, I shall also conduct a service on Saturday nights on some busy street-corner. If the service conducted, the sermons preached, and the hymns sung are soundly Lutheran (Christian), what ha:rm is there in such service? Is it wrong to preacll to people in the open if we can bring them under the influence of God's Word, gain them for the Church, for Christ's kingdom? Is it wrong to have such services because sectarians have them?

Where and how did Jesus preach ? Where and how djd Paul preach? Oh, let us not only saY. : "Go ! Preach !" but let us convert the assertions made by our lips into actions.

The good and gracious Lord alone knows that I conduct such sen•ices, not for-vainglory and fame, but only for the salvation of sinn.ers and for the glory of Jesus, whose holy Wo1·d I am proclaiming. Yours for a greater mission-activity,

A. S. LUCAS, Laurium, l\:I~ch., in the Messenger.

Items of Missionary Interest. (By the EDITOR.) she ·was busy writing her biography. Director Drewes of our Colored :Missions says that it is one of the most interesting books he has ever read. Concordia Publishing House will soon put this book on the market. New Bern, N. C. - This city lies about 225 n}iles east of Greensboro. A very promising field bas been cwened for us here. Pastor Martin Dorpat has been called to this new field, and he began his work there on December 27, 1928. Wedding-Bells.-Pastor L. Gauthreaux, of Alabama, recently entered holy wedlock. His bride, like h~1self, is a native of the State of Louisiana. Negro Population of New York City. - The Negro population of New York is reported to be almost 260,000; 170,000 of these live in Harlem and 40,000 in Brooklyn. The {Werage weekly income of Negro heads of families in New York is claimed to be less than' twenty dollars a week, while the average monthly rental is over forty clollars. The Negro, as these :figures show, is compelled to work for lower wages than the average, while he is forced to pay a higher rent than do most white labrers. \/ St.Philip's, New Yo1·k.-This is a colored Episcopal church situated in the heart of Harlem, New York City. Its church-school has an enrolment of 1,200 pupils, 485 of whom are in the high-school division. The :fh1e-story parish-house has accommodation for the church-school and other activities

Our Northern Workers.-A year ago the workers of the congregation. The total annual budget is of our Colored Missions in Chicago, Cincinnati, almost $70,000, most of which comes from investCleveland, St. Louis, and Springfield founded a con- ments in Harlem real estate, valued at about threeference. This· conference met for the second time fourth's million dollars. The services are well atin St. Louis on January 2 and 3. All the workers tended. l\:Cuch social wor-k is done by this chtJrcli. were able to attend it. (See page 22.) Missions in Africa. - The Protestant foreign

New Chapel in Greensboro, N. C. - Building missionary staff in Africa is 6,289; the total native operations for the new chapel and school at Greens_ staff. numbers over 43,000, among whom are more boro are to begin in the near future. 'Mr. Theo~ than 2,000 ordained men. The native Christian Steinmeyer, the architect, will make a _ trip to community numbers about 2,600,000. In the Greensboro to take the initial steps. The· building 17,000 mission-schools there are almost a million will cost about $35,000. The new chapel and school pupils. 'l'he Protestant missionary agencies in will be about five blocks from the college and will Africa are c~nducting 116 hospitals and 366 disalso serve the students as a church home. Much of pensaries, with 139 -physicians and 235 nurses. the sum needed for this combined chapel and school The Catholics have more than. 2,600 foreign priests has not as yet been collected. Who will help? in Africa•; also 145 native priests, 1,600 Brothers, . Ki11 Rosa Young. -Miss Young ,vas compelled and 6,500 Sisters. '!'heir schools are attended by .to spend the month of December in a hospital at 800,000 pupils. The native Catholic communicant _ Selma, Ala. She has been an invalid for several membership in Africa is about-3,000,000. The Bible years: During her ilJness she bas not been wholly ~ias been gh•en the Africa.us in 244 different lanidle; however. Whenever her illness permitted it, guages and dialects.

Home Missions in North Carolina. - 'l'o regain lost Lutheran territory in this late a fond of $100,000 was recently completed by members or the United Lutheran Church. At the lime of the Revolution there were many pro pcrous Lutheran communitie , which in the course o( years have lost their complexion. The income from this fund is to be used to regain this Jost territory as nrnch ns possible.

Need of Indian Deaconesses.-There i a movement on foot to establish a. deaconess home for the · training of native women i~ India. The blessing resting upon the work or the Ciiristian foreign µeaconesses holds out the great promise that native deconesses could do much to p1·0,·c that Cini tianity is not only talking, but also serving.

Number of Indians in America. - :More than 100,000 of the 300,000 Indians living in the United Stales arc in Oklahoma, while Arizona has ,.1:2,000. North Carolina and Wisconsin have each severnl thou nnd, while in New York, Maine, l\Iississippi, and ] lorida. there are hundreds of them. Not all of these have by any means been Christianized up to this time.

A Great Home Missions Congress. - In December, 1930, a National Home l\Iissions Congress is to be called by the Home Missions Council, the Federal • Council of the Churches oi Chri°st in America, and the Council of Women for Home Missions. The total Protestant chlll'ch-membership in the United States is about twenty-eight million, and twentytwo milJion of these are connected with this group of chmches.

Protestant Foreign Mission Statistics.

- The . total number of foreign missionaries in the field is 30,000, who are assisted in their work by more than 8,000,000 nati\Te helpers, who in most instances were converted from heathenism. In the Protestant foreign fields there are 50,000 elementary missi~nschools, in which almost two and a half million pupils receive Christian instruction. In the 100 Protestant n1ission high schools there are 23,000 students; in the 300 no1·mal schools, 11,600 students; in the 460 theological schools, 11,000 students. M:ore than 1,100 Christian physicians serve the people in these mission-fields through 858 Protestant mission-hospitals. To m41intain this extensive mission-work requires an annual expenditure ·of $70,000,000. A large sum of money indeed, but it cost the . State of Massachusetts, for example, \ that much money in 1924 to educate one-fourth as many boys and girls in its schools as was the whole expensc in one year or all the Protestant mis ionary enterpri e . lt goes without saying that no work is carried on more economically than the missionwork or the Chm h.

Fai-thest North! - At Advent Bay, Spitzbergen, •100 mile uorth of Norway, is said to be the most northern chmch in the world. It is a Lutheran church and is generally called "The ~ittle Sailors' Church."

A Floating Church for· Norwegian Islanders. In Finmark, Norway, there are people who must walk sc, ·cnty-Jh-c miles to church. For this reason children are not baptized, and many of them grow up without proper religious instruction. The plan now i to build a floating chmch, that will go irom island to island and bring the ministrations of the Gospel to all. 'rl1is floating churc\1 will also carry a. library and a pretty complete stock of medicines and chugs.

Luthenns in China. -A cha.in of eighteen Lutheran missions extends from Kwangtung Province in the south,· through the provinces of Hunan, Honan, and Hupeh, to Sbangtung Province in the northeast. 'l'he Danish i\:Cission Society is working in Manchuria. Seven of eighteen Lutheran missions in China are A.p:ierican. The Lutheran Church has about 50,000 members in China.

Chinese Christian Foreign Minister. - His Ex:. cellency Wang Cheng-t'ing, the present foreign minister· o.f the Chinese Republic, is a Christian. He was born of Chinese pm·ents in Shanghai, where his father had been ordained a minister of the Methodist Church shortly before Cheng-t'ing's birth. He received. his elementary education in the Methodist mission-schools of Shanghai, and his high-school education partly in Japan, whereupon he returned to Shanghai for a year's college work. While there, he was given a scholarship, which carried with it the privilege of continuing his college work in Yale. · He graduated here with highest honors.

Hundred Years of Missions in Siam. -A full hundred. years of Christian mission-work has been done Siam. Karl Guetzlaff and Jacob Tomlin arrived in Bangkok in December, 1828. In 1831 the American Board sent the :first missionary. Soon seventeen other workers arrived, sent by the same board. Not long after the American Baptists took up the work. The American Presbyterians began in Siam in 1838, though the really permanent work of the latter was not started till 1847. . The Presbyterians are at present the only foreign Christiana working in Siam; they have a communicant membership of about 8,000. ., : ,