# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1889_S29 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Che Autheran Pioneer. A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. PouBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SyNopICAL CoNFERENCE oF NortTH AMERICA. R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor. Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter. Vol. XI. St. Louis, Mo., August, 1889. No. 8. The Work of Christ. The work is done! the work is done! The battle fought! the victory won! And now, because the Saviour died, All that believe are justified. The work is finished! no deep cries, No penitential tears or sighs, Can peryect that which Christ has done; It stands complete—it stands alone ! The work is finished! sinner, bring With thee no works for offering! It is the blood of .Christ alone That can for our poor souls atone. The work is done! it needs no more, Christ’s death has opened heaven’s door. “Only believe,” the Saviour cried, Believe, and thou art justified. Then, trembler, wait no longer, come! Chase from thy anxious heart its gloom; Rest on the work of Christ thy Lord, Rest on His everlasting Word. The work is done! the work is done! The conflict fought! the battle won! Cease, then, from aught to merit heaven; Believe, and thou shalt be forgiven. Who ever perished with his face Toward that surest resting place— The Cross of Christ? who ec’er was lost That made His work his only boast? The work is done! the work is done! Christ hath eternal victory won For all that will His peace receive, Come, then, poor soul, receive—bvelieve ! The Prince of Glory’s work is done, Accept it, sinner, for thine own; And in the might of sins forgiven Press onward to thy home in heayen. Selected. ——_s +o or oe Salvation. What is salvation? It is deliverance or res- cue from some danger or evil. It is night: the business of the day is over, the people have retired to rest; the great city is asleep. But, hark! a strange, startling cry comes, rudely breaking the deep calm. ‘Fire! ‘fire!’ and the alarm is followed by the sound -of hurrying footsteps. We reach the burning _ building. A crowd of people has collected and they stand watching the house; but what can they do? They think of those dwelling there, quietly sleeping in their beds while the fire is rapidly walling them in. But there comes the fire escape. The people give a shout, while the brave fireman places the escape against the second floor. He quickly mounts the ladder, throws up the window and enters the room. He soon returns and bears something in his arms. It is a little boy whom he has carried out of bed. The boy is brought down alive. He is saved. Dear reader, the salvation about which you read in your Bible, and sing so many beautiful hymns, is likewise a deliverance, a rescue from death—from a death a thousand times worse than being suffocated in a burning house. It is a rescue from sinking into the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone—it is a salva- tion from hell fire. And Jesus is the Saviour by whom we have this salvation. He bore our sins in order to rescue us from.eternal death. When a sinner feels the burden of his sins—feels truly sorry for them, sees that he is altogether bad, that he cannot take away his own sins, cannot make himself good, and so comes to God cry- | ing out, ‘‘God be merciful to me a sinner!”’, and believing that Jesus did really die upon the cross for him, instead of him, to save him —then the sinner enjoys the salvation offered to him in the Gospel. He is rescued, he is saved. ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” Acts 16, 31. —_——s—-oaP oo The Worst of the Lot. In the early part of the reign of Louis XIV. a German prince, traveling through France, visited the arsenal at Toulon, where the galleys, or convict-hulks, were stationed.. The comman- dant, as a compliment to the prince’s rank, said he was welcome to set free any one galley slave. whom he should choose to select. The prince, willing to make the best use of the privilege, spoke to many of the convicts in succession, inquiring why they were condemned to the galleys. as the causes of their being there. In fact, Injustice, oppression, false ac- cusations, were assigned by one after another they were, according to their own representa- tion, all injured and ill-treated persons. . At last he came to one who, when asked the same question, answered to this effect: ‘‘ Your highness, I have no reason to complain: I have been a very wicked, desperate wretch. I have often deserved to be broken alive on the wheel. I account it a great mercy that I am here.” The prince fixed his eyes upon him, and, ina tone of irony which the commandant readily understood, said to this man, in hearing of the others, ‘‘ You wicked wretch! it is a pity you should be placed among so many bonest men; by your own confession, you are bad enough to- corrupt them all; but you shall not stay with them another day.’’ Then, turning to the officer, he said, in a lower voice, but firmly, “This is the man, sir, whom I wish to be re- leased.”’ A ‘‘And Jesus said, ‘For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.’ And some of the Pharisees which were with Him heard these words, and said unto Him, ‘Are we blind also?’ Jesus said unto them, ‘If ye were blind, ye should have no sin; but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.’ ’” Dear reader, the way to salvation is toown . you are lost; the way to forgiveness is to plead guilty; the way to freedom is to confess you are a slave. Jesus came ‘‘to heal the broken- hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind.” —_—-~