The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1880, Page 42

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42 The Lutheran Pioneer.

richer, healthier, more respected than we;
were we always patient, forgiving our neighbor
all the wrongs he did against us and quickly
forgetting them? No, indeed. We all have
a heart that is inclined to all evil, hence also to
all evil thoughts against our neighbor; a heart
that is unwilling to think kindly of our neigh-
bor, a murderous heart surely.—But when there
is murder in the heart, it must and will show it-
self in fierce, hateful looks, threatening or mock-
ing motions; or in spiteful, angry, stinging,
abusing words. Such looks, motions, words are
also murder before God. Read Jeremiah 18,
18. and Psalm 57, 4. Were we never guilty
of them? Did we in every look, motion and
word show to our neighbor that we loved him
as ourselves? Did we always encourage him
by our kind words, comfort him when he was
sick or in distress, advice him when he needed
advice or was going wrong?—If we do anything
to damage the health or the limbs of our neigh-
bor, itis murder. Fighting is-murder. Care-
less attention to the sick by doctors and nurses
is murder. Not giving to the poor that suffer
for want of clothing, food, or medicine is mur-
der. Have we instead done everything to keep
our neighbor in good health, to keep him from
sickness, hunger and want? Have we always
helped and befriended him in every bodily need
and danger? No, no. Let us confess our great
wickedness to the Lord, fly to Jesus for relief
and pardon, and then with God’s help do better.
F. B,

(For the ,, Lutheran Pioneer’’.)

The Fifth Commandment.

“Thou shalt not kill.

What does this mean?
We should fear and love God, that we may not hurt nor
harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in

”
every bodily need. (Luther's Small Catechism.)

What a terrible sin is murder! Take a
man’s money, property, cattle, servants, chil-
dren, wife, good name, everything that is near
and dear to him, he may live and get along
without it still. Take his life, however, and
you have stolen the greatest of all earthly gifts
that God gave to man, something that cannot
be replaced, if once taken. A murderer is a
brute, considering his neighbor to be only an
animal which he may kill at pleasure. A man
staining his hands with the blood of a fellowman
is capable of doing all other wicked things.
His crime profits him no more than a rope
around his neck. ‘‘Whoso sheddeth man’s
blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’” Our
courts and juries should hang everyone that
takes the life of a fellowman, if the killing was
not done in real self-defence or by accident.
And eternal woe will come upon every mur-
derer, unless he repent and obtain forgiveness
by trusting in Him that was innocently mur-
dered and diedthe death of a murderer on the
cross. His blood and death satisfy for murder
also, and remove the punishment for which the
blood of the murdered man cries to God.

I hope, my dear reader, that you have not
loaded the crime of murder on your conscience.
Nevertheless let me tell you that if we look at
the commandment, forbidding murder, in the
right way, I, you, and all men are murderers
according to that commandment. ur state
laws call me a murderer if I willfully and with-
out necessity take the life of another. Before
God, however, it takes much less to make one
a murderer. According to God’s idea of mur-
der, one may even commit murder with his
heart. Jesus says: ‘‘Out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murder.’”’ Now, what is not in
the heart cannot come out, therefore murder
must be in man’s heart. And there is murder
in the hearts of all men. From the day of their
birth they are murderers before God. The
murder that is committed in the heart is not
only the intention to kill or the wish to see a
certain one dead. Every angry ‘thought, all
spite, hate, envy, every intention to have re-
venge, in short, every thought of the heart
with which we do not wish our neighbor well,
is murder before God. Read Matthew 5, 21.
22. and 1 John 38, 15., also James 5, 9., and
‘see for yourself that it is true. Now, who of
us was never angry with any one; never had
any spite or grudge against any one; never
envied his neighbor, when he was successful in
business; never thought of getting revenge?
Did we always think kindly of our neighbor;
were we always the friends of all men and the

enemies of none; were we always glad when
our neighbor succeeded better than we, was

———~>_~ o> o>

Our Church.

From her earliest history our dear Lutheran
Church has shown herself watchful and careful
to have her people instructed in the pure truths
of God’s holy Word, so that their faith should
not stand in ‘‘wisdom of men, but in the power
of God’’, 1 Cor. 2, 5. In fact, it was just be-
cause men had forsaken the Word of God and
were building their hopes of heaven upon some
human device, that the man of God, Martin
Luther, so vigorously protested, and so earnestly
labored to restore. the glorious Gospel, and to
have it taught to men in all its simplicity and
purity. Our Church instructs her members,
carefully catechises them, in order that they
may be able to give a reason for the faith that
is in them; a reason, too, founded not upon
their notions and feelings, but upon a more sure
word of prophecy, even the doctrines of prophets
and apostles, Jesus Christ Himself being the
chief corner stone. We are not asked by our
Catechism or Confession to believe anything for
which a “‘thus saith the Lord’”’ cannot be given;
but when it is given, we have no choice left—
hold on to it we must. And thus having God’s
Word as the source whence all our distinctive
doctrines emanate, and in which they are taught,
we certainly do well to take heed to them. We
dare not leave our Church for some other where
these truths are not taught. We believe and
teach that ‘Jesus is the saviour of all men,
especially of them that believe’, 1 Tim. 4, 10.

We believe and teach that holy Baptism is not
merely a sign of God’s great and boundless
grace, but that by it we put on Christ, and are
made the children of God; for ‘tye are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, for as
many of you as have been baptized into Christ,
have put on Christ’’, Gal. 3, 26. 27. We be-
lieve and teach that each participant of the holy
Lord’s Supper has given to him and receives
the body and blood of Jesus, not only because
the bread is the Communion of his blood

(1 Cor. 10, 16.), but also because ‘‘He that

eateth this bread, and drinketh this cup of the
Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body
and blood of the Lord’’, 1 Cor. 11, 27.—Chureh
Messenger.

For the ‘‘Lutheran Pioneer’’.

Positive Men.

The world is full of negative men. They are
creatures of very tender feclings. They are

extremely liberal. But they are timid. They

shrink back from their own shadows. They
would sooner sacrifice a principle than to wound
the feelings of any man. They are always in

astormy sea, and always afraid of being dashed

to pieces on the rocks which lie on cither hand.
They have a well marked chart, and know just
where the rocks lie, but they live in mortal
dread of them. They are cowards.

Such men are of little value to the world.
They skulk away from the battle, and leave
others to meet the tempest of wrath and to
gain victory. They carry no swords, and so
bear no palms in their hands, and wear no
crowns. Their aspirations do not rise above
their heads. They are miserable dwarfs. This
age needs positive men; men bold enough to
take their stand on the right side of every great
question—men of courage. A few such men
are still living. They are not popular. Men
hate them. They call them extremists. They
withhold from them their love and fellowship;
withhold honors and the praises of men. They
try to put them down and crush them. Luther’s
record tells the history of their fierce hostility.
Paul Gerhard could tell how the world hates
positive men. But positive men have value.
They do not live in vain. They make their
impression on the race. And grateful men
will perpetuate their memory in the world.
There is a disposition to float with the current;
a men-pleasing disposition. Whatever is pop-
ular passes as orthodox. Very few men have
the courage to call in question generally ac-
cepted theories, or the popular opinions of the
day. But these few men are the evangelists of
heaven. They save the religious world from
universal stagnation. Positive men, full of the
spirit of Christ, are just now the need of the
world. (Adapted from ‘‘ Voice of the people.’’)

IF infidelity succeeds in teaching a man that
he will die like a beast, it will soon succeed in
leading him to live like one.