The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1884, Page 39

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

The Lutheran Pioneer.

39

Luther ‘Translating The Bible.

|
|

me and saved me. I now go to Him who gave
it to me; I need it no longer.’’ Laying the

In our picture we see Luther at work in his| Bible in his hands, she said, ‘“Do you know,

-room at the Wartburg. He was secretly taken | beloved husband, what I now do?” ‘Yes, my

to the Wartburg Castle as to a safe hiding |
place, in the year 1521, by order of his friend, |

the Elector of Saxony, who wished to save

him from the clutches of his enemies and to |
protect him from the knife of the hired as-|

sassin. Luther remained ten months at the

Wartburg, where he was known as Squire |

George.

He laid aside the garb of the monk, | wife meant when she gave me that Bible. Yes,

and allowed his hair and his beard to remain |

unshorn and unshaved. Upon going outside
of the Castle, he had to gird on a sword and
behave like a knight.

During his stay at the Wartburg Luther was
not idle. His desire had been to place
the word of God in the hands of the
people. He therefore devoted much
of his time at the Wartburg to the
translation of the New Testament.
He bestowed so much labor and zeal
upon this work that he had finished it
before he left the Wartburg. After
his return to Wittenberg he reviewed
the whole most carefully with the help
of his learned friend, Melanchthon.
The first copy was struck off on Sep-
tember 25th, 1522. Soon three presses
were employed, striking off 10,000
sheets every day.

Whilst the-New Testament was go-
ing through the press, Luther began
the translation of the Old Testament.
The demand for the translation was so
urgent that Luther could not wait
until the whole was completed before
he published. As one part was fin-
ished, he gave it to the press. In the
year 1534 the work was completed,
and in the summer of that year, 350
years ago, the whole Bible, as trans-
lated into German, by Martin Luther,
was printed and published. In a few
months a new edition had to be
printed. Of this work of Luther Melanchthon

. well said: ‘‘The German Bible is one of the
greatest wonders that God has wrought, by
the hand of Dr. Martin Luther, before the end
of the world.’’

+++ oa o> oe -

My Bible—Your Bible.

A Lutheran pastor was one day called to
visit 2 sick woman whose end was rapidly ap-
proaching. She believed in her Saviour and
was glad to be with Him soon. Her husband,
however, was a proud infidel. The last hour
came. ‘The husband stood at the death-bed of
his beloved wife. With the little strength that
was left her she took from under her pillow a
small, well-worn Bible, and handing it to her
husband, she said: ‘Do you know what book
this is??? ‘‘Yes,’? was his reply, ‘‘it is your
Bible.’ “It has indeed been my Bible,’’ said
she; “it has been my all in all; it has comforted

| that it is my Bible.

dear, you are giving me your Bible.’’ ‘No,
my dear husband, I give you your Bible; keep
it and please promise me that you will read it.”
“Yes, my dear, I will.’

Three weeks passed by and one day that
same man came to the pastor’s study. “My
friend,’’ said he, ‘I now know what my dying

it is my Bible; every word in that book is
written for me. I daily read it and thank God
And I now wish to join |
your congregation of which my dear wife was
a member.’’

The Soldier and the Bible.

In the year 1855 a Bible agent with New
Testaments came to Toulon in France while
the soldiers were embarking for the Crimea.
He offered one of the Testaments to a soldier,
who asked him what book it might be. ‘‘The
Word of God,’’ was the answer. ‘‘Let me have
it then,’ said the man. But when he had
received it, he added, laughing, ‘“‘Now it will
do very well to light my pipe.”’ The Bible
agent felt sorry he had so bestowed the treasure;
but he said to himself, ‘‘Well, as I have given
it, it must go.”

In the month of March, 1856, that same
Bible agent found himself in the centre of
France; he sought a lodging at an inn, where
he found the people who kept it in great dis-
tress, having just lost their son. The poor
mother explained that her son had gone to the
Crimea as a soldier, and came back home,

though only to die of his wounds. ‘But I have
such consolation,”’ she said; ‘‘he was so peace-
ful and happy, and he brought comfort to me
and his father.’ ‘‘How was this?’’ asked the
Bible agent. ‘‘Oh,’’ said she, ‘he found all
his comfort in one little book which he had
always with him.’’ The Bible agent begged to
see the book, and they brought him a copy of
the New Testament, of which the first fifteen
or twenty pages had been torn out; but on the
inside of the cover was written, ‘Received at
Toulon (with the date), despised—neglected—
read—believed—and found salvation.’”” The
place and the date were recognized by the
Bible agent, and thus he reaped the seed he
had sown.

A Bible Baked‘in a Loaf of Bread.

There is a Bible in Lucas, in the
State of (Ohio, which was preserved
by being baked in a loaf of bread. It
now belongs to a Mr. Schebolt, who is
a native of Bohemia, in Austria. This
baked Bible was formerly the property
of his grandmother, who was a faithful
Protestant Christian. During one of
the seasons when the Roman Catholics
were persecuting the Protestants in
that country, a law was passed ‘that
every Bible in the hands of the people
should be given up to the priests that
it might be burnt. Then, those who
loved their Bible had to contrive differ-
ent ways in order to try and save the
precious book.

When the priests came round to
search the house, it happened to be
baking day. Mrs. Schebolt, the grand-
mother of the present owner of this
Bible, had a large family. She had
just prepared a great patch of dough,
when she heard that the priests were
coming. She took her precious Bible,
wrapped it carefully up, and put it in
the centre of a huge mass of dough, which
was to fill her largest bread tin, and stowed it
away in the oven and baked it. ‘The priests
came and searched the house carefully through,
but they did not find the Bible. When the
search was oversand the danger passed, the
Bible was taken out and found uninjured.
That Bible is more than a hundred and fifty
years old; yet it is still the bread of life, as
fresh, as sweettand good as ever.— Zion's Herald.

—— > +o

“Te Brste is a very large, wide forest,
wherein stand many trees of all kinds, from
which we can gather many kinds of’ fruits.
For in the Bible we have rich consolation,
doctrine, instruction, exhortation, warning,
promise and threatenings. But in all this
forest there is not a tree which I have not
shaken, and broken off at least a pair of apples
or pears from it-—Zaither.