Items of Missionary Interest

( By the EDITOR.)

Buffalo, N. Y. - On November 29, 1931, the corner-stone was laid for our colored mission-chapel in Buffalo. Conditions are getting very crowded at the mission's present home, and they loudly cry for more room and better accommodations. We hope to be able to bring an account o-f the dedication of the new chapel in one of our next numbers.

Omaha, Nebr. - Our colored mission in Omaha has bad its :first service, and while it was not an extraordinarily well-attended service, - some of the promoters of the new mission even may have been disappointed that not more hearers were present, it is well to remember that the beginning is generally hard and that the greatest things in the world began quite small. The :first trouble the Omaha colored missionary endeavor had was in getting a suitable place to hold the services. After several vain attempts a vacant store was finally secured.

Five colored and fifteen white persons attended the first service. Several colored people looked in, but did not stay. These will probably come back and · then possibly come in. Many of our missions have begun· in the same small way. The daily papers of Omaha kindly give our colored mission enterprise some very :fine • publicity, and this is bound to help the work greatly. We hope to ~ring further news from Omaha in the near future.

Canvasses. -A number of our colored congregations have completed canvasses of the neighborhoods in which they are located; others are engaged in the important enterprise at this time; and still others are seriously contemplating such neighborhood canvasses. High Point has just completed such a canvass; St. Philip's, Chicago, put one on the :first Sunday of last month ; Buffalo will have its canvass as soon as the new chapel is completed;

St. Louis looks back upon a successful canvass, and in Springfield the seminary students are hard at work. As the result of one recent canvass between 200 and 300 prospects were discovered.

Washington, D. C. - Student William Schiebel of our Springfield Seminary is serving as supply in Washington, D. C. The nature of the work to be done in Washington among the colored people demanded a resident worker. God bless the young worker!

Gleanings. from the Eastern Field. - Superintendent Gehrke reports quite a number of accessions on the Eastern Field. Atlanta is reaping the henefit of a recent neighborhood canvass in an increased church attendance and a number of prospects. S t. Philip's, Ohicago, received eleven new adult members on the day of its fifth anniversary. Among the new members are two grandfathers. On this day of rejoicing 102 partook of Holy Communion. The members at High Pofot recently made 250 visits in an attempt to increase their membership. The catechetical class is attended by seven pupils of the public schools. - On its recent annual :Mis-

sion Sunday, (},-ace-Lut her 11:lemorial at Greensboro, N. 0., gathered $134.50. The Baltimore mission last year at this time had only seven Sunday-school pupils; to-day it has an enrolment of over forty. At Spartanburg a live parent-teachers' association is doing much to increase the interest of the members in their school, as it is encouraging the teachers to put forth their best efforts. - Born to the Rev. and Mrs. Fred Foard, November 14, 1931, a baby boy.

A Successful Canvass. -Not long ago twelve pastors of a local conference canvassed a new suburb of about 3,500 population. They found more than :fifty Lutheran families there. A new mission has been opened as a result of the canvass. No doubt many more such promising mission-fields could be found. Let us do more canvassing I Such canvassing costs no money. We often hear people say that we spend too much money for missions. Let these people get busy canvassing neighborhoods like this. We are sure that, if they go out to canvass and find such :fine prospects for our missionary endeavors, they will no longer complain. of the cost of missions, but will gladly help to bring those whom they found in their canvass into the fold. Try it I

Mission-Minded Lutherans. - The small congregations of the Nevada Circuit of the California and Nevada District, Missouri Synod, are given weekly broadcasts over a Reno station. This missionary and publicity ventur~ speaks well for the mission-mindedness of these brethren. God bestow His blessing upon the undertaking!

Missions in Labor Camps. - Our brethren of the Ontario District, Missouri Synod, are making all possible efforts to give the young men in the Northern labor camps all the spiritual care they possibly can. The Canadian government is giving. employment to a specially large number of young men this winter in these camps, and the Home Mission Board of the District wants to do all it can to keep these laborers in contact with the Gospel

"The Deaf Lutheran." - This is the organ of our very successful mission among the deaf-mutes. We are glad to hear that the influence of this mission and its organ reaches over to England. We recently read a letter written to the editor of the Deaf uutlieran in which an English deaf-mute inquired as to the price of the Deaf Lutheran in lots of twenty-five and fifty. This same deaf-mute asks the editor of the Deaf Lutheran to print an article on the great spiritual need of the deaf-mutes and particularly to show the absolute necessity of missionaries to the deaf-mutes who will preach justification through the blood of Jesus Christ to their congregations. The writer deplores the fact that Modernism has also reached the missionaries to the deaf-mutes, so that some no longer preach Christ Crucified as they should. This writer is of the opinion that too many sermons to the deaf-mut!'ls speak of a beautiful character as the ground of salvation instead of str~ssing the truth that we can truly senre God only after Christ has come to us through faith and renewed our hearts. - In another letter we were permitted to read a blind man most touchingly thanks the editor of the L1itheran H cralcl for the Blind for sending him the periodical and invokes God's richest blessings down upon Pastor Schroeder for tliis magazine, which he finds so very edifying.

Associated Lutheran Charities.-The Missouri Synod has eighty-thr~e charitable institutions within its bounds. These institutions - orphanages, old people's homes, ·hospitals, home-finding societies, sanitaria, and the like - minister to about 400,000 persons every year. These charitable enterprises employ about 1,000 persons. They are found from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. What streams of blessing flow out from all these institutions !

Bethany Lutheran Cemetery Rededicated. This item will be of interest to all who have read and heard of our very :first Indian Mission enterprise in the Saginaw Valley of Michigan, 'way back in the early half of last century. About ·a year ago we printed for our readers a series of articles on this early missionary enterprise from the pen of Dr. E. A. Mayer. The seat of our mission among the Indians in Michigan was Bethany Chapel, and near the chapel was located the cemetery, where a number of Indians found their last resting-place. It was this cemetery that was rededicated a few months ago. How large a number of people had gathered for the ceremony the reader may judge from the fact that 1,790 automobiles were put to use to. bring them to the historical spot on the

White River. This vast multitude by their very presence bore eloquent record of their appreciation of the work that had been done by Craemer, Baierlein, and Miessler among the Red Men. Pastors Zeile and Voss of Saginaw spoke upon the occasion. A large white cross with n wreath was placed in the center of the cemetery, and a copper plate inscribed with a tribute to the missionaries who ser,,ed Bethany was unveiled. The cemetery is located one ~nd a half miles north of St. Louis, Mich., on the banks of the romantic Pine River.

Millions Starving!-The official announcement comes from China that 50,000,000 in China are on th _ e verge of starving and that conditions are getting worse from month to month. The floocl in Chinn covered at its worst stage 50,000 square miles of the most densely populated part of Chinn, 70.0 persons per square mile being a very low estimate. The sufferers are living on dike tops and roofs of houses. In many places the water will not be off the land till spring. The poverty of these millions is ~ost abject, and the relief measures are ~adly inadequate. As a result one <;an harclly conceive the sad· physical condition of these poor people ancl the hopelessness of their lot.

Need in the Virgin Islands. -These islands were acquired by us from Denmark a few years ago. News comes "that many children there go to school without breakfast and take with them a piece of sugar-cane or a piece· of fish for lunch.

Want Still Nearer. - Among the unemployed miners of West Virginia conditions are said to be tragic. There in the mountains, far away from our crowded cities and traveled highways, such acute distress as has seldom been known in our country is to be seen on every side.

The Bethel Institutions. - One of the most extensive charitable enterprises is Bethel, near Bielefeld, Germany, founded by F. von Bodelschwingh many years ago. The number of inmates of the various homes composing this most comprehensivebenevolent undertaking is at present almost 6,000,. and it is continually increasing. Just now the

7ancial need of this enterprise is very grea~. Rays of Light in Heathen Darkness. - We· read that a few years ago the power of the witch doctor in Kenya Colony, Africa, was very great and many cases were known in which the .old witchdoctor informed his victim that he would die within a few hours, and this proved only too true. But nowadays the very foundations of witchcraft have-