# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1903_S19 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) The Lutheran Pioneer. eS aA 19 eee nnn: Not so “Smart” as He Thought He Was. In 1873, when the Vandalia Railroad was beginning to take hold of the magnificent coal treasures of Parke County, Indiana, a party, consisting of a railroad president, a chief en- gineer, a State Geologist, and a number of Eastern capitalists, visited the Sand Creek mine in that county for the purpose of ex- amining the output. While on the ground, the attention of all was attracted by a slab of stone in which were imbedded thousands of curious and interesting fossil shells. Mean- time a Quaker farmer had joined the company. The State Geologist was learnedly explaining how the shells had found their way into the solid substance of the rock, and all the rest were respectfully listening. “This limestone,’’ said he, tapping it with his hammer, ‘‘came from the roof of the coal mine yonder. It is the bed of a sea that deposited it a hundred thousand years ago. These fossils were shellfish living in that sea. They died and were buried in the lime sedi- ment constantly forming on the bottom of the sea. ‘That sediment became limestone, and now we find it with all its shellfish still in it.”” The Quaker had held his peace as long as possible. “Friend,’’ said he to the geologist, ‘‘thee says what thee can’t prove, and thee ought to be ashamed to dispute the Holy Book.’’ “But I can prove it,’’ insisted the geolo- gist, glad of a polemical opportunity. ‘“‘Here is the rock. It came from deep in the bowels of theearth. These are seashells. Where did they come from if they didn’t come from a sea?’ ‘““Friend,’’ quietly spoke the Quaker, ‘let me ask thee a question.” “‘Certainly.”’ “Ts not God all-powerful?” “Yes.” “Did not He make all things?’’ ‘tYes,’”’ ‘He made fishes, clams, periwinkle shells, and all?’’ “To be sure.’’ “The earth and all that is in it?” sYes.’? “Then, friend, it was just as easy for God to make rocks down in the ground with shells already in them, as it was for Him to make a sea with shells in it. ‘Chee’s not as smart as thee thinks thee is, friend.”” The laugh was upon the geologist during the rest of the day, and whenever he offered a learned remark someone was sure to say, ‘“Thee’s not as smart as thee thinks thee is!” And surely he was not. ————. oor oe “Just As | Am.” The hymn beginning with the words, ‘‘Just as Iam, without one plea,’’ has been a source of comfort to many in different conditions of life. The daughter of the poet Wordsworth, two months before her death, heard the hymn for thereafter until the end she would ask, the the first time. Ten times that day she asked her husband to repeat it, and every morning first thing, ‘‘Now my hymn.’’ A little street waif held up a torn and dirty leaf before a city missionary in New York and asked for a clean one like it. It was a copy of ‘‘Just as I am.’’ His little sister had re- peated the words often in her last days, and the leaf was found crumpled in her pocket. The family wanted a clean copy to have it framed. A pathetic incident connected with this hymn was told by John B. Gough. Mr. Gough was sitting in church, when the usher seated in the pew with him a queer-looking man, whose face was mottled, whose mouth twitched, and who uttered mufiled sounds. Mr. Gough reluc- tantly shared his book with him. The man made strange noises when attempting to sing. The organist played an interlude. Said the stranger, ‘‘Would you be kind enough to give me the first line of the next verse ?”’ “Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind,’’ an- swered Mr. Gough. ‘“That’s it!” said the man. ‘‘And I am blind—God help me!’’ And the tears ran down his face. ‘And I’m wretched, and I am paralytic.’’ And then he joined, as best he could, in the stanza, Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind, Sight, riches, healing of the mind, Yea, all I need, in Thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come. And the Lamb of God has said, ‘‘Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out’? — yea, ‘‘Come,?’ ‘‘and I will give you rest.” A Hero and Heroine of the West Indies. Mrs. Johnston, with her husband, went to the West Indies to preach Christ to the slaves. The slaveholders controlled the local govern- ment, and forbade any one to carry the Gos- pel to the slaves. So the missionary was cast into a loathsome prison for a month for teach- ing some young slaves a new Gospel hymn. Mrs. Johnston labored on by gathering the slave women and their children by stealth in her own home, teaching them of Him who came to give liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to him that is bound. They were compelled to go to Dominica and occupy 4 ‘‘notoriously unhealthy” position at the station there. On their way over, the ship sprang a leak and all hands were set to bail- ing water, but could not keep up with the gain- ing flood. Mrs. Johnston went into the cabin and earnestly asked God’s help. The leak closed and all were saved. On the examina- tion of the vessel in port a mass of seaweed was found so imbedded in the opening in the side of the ship as to make it water-tight. Strange answer! ‘The fever laid its hand on her, then on him, and as they both lay on the tiver brink she was taken and he was left. On his recovery he found a letter from her to him, written when she knew the summons was com- ing, in which her soul poured out loving words of cheer and counsel. said, ‘Feed my lambs, feed my lambs.’”’ She added, ‘‘Jesus Heroes of Missions. <= ee —— — Comfort in Death. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlast- ing life,’’ John 3, 16. These sweet Gospel words, which Luther repeated in his last hour, have been a strong staff of comfort to many a weary pilgrim as he pressed through the valley of the shadow of death. Muhlenberg relates that when one of his parish schoolchildren, a lad of ten, was suddenly taken ill, he called for his New Tes- tament. Turning to John 3, 16, he repeated the passage severaltimes. ‘‘Dear mother,’’ he then said, ‘‘with this text I will go to heaven.”’ —+2 + oo > oe What One Bible Can Do. One hundred and eight years ago Pitcairn Island had no inhabitants. At that time nine wicked sailors, who had sent their captain adrift in an open boat on that wide southern ocean, landed here to hide from punishment. In ten years they were all dead but one, six of them having been murdered. The one left, to take care of their wives, whom they had taken from Tahiti, and their twenty little children, was John Adams. The only book he had was a Bible, and he went to it to find out what to do for these poor little ones. That precious Bible was the saving of them all. It brought John Adams to repent of his crimes, and to love the Lord. He became a new man and a good and kind friend. The children all called him father, and he taught them to read and write, and to trust the Saviour. — Mission Dayspring. — 2-5 o> —o A Righteous Judgment. Two German farmers had a dispute about a piece of meadow land, which they could not settle. One day Ludwig came to Conrad and said: ‘I have engaged the judge to come here to-morrow; he shall decide between us. Be ready to go before him with me, and pre- sent your side of the case.” ‘‘Well, Lud- wig,” said Conrad, ‘I have mowed all this hay, which you see, and I must get it in to- morrow. I cannot possibly leave it. You go before the judge to-morrow, and tell him both your reasons and mine, and then there'll be no need of my going.”’ Ludwig actually did so, and pleaded faith- fully both for himself and against himself and —lost his case! Returning to Conrad, he said: ‘The meadow is yours. I am glad the affair is settled.’’ The bond of friendship between these two men was thus established for life.