|North American Lutherans in South America.| American Lutherans have one mission in South America, that of the General Synod in New Amsterdam in British Guiana, a colony with a population of about three hundred thousand of which about four thousand are Europeans, the remainder East Indians, negroes and native Indians. In 1743 Dutch and German Lutherans founded here a Lutheran church which continued for a hundred years. Then, the congregation having fallen away, service was discontinued. The property consisted of a beautiful old church, a church house and parsonage, a good deal of valuable land and an endowment of twenty thousand dollars. In 1878 the church was again opened and the Rev. John R. Mittelholzer became its pastor, and the congregation united with the General Synod.
The Missouri Synod has eighty-three congregations among the Germans in Brazil and Argentina, a theological seminary and many schools. Some of its pastors work among the Portugese speaking natives.
Of various recent plans for Lutheran work in South America it is still too soon to speak.
The appeal of South America to the Lutheran Church is thus expressed by those who have studied the subject.
“Among the population of South America German and Scandinavian Lutherans are present in larger proportion than the members of any other Protestant denomination.
|Has the Lutheran Church an Opportunity in South America? |
“In Montevideo, Uruguay, there is a colony of five hundred German families. In Bolivia, there are also many of our people. In Chile there are eighty thousand Germans. They are numerous in Bogota and Barronquilla, Colombia, and in Guatemala, where Roman priests are prosecuted and Protestant ministers welcomed by those in authority. In Brazil, which is 220,000 square miles larger than the entire United States, the Statesman’s Year Book declares that there are one million Germans, besides many Scandinavians. In Paraguay, President Schierer is a German, and there are at least two hundred thousand of our people. In fact, there is not a State or island of this vast domain where our people are not found as sheep without a shepherd. They occupy prominent and influential positions in government, and are dominant in the business world. Once interested, they would furnish the means and the men to care for our own, and extend the work among the intellectuals, the peons, the Indians, and the negroes of Latin America. Our Lutheran Church has the largest opportunity, consequently the greatest obligation, of all the Protestant Churches in these southern lands.”
Porto Rico.
In Porto Rico, where many of the conditions of South America are repeated on a much smaller scale, nine Protestant churches are at work. Since the island is under the control of the United States, missions have no political opposition to meet. Here, as in South America, the natives have many crosses but no true cross, many saints but few true believers in Christ. A missionary relates a discussion between two members of the native church, one of whom worshiped the Virgin who was supposed to dwell at Lourdes, another a Virgin who dwelt at some other shrine. Of Christ they knew nothing.
Here the General Council has had a mission since 1899. It has in all nine congregations and twelve stations with more than five hundred communicant members. Among its stations are Catano, San Juan and Bayamon where it owns fine church properties and has excellent parochial schools. In Catano there is a kindergarten in connection with the parochial school to which Miss May Mellander has given years of devoted service. In Catano the missionaries instruct native teachers.