# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1903_S7 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) RIMUEMRLNAI | CLL NNN Cee ee se a a a el — ———————————E———_——————— ees —S—S The Lutheran Pioneer. 7 A City Missionary’s Story. Happy in Death. him busy with her needles, he told her about the visits he had made during the afternoon and could not help saying, ‘‘What a wonderful thing grace is!’ How much it willdo! There is nothing beyond its power! Wonderful! It can do all things!’’ Then the little sly wife said, ‘Yes, it is wonderful, indeed, but there is one thing the grace of God does not seem to have power to do.”’ ‘*Ah, what can that be?’’ said the husband. “Why, it does not seem to have power to control a minister’s temper, when a shirt-but- ton is gone.’’ This was a good lesson for the parson, but it was a lesson which many another man needs to learn. A little heathen girl, who was stolen from her home in Africa, had, through God’s won- derful ways, come to Germany. Here she learned the Gospel of Jesus and was baptized. She spent her last days in the ‘‘Pilgrim-home”’ in Basle. She had a burning desire to return to her people, in order to tell them the Gospel way of salvation. But the Lord had willed otherwise. A slight illness was looked upon by the doctor as a mild fever. But she said: ‘‘No doubt I shall get consumption, for I have already been troubled with cough and pains in the chest. Well, just as God wills. Iam satisfied.’’ When the nurse entered the room, the girl laughed and joyfully clapped her hands. ‘Pauline, are you laughing at me?’’ asked the nurse. “T am not laughing at you,’’ was the an- swer; ‘I do not know what to do for joy: I am a child of God. Oh, you white people do not have such joy as we colored people have. I knew nothing about the Saviour; but now I haye a Saviour and can die easily. I am glad to die and to go to Jesus.”’ As the nurse became worried about the sick girl, Pauline said, ‘‘You must not be down- cast, Christians should rejoice when one can ‘go home.”’ For every kind deed, for every word of God that was spoken to her, she showed thankful- ness by the looks of her eyes, which she lifted towards heaven. She said yet many things, but not all could be understood. Only these words were yet heard: “Saviour — Halle- lujah.?’ Then she quietly fell asleep in Jesus. She was happy in death, for she could say, ‘Ror me to live is Christ; and to die is gain.” ——_. + o-oo A city missionary, when visiting the tene- ment houses of a large city, came to the door of a small garret room. Upon his knocking, afeeble voice said, ‘‘Come in,”’ and he wentin. - There was no light, but as soon as his eyes were accustomed to the gloom, he saw a pale boy, about ten years of age, lying on a heap of chips and shavings. He asked the boy, ‘‘What are you doing here?”’ “Hush, hush! I am hiding.’’ “Hiding? What for?’’ The child showed his white, delicate arms covered with bruises, and swollen. “Who was it beat you like that?’ “Hush! don’t tell him; my father did it.’’ ‘What for?’’ ‘Poor father got drunk and beat me be- cause I wouldn’t steal.”’ “Did you ever steal?” “Yes, sir, I was a thief once.’’ “Then, why don’t you steal now?’ “Because I went to the Mission School, and they taught me, “Thou shalt not steal,’ and told me about God in heaven and about the Saviour. I will not steal, sir, if my father kills me.’”’ The missionary said, ‘‘I don’t know what to do with you at present. Here is a shilling. I will see what I can do for you.” The boy looked at it a moment, and then said, ‘‘But, please, sir, wouldn’t you like to hear my little hymn?”’ The visitor thought it strange that, lying there without food, without fire, bruised and beaten, the boy could sing a hymn. But he said, ‘‘Yes, I will hear you.”’ And then, in a sweet, low voice, the child sang: ————> - oe Rebuked the Bishop. The late Bishop Whittle, so well known and beloved as missionary, tells the following little story, which may serve as an object lesson for some of the nervous and irritable. ‘‘I was holding meetings in a lonely mountain dis- trict,’’ said the bishop. ‘‘The people were poor and ignorant, and had to come a long way to attend the services, but they usually showed up in time. One night I was feeling sick, nervous, easily rattled. Right down in front of the crowd facing me sat a handsome young woman with a child in her arms. The child began whimpering and crying. It kept on, every minute it threatened to yell aloud, and I could not fix my attention on the audi- ence for its wailing. Every word I uttered was punctuated by a cry or gasp, and finally I became so rattled that I could endure it no longer. ‘Madam,’ I said, addressing the mother, ‘will you not take your child out of the room? I find it useless to preach while it is making such a disturbance.’ ‘No, sir; I will not,’ was the reply. ‘I have carried this child four miles over a rough moun- tain road in order to hear you to-night, and if I had patience enough to do that you should have enough to stand my child’s crying.’ ‘Never was so reproved,” said the bishop. “That ignorant woman gave me a lesson I have never forgotten. ‘The fatigue and discomfort she endured in order to hear the Word of God was a rebuke to my display of nervous irri- tability, and possibly the child, penned up ina close, crowded room with strange faces around it, had as just a cause for camplaint as GY “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, A Lesson. Look upon a little child; Pity my infirmity, Suffer me to come to Thee. “Fain would I to Thee be brought, Gentle Lord, forbid it. not; In the kingdom of Thy grace Give a little child a place.” “That's my little hymn,” added the boy, “*sood-bye!’’” The visitor came again in the morning, knocked at the door—no answer; he opened it and went in. The shilling lay on the floor, and there, too, lay the boy with a peaceful face. In the night he had gone home to the Saviour. How thankful well cared-for children should be for all the good things God gives them ina Christian home! And how gladly we should, with gifts and prayers, support our city mis- sionaries, who look after the poor and neg- lected in our large cities! — >