For this task our study should give us determination and courage. Though the results have seemed small, they have been, in comparison to the number of workers, enormous. We observe a thickly settled section of India, a few men and women,--preachers, a medical missionary, a few nurses,--around them in seventy years fifty thousand Christians! Were our Lutheran Church really to awake, how rapidly and yet how thoroughly could the work be done! Those who have gone before us have opened the doors, ours is the opportunity to enter. It is estimated that in India one of every four inquirers for truth is knocking at the door of a Lutheran mission. Africa lies open to whoever will possess her, in China our standard bearers have claimed a great territory; South America is ours by right of first possession. This opportunity is not one which may be seized or rejected; thus clearly presented it becomes a responsibility. Another promise for the future is the material aid which the Church will receive from those whom she has converted and trained. In her fields in China, in India, in South Africa, a native Church is being slowly moulded. The Christian courage in the Boxer uprising proves that China can stand fast. Likewise did the great mutiny show the devotion of thousands of Indian Lutherans to the Christian religion. Wherever there are converts there are candidates for Christian service. A story told by Rev. C. F. Kuder of the Rajahmundry mission is rich in suggestion for us all. A NEW DEFINITION. “Four hundred Lutherans were assembled in one of our annual conferences in India. Missionary Eckardt, who is the Livingstone of our Mission, was speaking. He has gone farther inland than any of his predecessors had gone. His district embraces three hundred thousand people, who have no hope of hearing the Gospel unless he brings it to them. [Illustration: IMMANUEL COLORED LUTHERAN COLLEGE, GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA.] [Illustration: BETHANY INDIAN MISSION BAND, WITTENBERG, WISCONSIN. (NORWEGIAN SYNOD)] “He stood up that day at the conference, and said that up in the hills, where there were a number of Christians, but more heathen, a hill had been given him by a heathen, on condition that a church would be built on it. He said that it would be a center for all the Christians in that locality, and a constant call to the heathen to come to the living God. The difficulty was: how to get the money to build the church? He did not want to ask the Christians in America for it; so he asked whether our Christians in India would not help him? “The conference listened with interest and sympathy. The hill-country had for years been its home mission field. After much casting about for some satisfactory method, the suggestion was made that all the Christians be asked to practice self-denial from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday, bringing their free-will offerings to the service on Palm Sunday.