The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1885, Page 17

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The Lutheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PuBLisHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LuruERAN SyNopICAL CONFERENCE oF Nort AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor. ~

Entered at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. VII.

Baptismal Hymn. «

At the baptism of the infant Duke of Albany, the following
hymn was one of those used in the service:

“Saviour, who Thy flock art feeding,
With the Shepherd’s kindest care,
All the feeble gently leading,
While the lambs Thy bosom share:

“Now this little one receiving,
Fold him in Thy gracious arm:
There, we know, Thy word believing,
Only there secure from harm.

“Never, from Thy pasture roving,
Let him be the lion’s prey.

Let Thy tenderness so loving
Keep him all life’s dangerous way.

“Then within Thy fold eternal
Let him find a resting place,
Feed in pastures ever vernal,
Drink the rivers of Thy grace.”
H. R. H. the Prince Consort.

oS

The Mission of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes to save men by mak-
ing that salvation their own which Christ pro-
cured for all sinners. Christ took our sins
upon Himself and bore our punishment. Thus
He secured for all men salvation from sin and
from eternal death. But this salvation must
be brought to us and must be taken by us as
our own if we are to enjoy its benefits. A
treasure which has been secured for me, of
which, however, I know nothing and which is
not made my own personal possession will do
me no good. The great treasure of eternal
salvation is brought to usin the Gospel and is
taken as our own by the hand of faith. But
this is not done by any power in ourselves.
Man by nature is ‘‘dead in trespasses and sin,’’
and there is not the least particle of strength in
him by which he could bring himself to spiritual
life or in any wise assist in this work. It is
wholly the work of the Holy Spirit. ‘‘The natu-
ral man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of
God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither
can he know them, becayse they are spiritually
discerned,”’ 1 Cor. 2, 14. ‘‘Not that we are
sufficient of ourselves to do anything as of our-

St. Louis, Mo., May, 1885.

‘‘No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but
by the Holy Ghost,’’ 1 Cor. 12, 3. Such are
the plain statements of God’s Word. We there-
fore confess in our Catechism: ‘‘I believe that
I cannot by my own reason or strength believe

-|in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him; but

the Holy Spirit hath called me through the
Gospel, enlightened me by His gifts, and
sanctified and preserved me in the true faith.”
‘And in the Larger Catechism Dr. Luther says:
“Neither you, nor I could ever know anything
of Christ, nor believe in Him and have Him
for our Lord, except as it is offered to us, and
granted to our hearts by the Holy Ghost
through the preaching of the Gospel. The
work is finished and accomplished ; for Christ,
by His suffering, death, resurrection, etc., has
acquired and gained the treasure for us. But
if the work remain concealed, so that no one
knew of it, then it were in vain and lost. That
this treasure, therefore, might not lie buried,
but be appropriated and enjoyed, God has
caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed,
in which He gives the Holy Ghost to bring this
treasure home and apply it unto us.’””

How important is this work of the Holy
Spirit! Only they that believe shall be saved.
Without true faith in the Redeemer we must
perish in our sins. Only by the work of the
Holy Spirit through the means of grace we are
brought to this faith und kept in this faith
until the end. As we call to mind the im-
portant work of the Holy Spirit, and praise the
mercy of our God for His mission, may we also
be urged to greater earnestness in the use of
the means of grace by which the Spirit works,
and to greater zeal in bringing those means of
grace to those who are still sitting in the dark-
ness of sin and death without Christ and with-
out hope in this world.

On Infidelity.

Did you ever hear of a Christian in his dying
hour giving up Christianity? You never did.
Did you ever hear of Christians regretting that
they had accepted the Gospel, and in their
dying hour embracing infidelity? You never

selves, but our sufficiency is of God,”” 2Cor. 8, 5. | did. But how many times have Christians

No. 5.

been called to the bedside of an infidel in his
dying hours, and heard him crying for mercy?
There is no power and no comfort for the soul
in infidelity. It is said of West, an eminent
man, that he was going to take up the doctrine
of the resurrection, and show the world what a
fraud it was, while Lord Lyttleton was going
to take up the conversion of Saul, and just
show the folly of it. These men were going to
annihilate that doctrine and that incident of
the Gospel. They were going to follow the
example of the infidel Frenchman, who said
it took twelve fishermen to build up Christ's
religion, but one Frenchman would pull it
down. Through the eighteen hundred years
the doctrine of the resurrection came down to
us, and West got at it and began to look at
the evidence; but instead of being able to cope
with it he found it perfectly overwhelming—
the proof that Christ had risen, that He had
come out of the sepulchre, and ascended to
heaven leading captivity captive. The light
dawned upon him, and by the power of Ged’s
grace he became an expounder and champion
of Christianity. And Lord Lyttleton, that
infidel and skeptic, had not been long at the
conversion of Saul before the God of Saul
broke upon his sight and he too embraced the
Gospel of the risen and ascended Saviour. .

The Life-Boat.

Our own government, and the governments
of most civilized nations, which possess a coast,
line haye established and maintain at consider-
able expense what is known as a life-saving
service. The life-boat, which is so constructed
that it can live in any sea, has been the means
of saving a great many lives. All such humane
associations are, of course, highly creditable to
the government which maintain them. But
while it is praiseworthy to care for the body
and the physical life, that is a still higher ser-
vice which looks after the safety of the spiritual
life, which is to continue its existence when
the other is ended. The sea of life is swept by
storms and tempests and many souls go down:
under their wrathful outbursts, but Christ is a
life-boat which will bear us safely through all
into the desired haven.