The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1880, Page 35

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

35.

“God is our Refuge and Strength.”
(Psalm 46.)

A mighty Fortress is our God,

A trusty Shield and Weapon;

He helps us free from every need
That hath us now o’ertaken.
The old bitter foe

Means us deadly woe:

Deep guilt and great might

Are his dread arms in fight,

On earth is not his equal.

With might of ours can naught be done,
Soon were our loss effected;

But for us fights the Valiant One
Whom God Himself elected.

Ask ye, Who is this?

Jesus Christ it is,

Of Sabaoth Lord,

And there’s none other God,

He holds the field forever.

Though devils all the world should fill,
All watching to devour us,

We tremble not, we fear no ill,

They cannot overpower us.

This world’s prince may still

Scowl fierce as he will,

He can harm us none,

He’s judged, the deed is done,

One little word o’erthrows him.

The Word they still shall let remain,
And not a thank have for it,
He’s by our side upon the plain,
With His good gifts and Spirit.
Take they then our life,
Goods, fame, child, and wife;
When their worst is done,
They yet have nothing won,
The Kingdom ours remaineth.

(Dr. M. Luther, 1529.

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Dr. Martin Luther.

A colored friend, who read the ‘‘Life of Lu-
ther’’ in our paper, lately said to us: “I never
knew that Luther was such a great man, he
was indeed a very great man.” Our friend
was right. Luther wasa very great man. No
one can deny this. He was highly gifted and
endowed with the greatest powers of intellect
and fitted by God Himself for the great work
of the Reformation. He was ‘‘the most re-
markable man known in Christendom since the
days of the Apostles.” Melanchthon, Luther's
learned friend, said of him: ‘‘Luther is too
great, too wonderful for me to depict in words.”
‘And again: “If there be a man on earth I love
with my whole heart, that man is Luther.”
And again: “One is an interpreter; one, a
logician ; another, an orator, affluent and beau-
tiful in speech; but Luther is all in all—what-
ever he writes, whatever he utters, pierces to
the soul, fixes itself like arrows in the heart—
he is a miracle among men.” Carlyle, a well-
known English writer, says: “T will call this
Luther a true great man: great in intellect, in

courage, affection, and integrity; one of our
most loveable and precious men. Great, not
as a hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain,
—so simple, honest, spontaneous, not setting
up to be great at all; there for quite another
purpose than being great!’’ We could quote
many expressions of friends and enemies, who
all unite in the praise of Luther's gifts. But
these natural gifts alone would not have made
Luther the great man that he was. It is well

said: ‘With all of Luther's gifts, he might
have been a monster of wickednes, or a slave of
the dominant superstition, helping to strengthen
its chains, and forge new ones, had not the
truth of God made him free, had not the Spirit

Dr. Martin Luther.

of God in His Word made him an humble and
earnest believer. Luther was first a Christian,
and then the Reformer. ‘He believed, there-
fore he spoke.’’? Yes, Luther was a true
Christian, relying upon the Word of God alone
in the great war with all the enemies of truth.
This is the secret of his greatness, his courage,
and his confidence. Read his mighty battle-
hymn, which we. print in this number of our
paper, and you will see how the great hero
finds no strength in himself or in any other
man, but only in God and in His Word. His
enemies were great and powerful, but Luther
feared nothing. Why not? Because he knew
that the cause for which he fought was God's
cause, and that God was able to defend that
cause and put all its opponents to shame. This
gaye him courage and made him the great hero
in the war of the Reformation. That gentle
man, who played with his children as a child
in the room and in the garden, made the pope,
and the emperor, and princes tremble. Those
mild and winning eyes could flash fire when-
ever God’s Word was attacked, so that the
pope’s Cardinal who was sent to Augsburg to

dispute with Luther afterwards said of him:
‘‘He has penetrating eyes, and wonderful
thoughts revolve in his head.’”

God’s cause, for which Luther fought, has
triumphed. The victory was won, and we
still enjoy its fruits and its blessings. Those
that prize those blessings will at all times re-
member the humble instrument by which God
carried out the glorious work of the Reforma-
tion, they will at all times honor the memory

of that great and good man—Dr. Martin
Luther.

—_—- o> 0
(For the ,, Lutheran Pioneer.’’)

Was Luther wrong?

It is said that Martin Luther did a great
wrong when he wrote the Small Catechism
by not giving the words of the command-
ments as we read them in the Bible, Exodus
chapter 20. For instance, Exod. 20, 8. we
read: ‘‘Remember the sabbath-day, to keep
it holy.’” Now, Luther, in the Catechism,
makes thiscommandment read: ‘Thou shalt
sanctify the holy-day.’’ Martin Luther knew
just what he wasdoing, and never wrote any-
thing without a reason to justify him. In
the first place, Christ and the apostles no-
where in the whole New Testament recite
the commandments just as we read them
Exodus, chapter 20. It matters not, there-
fore, in what words we recite the command-
ments, if we only bring out their true
meaning. The difference will then be in
the words. Christ and the apostles by
their example show us that it is, at least,
allowable, what Luther did. But Luther
has also another reason for writing: ‘“Thou
shalt sanctify the holy-day”. The words,
‘Remember the sabbath-day, to keep it
holy’’ (Exodus 20, 8.), contain something
that does not concern all mankind, but was
intended for the Jews only. The word ‘‘sabbath-
day’’ there speaks of the Jewish sabbath-day, the
seventh day of the week, or Saturday, which
God commanded the Jews to keep holy accord-
ing to the strict directions God gave them for
that day. Now, as no man is obliged to keep
the Jewish Sabbath ever since Christ abolished
it, and God has appointed no other sabbath-
day in its place, so that Christians are at liberty
to choose whatever day and as many as they
desire, therefore Luther wrote this command-
ment so that no one reading or learning his
catechism might think that we Christians are
still obliged to keep and sanctify the Jewish
sabbath-day; or that God anywhere in the
Bible appoints a certain day to be held sacred
by all Christians as their Sabbath. The ‘‘holy-
day’’ which we are to sanctify is Sunday, but
we are to sanctify it only because as a matter
of necessity it has become the Christian day
of worship by the common choice and consent
of all Christendom. Read the article on the
third commandment in this number.

F. B.

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