“‘Yes,’ replied the teacher, ‘but they were not satisfied with that. They worked out how much it would make, and this morning they came back to request that they be allowed to go without supper twice a week!’ “The manager, catching their enthusiasm, said, ‘Let them try it.’ “Growing boys have hearty appetites, and it was not easy for those lads to go to sleep supperless every Tuesday and Thursday evening during those weeks, but there was never a murmur. “Palm Sunday came. No one ever saw brighter-eyed boys than those who walked to church that morning from our school. When the offerings were received, they put a solid lump of silver coins on the plate. It contained twenty-five _rupees_--eight dollars and thirty-three cents. “The girls in their school had been securing an offering in a similar way, and they brought only thirty cents less. “That day there was laid on the plate a total offering of ninety dollars! “_This is the Telugu Lutheran definition of self-denial._” If the devotion of the Church at home even distantly approached such devotion as this how quickly might the work be accomplished! The world is still overshadowed by the apparently impenetrable cloud of a great war. The condition of hundreds of mission stations is a matter for serious anxiety. When the war closes it is likely that there will be new boundaries, British colonies now German colonies, or German colonies now British colonies. Each change of this kind will bring into existence new complications for missionary policy to meet. The Christian Church will need faith and courage to take up a task so sadly interrupted and marred. It is certain, on the other hand, that the Church will have access to new mission fields. Such has been the single gleam of brightness through many war clouds in the past. For the Church of Christ the war has a lesson which must be learned. There is but one cure for war--the evangelization of the world. May all the Christian world by missionary effort prevent the repetition of so terrible a catastrophe! May especially our own Church come daily into a clearer realization of her mission! As the time of Christ and his apostles was a time of seed-sowing, so was the time of the Reformation. By Martin Luther the world was shown once more the Way of Salvation. By Martin Luther the Holy Bible, the infallible guide, was put once more into the hands of mankind, so that true religion and true liberty might be forever preserved. Let us look well to our ways that after the seed-sowing may come the harvest. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent when a predominant form was found in this book; otherwise it was not changed. End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Lutheran Missions, by Elsie Singmaster