The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1886, Page 34

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

34

The Lutheran Pioneer.

In Christ.

There is therefore now no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Rom. 8, 1.

This implies that there would have been con-
demnation to those to whom the Apostle wrote,
had they remained under the law; but now,
since they have died with Christ, and thereby
given complete satisfaction to the law, both in
its penalty and precept, it is not possible that
by it they can be condemned. This now, then,
distinguishes two conditions of a man, namely,
his. condition under the Jaw, and his condition
under grace. By nature we are children of
wrath, but now God has rendered us accepted
in the Beloved. Being now in Christ we are
not under the curse of the law, because He has
borne it for us. In the moment in which we
believed in Him, we were free from its curse;
we entered into another covenant in which
there is nothing but grace and pardon.

To be in Christ Jesus is to be one with Him
as united to Him by faith. Those and those
only who are thus one with Him are the persons
to whom there is no condemnation. All who
are not in Christ Jesus are under the law and
its curse. It is not here said that Christ is
with his people, or at their right hand, but
that they are in Him, in order that they may
know that being in Him they have nothing to
fear; for what evil can reach those who are
one with the Son of God? The sufferings and
obedience of Christ are imputed to the believ-
ers, they being one with Him who fulfilled the
law, and satisfied the justice of God. Their
union with Him is the source of that spiritual
life by which they are quickened together with
Christ.

This union was typified under the Jaw in the
person of the high priest, who carried on his
breast the twelve stones on which were en-
graved the names of the twelve tribes of the
Children of Israel; so that when he appeared
before God, all the people appeared in him;
thus showing that all believers are before God
in Jesus Christ, their great High Priest. They
are all delivered from condemnation as being
one body with Christ.—R. H.

i 00 +
Missionary Perils.

A long letter from Mrs. Houghton, wife of
the Rey. J- Houghton, both of whom have
gince the date of the letter, been murdered by
the Massai tribe in the Galla country, East
Africa, has been received by her brother, Mr.
William Brown, Denton, England. No par-
liculars have come to light respecting the mur-
der of Mr. and Mrs. Houghton. The lady’s
letter contains the following details of the mur-
r of Bishop Hannington. “I am the first
hit woman that has ever been in this part

ica, 80 that you may know I have been
it not a little. No other European mis-

are quite isolated. Poor Bishop Hannington ““We Knows.”
met with a terrible death. He had with him
no other European. One William Jones, a
black man from India, who is a curate at one
of the church missions, I think, was his leading
man. The men he took with him were picked
men, and only three of them were saved, es-
caping during the excitement. The rest were
all bound and speared. The bishop, bound
hands and feet, was shot. This has cast a
gloom over all the mission stations. He was
very much respected. We have been much
unsettled ever since our arrival, partly owing
to the difficulties inherent in missionary life,
and partly owing to excessive demands upon
us by the chief and people here. This is an
expensive mission, and we need to be careful.
They have had a lot of money from the mission,
and seem to regard us as only a means of supply.
My husband has shown to them our true po-
sition and has tried to stop their constant beg-
ging, with results not very pleasing at first, but
now they are much quieter and more respectful.
To be on good terms with these people you must
needs give much. We have given the chief a
present, but it was not enough.”’ The remain-
der of the letter is devoted to domestic details.
It shows clearly that the repeated begging raids
terminated in‘the murder of both Mf. and Mrs.
Houghton.

—_s +a oe -

- “Don’t Step There.”

Our names. ‘‘And the Lord said unto
Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast
spoken: for thou hast found grace in-my sight,
and I know thee by name.” Ex. 33, 17.

‘‘The Lord knoweth them that are His, and
let every one that nameth the name of Christ,
depart from iniquity.’’ 2 Tim. 2, 19.

Our watk. ‘For the Lord thy God hath
blessed thee in all the works of thy hand; He
knoweth thy walking through this great wilder-
ness: these forty years the Lord thy God hath
been with thee, thou hast lacked nothing.’
Deut. 2, 7.

“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly
out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust
unto the day of judgment to be punished.’
2 Peter 2, 9.

Our trust. ‘‘The Lord is good, a strong-
hold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth
them that trust in Him.’”’ Nah. 1, 7.

Our neEED. ‘Your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.”
Matt. 6, 8.

Our Love. “If any man love God,
same is known of him.’”’ 1 Cor. 8, 3.

Aut tanes. “For if our heart condemn
us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth
all things.’’ 1 John 3, 20.

A Serpent Among the Books.

the

One day, a gentleman in India went into his _
library and took down a book from the shelves.
As he did so, he felt a slight pain in his finger,
like the prick of a pin. He thought that a pin
had been stuck by some careless person in the
cover of the book. But soon his finger began
to swell, then his arm, and then his whole
body, and in a few days he died. It was not
a pin among the books, but a small and deadly
serpent.

There are many serpents among the books
nowadays; they nestle in the foliage of some
of our most fascinating literature; they coil
around the flowers whose perfume intoxicates
the senses. People read and are charmed by
the plot of the story, by the skill with which
the characters are sculptured or grouped, by

A man started out for church one icy Sunday
morning, and presently came to a place where
a little boy was standing, who with choking
voice, said:

“Please don’t step there.””

‘Why not?’’

‘Because I stepped there and fell down,’
sobbed the little fellow, who had thus taken
upou himself to warn the unwary passer-by of
the danger into which he had fallen.

There are many men in the world who have
good reasons for giving such a warning as this.
The man who has trod the dark and slippery
paths of intemperance, has good reason to say,
“Don’t step there, for I stepped there and fell
down.’? The man who has indulged in gamb-
ling till he is despised by others and abhorred
by himself, has good reason to say to the young
when they are entering on the same course,
“Don’t step there, for I stepped there and fell
down.”?

How many there are, to-day, in prisons and
convict settlements, with reputations ruined
and lives blasted, who could say to the young
man, tempted to enter the paths of dishonesty
and wrong-doing, ‘Don’t step there, for I
stepped there and fell down.”

It is well for us to be warned by the sad ex-
periences of others, and it is sometimes a duty
for those who have fallen by these temptations
to lift a warning voice. There are slippery
places all around us, and thousands are passing
heedlessly along. Let us entreat- them to be-
ware. :

hardly feel the pin-prick of the evil that is
insinuated. But it stings and poisons. When
the record of ruined souls is made up, on what
multitudes will be inscribed, ‘Poisoned by ser-
pents among the books.’’

Let us watch against the serpents and read
only that which is healthy, instructive and
profitable.

What God Cannot Do.

In Ireland, some time ago, a teacher asked
a little boy if there was anything that God
could not do, and the little fellow said, ‘Yes;
He cannot see my sins through the blood of
Christ.”’

¢

the gorgeousness of the word-painting, and \

|

ores

¢/