# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1900_S19 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) The Lutheran Pioneer. 19 it is true or right is plainly making a play- thing of an oath. How can you swear to some- thing where you are not even certain that you ‘can say « plain ‘‘Yes’’ to it? Herod thus once played with an oath (Matt. 14, 6—9), and in consequence of doing so he became a mur- derer. And when in our days men in joining “secret societies’ swear that they will not re- veal the secrets they may there learn and that they will faithfully uphold all the principles of their lodge, they likewise grossly sin against the Second Commandment; for how do they know that everything is right before it is told them what the secrets and rules are ?— Equally sinful is it to swear to do something which is in itself a sin. Such an oath some Jews once took when they swore that they would not eat and drink until they had killed Paul (Acts 23, 12). Such oaths are also to-day taken by the anarchists and people of like stamp. It may also happen that you in the heat of anger be tempted to swear to do something that is sinful. May God then help you, how- ever, that you add not sin to sin by keeping such an oath!—JIt is also sinful to swear in Jrivolous things. An oath is too solemn a thing to be used in our ordinary, everyday con- versation. In your ordinary business trans- actions ‘‘let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatever is more than these cometh of evil’’ (Matt. 5,37). The man who . Swears upon every occasion is not to be trusted, and the man that demands an oath in trivial matters is just as untrustworthy. What swearing is permitted, and even en- joined? Answer: Whenever the glory of God and the welfare of our neighbor demands it. Thus Jesus swore when adjured by Caiaphas (Matt. 26, 63. 64), and Eliezer swore to faith- fully carry out the command of Abraham (Gen. 24, 3).— When the soldier swears to faithfully defend the flag of his country, and the judge takes the oath of office they are doing nothing wrong. It is by no means wrong when the court demands us to swear on the witness- stand (Hebr. G, 16). Deut. 6,13 we read in plain words: ‘‘Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him, and shalt swear by His name.’’ Let us only see to it that when we take an oath, it be in the fear of the Lord and in His service, then such an oath will be well pleasing unto Him. ¥F.J.L. —s +o e e “The Book of Heaven.” Rey. Edgerton R. Young, the missionary to the Indians in the far northwest wilderness of British America, tells in one of his addresses this touching story: “Often have I been ashamed of the little- ness of my love by the devotion of these In- dians, and their love for the Bible. Let me give you an incident. One of our Indians, With his son, came away down from the dis- tant hunting-grounds to fish on the shores of Our Great Lakes. This man and his son came down to fish, and they made splendid fish- eries, put up the white fish on a staging where the foxes and wolves could not reach them, and one night the father said, ‘My son, we leave to-morrow morning early ; put the Book of Heaven in your pack; we go back one hun- dred and forty miles to our distant hunting- ground to join the mother and the others in the wigwam home.’ his Bible in his pack, so that they might take it home. said to the young man, ‘Nephew, lend me the Book of Heaven that I may read a little; I have loaned mine.’ So the pack was opened, and the Bible taken out; the man read for a time, and then threw the Bible back among the blankets and went out. So the young man put Later on, along came an uncle and “The next morning the father and son started very early on their homeward jour- ney. They strapped on their snow-shoes and walked seventy miles, dug a hole in the snow at night, and had prayers and lay down and slept. after prayers, they pushed on and made seventy miles more, and reached home. That night the father said to his son, ‘Give me the Book of Heaven, that the mother and the rest may read the Word and have prayers.’ As the son opened the pack, he said, ‘Uncle asked for the book two nights ago, and it was not put back.’ The father was disappointed, but said little. put a few cooked rabbits in his pack, and away he started. He walked that day seventy miles and reached the camp where he and his son had stopped two nights before. The next day he had made the other seventy miles, and reached the lake and found his Bible in his The next morning, bright and early, The next morning he rose early, brother’s wigwam. The next morning he started again, and walking in the two days one hundred and forty miles, was back at home once more. That Indian walked on snow-shoes two hundred and eighty miles through the wild forest of the Northwest to regain his copy of the Word of God. Would we do that much to regain our Bibles? Oh, the power of the Gospel! It can go down very low and reach men deeply sunk in sin, and can save them, and make them devout stu- dents and great lovers of the blessed Book!”’ Selected. oe The Infidel. A young clerk in a large Virginia bank was the leader of an infidel club. He was sent to Kentucky on horseback with more than one hundred thousand dollars in bank-bills. He was obliged to go through a part of the coun- try where highway robbery and murder were frequent, so he arranged to go through by day- light, but took the wrong road, lost his way, wandered blindly through the darkness, until at ten o’clock he found himself in a wretched- looking cabin. He was terrified lest he was in the home of one of the robbers, who were the terror of the country. The woman gave him some supper, and proposed that he retire. But he would not. He examined his pistols, and determined to sell his life dearly. The man of the house returned. He was a fierce- looking hunter, wearing a deer-skin hunting shirt and bear-skin cap, and much fatigued, and in no talking mood, all of which boded no good. He replied, ‘‘No, I will sit by the fire all night.”’ He was terribly alarmed, and expected this would be his last night. His in- fidel principles gave him no comfort. His fears grew to agony. The backwoodsman rose, reached over the stranger’s head to a little shelf, took down an old book, and said: ‘‘Well, stranger, if you won’t go to bed, I will, but I always read a chapter of Holy Scripture before I rest.’’ | Alarm was at once removed. The infidel had now full confidence in the Bible. He was safe. The man who kept an old Bible in the house, and read it, and bent his knees, would do him no harm. He listened to the prayers of the Christian, dismissed his fears, laid down in the rude cabin and slept as calmly as under his father’s roof. — Selected. + + 2 i oe “Somebody Forgets.” A little boy, living in the most poverty- stricken section of a great city, found his way into a mission school and became a Christian. One day not long after, some one tried to shake the child’s faith by asking him some puzzling questions. ‘‘If God really loves you, why doesn’t He take better care of you? Why doesn’t He tell somebody to send you a pair of shoes, or else coal enough so that you can keep warm this winter?”’ The boy thought a moment and then said, as the tears rushed to his eyes, ‘‘I guess He does tell somebody, and somebody forgets.”’ The saddest thing about the answer is its truth. God is not unmindful of His little ones. Whether they are in want of fire or food or advice or sympathy, He calls us to supply the things that are needed. He tells us that every act of kindness or helpfulness done to the least or lowest of His creatures He will count as done to. Him. But not all of His purposes are carried out; often because we choose our own pleasure rather than His will, often because somebody forgets. Somebody forgets! That is one of the rea- sons for the pinched faces we see sometimes, and which haunt us for days after, for half clad, shivering bodies and for cheerless homes. That is one of the reasons why there are chil- dren in this dear land of ours who have never heard Christ’s name except in curses. It is the explanation for more than half the sin and sorrow of this world. Is it not high time for each of us to ask the question, ‘‘Am I among those who forget ?’’ — Selected. _—_—_—— - oe He that walks most with Christ will know most of the glory of Christ.