# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1850 06 25_S173
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

173

remains of human bodies, and about his majestic foot lay irregular heaps of loathsome skulls, which had been gathered there through many years. Thousands of vultures, which our unwelcome approach had frightened away, hovered in circles above their disgusting feast and now and then swooped down fearlessly upon a half-devoured thigh or arm."

Is that not horrible? But the most lamentable thing about it is that they imagine they are doing God a service with such cruel sacrifices. Among other heathen peoples, again, human sacrifices are less in vogue, but they torment their bodies in a dreadful manner in order to quiet their guilty conscience, which cries out for peace. Thus one of our missionaries, who labors among the heathen in the East Indies at the Gospel, reports to us:

"Quite near the city lies a little village on the seashore, which is inhabited by fishermen. These form a caste of their own (division) and hold a festival of their own in honor of their idol. It began in the evening at 5 o'clock, and indeed with six men, adorned with garlands of flowers and with ribbons, going with fencing and dancing into the pagodas (Indian idol temples) situated on the festival ground. Women followed them with food offerings upon their heads; a goat also was led in. After its blood had been offered, the trunk was dragged out again. I stepped into the forecourt of the pagoda. Presently some of the six men who had consecrated themselves for the festival came to the door. They looked lean and sunken, for they had had to prepare themselves by fasting eight days. They now bent down halfway; their backs were rubbed with holy ashes from the pagoda. Then a man stepped up, took hold of the skin on one side of the back with both hands and pulled it up, while another stood at the side with a hook, which he thrust through the fold of skin, thick as a finger. The same was done on the other half of the back. The two hooks were fastened to a rope, and by this the man was held and led. As often as a hook was put in, the crowd standing around raised a cry, and the man leaped up and began, as if insane, to fence and to dance with another. Thereupon he was led to the swinging machine, to a tree fifty or sixty feet high, over which a crossbeam was laid. At one end of it the man was hung up by the rope, so that he hung in the air by the two hooks, floating almost level. Then he was snapped up into the height, by pulling the other end of the crossbeam to the earth. Now the beam was carried around in a circle, which took about ten minutes, and during this whole time the man hung aloft sang continually and beat time with hands and feet, etc."

But this is only a single and, moreover, very ordinary example of such senseless self-torture. Others hang themselves up by the feet from a tree and let the head dangle; still others bury themselves up to the neck in the earth, yet others stretch both arms up into the air until they grow quite stiff and die, and all this — in order to be rid of their sins.

But you must not think, dear reader, that these poor creatures would after all find no taste in the sweet Gospel of Christ. Ah no, there are very many among them who need only hear the word of the Savior of sinners in order to fall to the Gospel. Thus we hear, for example, one of our black brethren, who has experienced in his heart the grace of God in JESUS Christ, at the northern tip of Africa, longingly lamenting: "Why do the white men not send us more missionaries? why do they not come?" — And a poor mother on the South Sea islands, who, before she had yet heard the Gospel from the mouth of the missionaries, had murdered her nine children with her own hand, we see stepping before the missionaries, and hear her wailing in her great grief:

"Why did you not come hither sooner? I had nine children, and have murdered all nine with my own hand! Now I am a miserable, childless widow! Had you come sooner, I should now be a happy mother, and would bring up my nine murdered children for the LORD! Ah, why did you not come sooner?"

Finally, a converted heathen in the East Indies, who now already helps the missionaries there, sends to his teacher, Missionary Wilkinson, who has returned home to England, the following message to us Christians in Europe:

"Above all, tell them that William Churrun (so the converted heathen is called), now by God's grace a servant of JESUS Christ, was once a servant of sin, and would still be a servant of sin, had they not sent you to tell me of the Savior of the world crucified for sinners. Tell them for this my heart's most hearty thanks. — Then tell them that I wonder that they send only one or two missionaries. What are One or Two? Do they not know that many millions of my poor heathen brethren are still without God? O tell them that William, who thanks them for his own sake, must yet accuse them for the sake of others. You told me that many millions of people live in England, and then I think: well, many millions! and only one or two missionaries come to India to save the millions who are perishing in sins! Tell them that we have three hundred and thirty million gods, whose slaves we are. And tell them that, even though these gods never spoke before, yet on the day of judgment the God of the Christians, who is the God of the whole world, will give a tongue to each one of these gods, to accuse them that they have not sent more missionaries to India."

From all this you see also, dear reader, that the missionaries sent out among the heathen, although under great difficulties, do not labor without result. I could name to you whole islands that have cast away their idols and been converted to the living God, whole tribes who from idlers, voluptuaries and man-eaters have become servants of JESUS Christ and now lead a quiet and peaceable life and do their own work in all godliness and honesty. But there is no room for that on these few pages. I content myself with communicating to you yet one passage from a heathen newspaper which appears at Calcutta in the East Indies. In it a heathen hostile to the Gospel laments that the missionaries by their preaching of the Gospel are bringing his Hindu religion into discredit and bringing it to naught. Hear how he addresses the enemies of the Gospel among the Hindus who are of like mind with himself:

"O you holy people, boast no longer that you are Hindus. Do you think your children will remain true to the religion of their fathers (the Hindu religion, namely)? — O, give up such hope! The missionaries, who have left their fatherland and come to India, now go in throngs through all streets and lanes in order to destroy the Hindu religion, — and foolish boys let themselves be angled for and caught, like greedy fishes, by their sorcery. (The missionaries, namely, direct their attention chiefly to the unprejudiced youth, by establishing schools.) Many boys have given up their families, their caste, their religion, have entered into the family of JESUS, have let themselves be initiated into the mysteries of the Bible, and have disgraced their own dignity by letting themselves be instructed. The leopard of the forest (by which he seems to mean the zealous missionary) devours one after another of these boys, who are equal to the beasts in understanding. Last week once more a child raised its wings, and flew upon the tree of the love of JESUS. (The children, namely, very gladly attend the Christian schools.) No one knows what will yet happen further. Like the sacrificial block at Kalighat, so the sacrificial blocks of the missionaries are ready day and night, and wherever they find an opportunity they offer up their victims, and kill it (that is, wrest it from heathendom). We fear them more than cholera, fever and snake-bite; for these may be healed by charms and medicine, but for the sickness (so he calls the inclination toward the Gospel) which the missionaries impart, neither charm nor medicine helps. They are learned people and understand teaching well: is it to be wondered at if senseless children are deceived by them