# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1895_S37 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) —6 The Lutheran Pioneer. A MISSIONARY MONTHLY. PusiisHep BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SyNODICAL CONFERENCE oF NortH AMERICA. R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor. Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter. Vol. XVII. No Other Name. There is no Saviour but my Lord, There is no Gospel but His Word; Upon that Word I stay my soul Till earth and heaven away shall roll. There is.none other than His name, To save from guilt and death and shame; And in that name my heart shall trust— Yea, when this frame shall sink to dust. There’s no atonement but His cross, All earthly means are death and loss: And through that cross my soul shall stand Among the just, at God’s right hand. There-is no refuge but in Him, Secure, when sun and stars are dim; Tis there this guilty soul shall hide And‘through eternal years abide. No other name to man is given, No name beneath the vault of heayen— That name upon the cross engraved — By which the guilty must be saved. a Selected. ~~ 0 <9 Reformation Day. The thirty-first of October is called Refor- mation Day. On that day, in the year 1517, Dr. Martin Luther nailed to the church door in Wittenberg ninety-five short propositions, or theses, in which he stated the plain teach- ings of God’s Word on various subjects ‘and exposed the errors of the Romish church. ‘This was the beginning of the Reformation, by which God restored to His Church the pure Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, the Saviour of sinners. This Gospel had for centuries been hidden under the rubbish of human, soul-destroying doctrines taught by the pope and his priests. The anxious sinner was not told to trust in Jestis for salvation, but he was told to trust in his own works, in his prayers to the virgin Mary and to the saints, in the mass said by the priests of the church. Jesus, the loving Saviour, was represented to be a terrible judge to whom the sinner dare not come with a trust- ing heart. Luther tells us that before God Opened to him the Gospel; he trembled and Was terrified whenever he heard the name of Jesus. As long as he went the way pointed SEO UiseNoOmO@ clobemnlcost out by the Romish church, he found no peace and no rest. He longed for peace and for the assurance of salvation. He went into the cloister, he prayed and fasted until he looked more like a corpse than a living man, he heard and said mass, he went to Rome and climbed up the so-called Pilate’s stairs on his bare knees. Indeed, if ever a man was earnest in seeking salvation in the way pointed out in the Romish church, that man was Martin Luther. He tried hard to merit salvation by his own works and earnestly sought the assurance of peace by his own righteousness. But all in vain! The troubled soul of the anxious sin- ner can never find peace and salvation in the human doctrines of the Romish-church. . The way of salvation is made known in the Bible, which the Romish church kept hidden from the people, in order to keep them in dark- ness. But God opened the Bible to Dr. Luther. From the Book of God* Luther learned that Jesus is the only Saviour and that the sinner is saved, not by any works of his own, but by faith in the finished work of Christ. Thus he found peace, and rest, and forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting. : When Luther, by the grace of God, came to know Jesus as the only name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, he became a witness for Christ. The Gospel whose saving power he had experienced in his own heart, he loudly proclaimed for the salva- tion of sinners and boldly defended it against the pope and all other enemies. With voice and pen he set forth the pure truth of God and faithfully warned against all soul-destroy- ing doctrines of men. ‘Thus God Himself carried out the great work of the Reformation by His faithful servant, Dr. Martin Luther. “I did nothing,”’ says Luther, ‘‘but teach and preach the pure doctrine of Christ and trans- late the Gospels, and then laid me down and slept and rose again. The Holy Spirit did the rest through the Gospel.’’ Thus the victory was won, whose fruits and blessings we still enjoy. We still have the pure Gospel of Christ. Let us hold fast what wehave. Letus also see to it that this Gospel is brought to others that know it not. As true children of the Reformation that prize the pure No. 10. Gospel which God has graciously restored to the Church through Dr. Martin Luther, let us devote our prayers and our money to the sup- port and to the spread of that Gospel. _——--