The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1883, Page 3

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

(For the ‘Lutheran Pioncer.’?)

New-Year’s Prayer.

The Lord hath helped me hitherto
By His surpassing favor;

His mercies every morn were new,
His kindness did not waver.

God hitherto hath been my guide,
Hath pleasures hitherto supplied,
And hitherto hath helped me.

I praise and thank Thee, Lord, my God,
For Thine abundant blessing,

Which heretofore Thou hast bestowed
And I am still possessing.

Inscribe this on my memory:

The Lord hath done great things for me,
And graciously hath helped me.

Help me in future, God of grace,
Help me on exch occasion,
Help me in each and every place,
Help me through Jesus’ Passion;
Help me in life and death, O God,
Help me through Jesus’ dying blood,
Help me, as Thou hast helped me!
(Emilia Juliana, Countess of Schwarzburg, + 1706.)
(Tr. by A, Crull, 1882.)

> = OE 0

Luther and Lady Cotta.

Dr. Martin Luther was born on the
10th of November, 1483, in the small
‘German town of Eisleben. In the year
1883, the Lutheran Church will there-
fore celebrate the 400th anniversary of
Luther’s birth; and our PIoneer will
in each number of the present year bring
its readers a picture representing some
principal event in the life of the great
Reformer. ‘The picture in this number
represents a scene from Luther’s school-
days at Hisenach. After having attended
school at Mansfeld and Magdeburg, he
was sent to the Latin school in the city
of Eisenach, where some of his mother’s
relatives were living. His parents, being very
poor, hoped that he would there get some sup-
port from those relatives. But he received
very little help, and, with other poor scholars,
he had to go about singing from house to
house for some food, and often he had to go to
bed without having had anything to eat. God,
however, took care of him. On one cold even-
ing he, with the other boys, went out singing,
and already they had sung at several houses
without getting anything, when at last they
came to the house of Cotta, an honorable and
well-to-do citizen. They sang their hymn, and
soon the door opened, and out came the lady
of the house. She had recognized the clear,
sweet voice of Luther, at which she had often
been delighted in church. She took little
Martin by ,the hand, and led him into her
house, and gave him some food. And a few
days later Luther found a home and a hospi-
table shelter in the house of Lady Cotta, so that
he could now devote all his time to his studies.
He never forgot this kindness of the dear
woman. After many years, when he vale
Professor, and the woman's son studied at the

University, he took that son to his table, and
in his writings he reared her a beautiful and
lasting monument.

+ oem + ee

To-Day.

A young student of Jaw had settled himself
in lodgings in Berlin. He fell ill, and a friend
of his own, a young doctor, attended him, and
watched over him with much self-denying love

j}and patience. But both of them were far from

God, and strangers to His promises of grace.
As the young student’s illness increased, the
doctor ordered his bed to be removed as far as

possible from the window; that the strong light

might not hurt him.
corner of: his room, close to a very thin parti-
tion which divided his room from that of the

So the sick man lay ina

master of the house. His bed had not long

been removed before he heard, first in a low

voice, then more distinctly, these words:

‘““To-day thou livest yet; to-day turn thee to God;

For, ere to-morrow comes, thou may’st be with the
dead.”” n

These words were repeated again and again.
He heard others, too, but they did not fix
themselves in his memory as these did. He
could not get quit of them; it seemed as if
they had been written on his heart in letters
of fire that could not be extinguished.

When his friend, the doctor, next came to
see him, he took his hand, felt his pulse, and
asked him kindly how he felt. But the sick
man only fixed a piercing look on his face, and
answered every question with nothing but—
‘To-day thou livest yet; to-day turn thee to God;
For, ere to-morrow comes, thou may’st be with the

dead.”

‘What is the matter with you?’’ said the
doctor; ‘“‘what has come over you? you are

quite changed; what is the meaning of it?
Were it not that the fever has abated, I should
say that your mind was wandering, and you .
were raving!”’

The only answer that he got was, ‘To-day
thou livest yet; to-day turn thee to God.”
The doctor left him unwillingly; but on his
way home he could not get the look and voice
of his friend out of his memory.

When he visited him again the next day,
he found him much better and calmer; but
changed, grave and earnest, Bible in hand, his
carelessness all gone. The work of grace had
begun in his heart. And the doctor, too,
opened his heart to the Holy Spirit, who by
the mouth of his friend had first spoken
to him, and strove for an entrance to
his soul.

What a marvel of grace! It had so
happened that, on the day that the sick
man’s bed was removed, the son of the
master of the house had not learned his
lesson at school. It was a lesson from
the hymn-book, and consisted of that
hymn, some words of which we have
given. The father put the boy in the
corner to learn his lesson there; and
that was the very corner beside which
the fever patient had that morning been
placed.

Happy Nancy’s Secret.

There once lived in an old brown cot-
tage a solitary woman, known every-
where by the name of ‘‘ Happy Nancy.’’
She had no money, no family, no rela-
tives, and was half-blind, quite lame and
very crooked.

‘Well, Nancy, singing again,’ would
the chance visitor say, as he stopped at
her door. _-

“©O yes, I’m forever at it.”’

‘*T wish, you’d tell me your secret, Nancy.
You are all alone; you work hard; you have
nothing very pleasant surrounding you; what
is the reason you are happy?”’

‘«Perhaps it’s because I haven’t got anybody
but God,’’ replied the good creature, looking
up. ‘You see, rich folks like you depend upon
their families and their houses; they've got to

| think of their business, of their wives and chil-

ren, and then they’re always mighty afraid of
troubles ahead. I ain’t got anything to trouble
myself about, you see, because I leave it to the
Lord. I think, ‘Well, if he can keep this great
world in such good order, the sun rolling day
after day, and the stars a shining night after
night, and make my garden things coming up
the same, season after season, he can certainly
take care of such a poor, simple thing as I am,’
and so you see, I leave it all to the Lord, and
the Lord takes care of me.’

‘‘Well, but, Nancy, suppose a frost should
come after your fruit trees are all in blossom,
and your little plants out; suppose—”

“But I don’t suppose; I don’t want to sup-
pose, except that the Lord will do everything
right. That’s what makes you people wnhapDys
you are all the time supposing. Now, why
can’t you wait till the sap pose comes, as I do,
and then make the best of it?”