# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1899_S43 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) The Lutheran Pioneer. 43 God Seen in All His Works. My Bible. member, and that he had never looked upon 7 religion but to despise it. But it was not so. A noble and gentle-hearted man came to see the dying soldier. He addressed him with kind inquiries, talked to him tenderly of the life beyond death, and offered spiritual coun- sel. But the sick man paid no attention or re- spect. He bluntly told him that he did not want any religious conversation. “You will let me pray with you, will you not ?’’ said the man at length. ‘‘No; I know how to die without the help of religion.”” And he turned his face to the wall. Further conversation could do no good, and the man did not attempt it. But he was not discouraged. After a moment’s silence he be- gan to sing the old hymn, so familiar and so dear to every congregation in Scotland: “Oh, mother dear Jerusalem, When shall I come to thee ?” The late Doctor Tyng, of Philadelphia, says: ‘‘I once called to visit a dying lady in this city ; I had knelt often in prayer with her. Her husband was an atheist, an English atheist, a cold-hearted, English atheist. There is no such being beside him on the face of the globe. That was her husband. On the day on which that sweet Christian woman died, she put her hand under her pillow, and took out a little, beautiful, well worn, tear-moistened Bible. She called her husband, and he came, and she said, ‘Do you know this little book?’ And he answered, ‘It is your Bible.’ And she re- plied: ‘It is my Bible; it has been every- thing to me; it has converted, strengthened, cheered and saved me; now I am going to Him who gave it to me, and I shall want it no more; open your hands.’ And she put it between his two hands, and pressed them to- gether about it. ‘My dear husband, do you know what I am doing?’ ‘Yes, dear, you are giving me your Bible.’ ‘No, darling, I am giving you your Bible, and God has sent me to give you this sweet book before I die. Now put it in your bosom. Will you keep it there? Will you read it, for me?’ ‘I will, my dear.’ ’’ “J placed,’’ said Doctor Tyng, ‘‘this dear dead lady in the tomb behind my church. Perhaps three weeks afterwards, that hus- band came to my study, weeping profusely. ‘Oh, my friend,’ said he, ‘my friend, I have found what she meant—it is my Bible, every word of it was written for me. I read it over and over day by day, I read it over night by night; I bless God it is my Bible. Will you take me into your church where she was?’ ‘With all my heart.’ And that once proud, worldly, hostile man, hating this blessed Bible, came, with no arguments, with no objections, with no difficulties suggested, with no ques- tions to unravel, but binding this Word on his heart of memory and love. It was God’s message of direct salvation to his soul; as direct, as if there was not another Bible in Philadelphia, and an angel from heaven had brought him this.”’ Have you such a book, reader? One you love and study and can clasp to your heart, and say, this is my Bible? We all need such a book. —Selected. ; —s +o or oe Moved by a Song. In that beautiful part of Germany which borders on the Rhine there is a noble castle, which, as you travel on the western bank of the river, you may see lifting its ancient tow- -ers on the opposite side above the grove of trees about as old as itself. About ninety years ago there lived in that castle a noble gentleman, whom we will call Baron The Baron had only one son, who was not only a comfort to his father, but a blessing to all who lived on his father’s land. It happened on a certain occasion that, this young man being from home, there came a French gentleman to see the castle, who be- gan to talk of his heavenly Father in terms that chilled the old man’s blood; on which -the Baron reproved him, saying: ‘‘Are you not afraid of offending God, who reigns above, by speaking in such a manner?’’ The gentle- man said that he knew nothing about God, for he had never seen Him. The Baron did not “notice at this time what the gentleman said, but the next morning took him about his castle grounds, and took occasion first to show him a very beautiful picture that hung on the wall. The gentleman admired the picture very much, and said, ‘‘ Whoever drew that picture knows very well how to use his pencil.’”’ “My son drew that picture,’’ said the Baron. ‘‘Then your son is a very clever man,’’ re- plied the gentleman. The Baron then went with his visitor into the garden, showed him many beautiful flowers and plantations of forest trees. ‘‘Who has the ordering of this garden?” asked the gentleman. ‘My son,’’ replied the Baron. ‘‘He knows every plant, I may say.’’ “Indeed,’’ said the gentleman, ‘‘I shall think very highly of him soon.’’ ' The Baron then took him into the village and showed him a small, neat cottage, where his son had established a school, and where he caused all young children who had lost their parents to be received and nourished at his own expense. ‘The children in the house looked so happy that the gentleman was very much pleased, and ‘when he returned to the castle he said to the Baron, ‘‘What a happy man you are, to have so good a son!’’ ‘How do you know I have so good a son?”’ ‘Because I have seen his works, and I know that he must be good and clever, if he has done all that you have showed me.’’ ‘*But you have never seen him.’’. “No; but I know him very well, because I judge him by his works.”’ “True,’’ replied the Baron, ‘‘and this is the way I judge of the character of our heavenly Father. I know from His works that He is a being of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness.” The Frenchman felt the force of the re- proof, and was careful not to offend the Baron any more by his remarks. From the German. He had a pleasant voice and the words and melody were sweet and touching as he sung them. Pretty soon the soldier turned his face again, but its hardened expression was all gone. ‘Who taught you that?’’ he said when the hymn was done. ‘“My mother.’”’ “So did mine. I learned it of her when I was a child, and I used to sing it with her.’ And there were tears in the man’s eyes. The ice was thawed away. It was easy to talk with him now. The words of Jesus en- tered in where the hymn had opened the door. Weeping and with a hungry heart he listened to the Christian’s thoughts of death, and in his last moments turned to his mother’s God and sinner’s Friend. — The Welcome. ———_o +o + The Lame Take The Prey. One of the earliest missionaries of the China Inland Mission was a lame man, George Stott. When he offered himself for the work, Hud- son Taylor hesitated. ‘‘Are you really prepared to face China?” he asked. ‘‘It might go hardly with you ina riot —you couldn’t run away.’’ “Qh, running away wasn’t in my thoughts, I had quite expected that ‘the lame should take the prey.’”’ ‘tFfe’s just the man for China,’’ thought Taylor. He went to Chins.