# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1892_S29 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) Che Lutheran Pioneer. A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. PUBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LutueraAn SynopicaAL CoNnFERENCE oF NortH AMERICA. R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor. Entered at the Post Of_lce at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter. Vol. XIV. St. Louis, Mo., A ugust, 1892. No. 8. The Perishing. By Emily C. Pearson, [It is estimated that a thousand millions of the human race have not heard of Christ.] They’re crowding down the slopes of death, A thousand millions strong: A soul is lost, at every breath, Of that benighted throng, They’re groping ’mid sin’s hopeless ways, A thousand millions blind; On them has dawned no Gospel rays, No path of peace they find. O Christians! these have never heard Of Jesus’ precious name,— Have never read His holy Word, Know not to die He came. “Go, preach my Gospel!’’ Christ has said; “Go, all my famished feed; To every creature give Life’s Bread; O’er earth my message speed!’’ And yet amid the darkened lands For light vast millions cry; Ye that are stewards of God’s wealth, How can you pass them by? ——_- <> - oe “Come and See!’’ In the first chapter of the Gospel accord- ing to St. John we twice read these words: ‘Come and see!’’ They were first spoken by the Lord Jesus. He gave the invitation to two disciples of John who had heard John’s wit- ness of Him as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. Jesus saw these two disciples following Him and spoke to them. Then they asked Him cre He dwelt, and He said, ‘‘Come and see.’ One of the two that accepted the invitation was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. Having found the Messiah, he longed to bring others to Him. When he met his brother Simon, he said to him, ‘‘We have found the Messiah.” And he brought him to Jesus. The day fol- lowing Jesus found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.’? And Philip obeyed and thus found Him of whom Moses and the prophets at once told his friend Nathaniel about Jesus | tion: and said, ‘*Come and see!’’ The invitation still goes out to every sin- ner, ‘‘Come and see Jesus!’’ Come and see what He has done for you; see how he loved you and gave Himself for you; how he lived and suffered, and bled and died for you! Come and see what, gifts He has for you, forgive- ness and peace, His spirit and His grace, His love and His everlasting joy; come and see how ready He is to receive you, to take you up in His arms and bless you! Thousands have come and seen and found their Saviour in the Gospel. By the power of that Gospel their hearts were won for Him whom they formerly hated and despised. ; A Jew, by the name of Gerson, lived in West- phalia in the beginning of the seventeenth cent- ury. He was a bitter enemy of Christ and His church. One day a poor christian widow pawned a copy of the New Testament in his shop for a small sum of money. Gerson in- vited two of his Jewish friends to his house and began to read to them ‘‘the book of the christians’, and they together made merry over its contents. But the farther Gerson read, the more restless he became. ‘The power of the Gospel took hold of his heart, and he was convinced that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the promised Sayiour of sinners. “There,’’ he himself says, ‘‘there I found such a light that I must ever give thanks to God.”? He had come to Jesus and had tasted and seen that He is gracious, and from that time on he brought to others the invitation: “‘Come and see!’? He became a preacher of the Gospel. Dear christian reader, since you have come and seen Jesus; since you can say like Philip: ‘‘We have found Him,”’ will you not say to others, ‘‘Come and see?’’ You will surely wish every one else to come to Him, and you haye his word which bids you try and bring them: ‘Let him that heareth say come!” Will you not say ‘‘Come’’ by telling otlers of Jesus’ love and by helping us in our mission work, by which the story of that love is brought to poor dying sinners? There is no sweeter in- have written. Having found Christ, he longed. vitation for you to hear, and no sweeter invi- to bring others to the same happiness. He tation for you to give than that sweet inyita- ‘sCome and see Jesus!’’ Therefore call others into the happiness you enjoy. «(Call them in!’ — the poor, the wretched, Sin-stained wanderers from the fold; Peace and pardon freely offer — Can you weigh their worth in gold? ‘Call them in!’ — the weak, the weary, Laden with the doom of sin; Bid them come and rest in Jesus, He is waiting — ‘Call them in!’ «<‘Call them in!’ — the white and colored; Bid the stranger to the feast; ‘Call them in!’ — the rich, the noble, From the highest to the least. Forth the Father runs to meet them, He hath all their sorrows seen; Robe and ring and royal sandals Wait the lost ones — ‘Call them in!’ *¢ ~