# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1882_S31 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) The Lutheran Pioneer. 31 A Good Strike. In a Prussian roadside inn one hot Summer’s day several men were smoking and drinking. The room was dirty and uncared for, and the men who looked quite in keeping with it, were railing at the ways of Providence, and contrast- ing the luxury and idleness of the rich with the misery and hardship of the poor. During the conversation a stranger, a young man, came in to eat his bread and cheese while his team rested in the shade before the inn. For a time he listened silently to the talk, and then joined in saying, ‘‘You must strike!’ “Strike against what?’’ asked the peasants. “Against poverty!’’ answered the young man, ‘‘and the weapon with which to strike is work.’’ “Well said!’’ ‘‘Sensibly spoken!’’ laughed the peasants. “Tt would have been well for me had I al- ways been as sensible,’’ continued the stranger, ‘but I used to be an idle rogue. I was strong and healthy, but I would not work, and if now ~ and then I was obliged to do anything, I was off at once to the alehouse, and like lightning the money was out and the brandy wasin. I went from place to place—that means, that everywhere I was turned away, for no master wants a loafer about. I’d soon had enough of farm service, and then I went about to fairs and public houses as a fiddler. Wherever any one would hear me, I scraped my violin, but with all my scraping I was never able to get a whole shirt to my back. Soon I grew tired of music and then tried begging. I went up and -down the country, but most doors were shut in my face. People said, a healthy young fellow like I was ought to work. That enraged me. I grumbled that God had not made me a rich man, and I was envious of all who were better off than myself. I would have liked to turn the world upside down that I might have been able to lord it over the rich- One day I went into an: inn, sat down in a corner, and began muttering my begging speeches. At a table not far from me sat a gentleman (he is, as I afterwards heard, a writer of books); he kept glancing at me, and I kept glancing at him, for I thought he would be sure to give mea good alms, and so he did. I’m spending it still.’’ ‘What was it?’’ asked the men, who had listened attentively. ‘““He came up to me and asked me.about my early life. I told him I had been a farm sery- ant, and sent from place to place—in short, I told him everything. He listened quietly, shook his head, and at last said, ‘Show me your, hand!’ Astonished, I held out my hands; he examined them all over, pushed up my sleeves, and again shook his head. ‘«©What powerful hands! What strength ‘My there must be in those arms!’ he said. Jad, you must join in the war.’ *6¢Tn what war?’ I asked. ‘««Tn war against your misery!’ he exclaimed ‘You fool, you imagine you in a loud voice. are poor—poor with such hands! What a mad idea! He only is poor who is sick in body or in mind. What! with such hands, poor! Set your wits to work and reflect upon the treasure God has given you in your strong healthy limbs. Recover your senses and march for- ward in the war’.’’ “Bravo! That was very good,’ laughed the peasants. “And so I joined in the war,’’ continued the young man. “TI looked fora place, and now Iam a farm servant as before—nothing better and no richer; but I am content with the ways of God and industrious, and I have served the same master these five years, and shall stay with him until one of us dies.’—From the German. ——— + ee + Taking all Freely. A Kentucky lady, upon her return to the home of her youth, after an absence of many months, heard of the distressed condition of ‘*Old Aunt Peggy,’’ a colored woman who had belonged to the -family. In the kindness of her heart she immediately made arrangements for her comfort, and started out in the rain to find her. When Mrs. B. entered the wretched hovel, Aunt Peggy, who was hovering over a little fire in an old rusty, broken stove, ex- claimed, ‘‘ Dear, now! if dar ain’t Miss Mary !’’ After an exchange of hearty greetings, Mrs. B. said, ‘‘Oh, dear! how have you lived in this condition !’’ ‘‘Oh! de good Lord mi’te mindf’Il’bout me. Sometimes I has nothin’ to eat, but den he takes my appetite way from me, so I doesn’t crave: nothin’; den I gits sleepy, en’ I dreams mi'te pleasn’t. O, child! I takes it all freely!”’ “Well, but, Aunt Peggy, you have not a dry spot in your shanty.” ‘Well, honey, I knows dat; but it don’t seem to gim me no cold; den bless you! it don’t rain eb’ry day.”’ Mrs. B., who by this time was very much impressed that ‘‘ godliness with contentment”’ was truly ‘‘great gain,’’ said, x “Well, Aunt Peggy, I will send for you this afternoon. We have a nice little room fitted up, and your wants shall be supplied as long as you live.”’ Clasping her hands together, she fell down upon her knees; and with tears of joy stream- ing down her cheeks, she praised the Lord; then, quieting down, said: “Dar, now! didn’t I tell you I takes it all freely? S'pose Aunt Peggy hadn’t been in sich a fix, whar’d Miss Mary got sich a chance to put another star in her crown? En’ I knows it’s gwy’in to be sot full on ’em, ’kase you al- ways proved your faith in de Saviour by being good to us.”” oP 0 oe Tar was a beautiful reply given by one in affliction when he was asked how he bore it so well. ‘It lightens the stroke,”’ said he, ‘to draw near to Him who handles the rod.” The Curate and the Bricklayer. There is a lesson for a certain class of grum- blers in the following incident. All clergymen doing pastoral and missionary work have more or less of just such duty to perform: A Manchester curate walking along a street in the dinner hour passed a lot of bricklayers smoking their pipes, and he heard one of the men say, “I'd like to be a parson and have nowt to do but walk along in black coat and carry a walking-stick in my hand, and get a lot of brass.’’ There was an approving laugh . all around, whereupon the curate turned quietly around, and the following conversation ensued: «So you would like to be a parson? How much do you get a week?’’ ‘‘Twenty-seven shill- ings.’ ‘Well, Iam not a rich man, but I will give you twenty-seven shillings if you will come with me for a week and see what my work is like.’’ The bricklayer did not like the proposal, but his mates told him it was a fair offer and he was bound to accept it. So re- luctantly he followed the parson down an alley. “Where are you going?’”’ heasked. ‘‘To see a sick parishioner,’ was the reply. ‘‘What is the matter with him?’’ ‘Small pox.” At that the man drew back. His wife and bairns had never had the small pox, and he was afraid of taking it to them. ‘My wife and bairns have never had the small pox,’’ said the curate, “come along.’? The man hesitated. ‘Oh, but you promised to accompany me wherever I went,” urged the curate. ‘‘And where be you going next?’’ asked the bricklayer. ‘To see a poor family huddled in one room, with the father dead of scarlet fever in it, and them- selves all down with it, and after that to see another parishioner ill with typhus; and to- morrow there will bea longer round.’ There- upon the bricklayer begged to be let off. Twenty-seven shillings would be poor pay for that kind of work, and he promised he would never speak against the parsons again.—Lich- field Church. 2 > 2 a The Infidel Blacksmith. There was an infidel blacksmith who was al- ways carping at professors of religion, especially when he could get a Christian to talk to, or knew there was one near enough to overhear him. He would then talk with great relish about the faults of this or that Christian. One day he discussed his favorite theme to a ven- erable elder who stopped to have his horse shod. The good old man bore it quietly for a while, and then he said to the blacksmith: “Did you ever hear the story of the rich man and Lazarus?” ‘Yes, of course I have.’’ “Remember about the dogs—at the gate there—how they licked Lazarus’ sores?”’ “Yes; why?” ‘ ‘Well, you remind me of those dogs—always licking sores. All you notice in Christians is their faults.”