The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1887, Page 5

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SyNopicAL ConFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA.
R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. IX. No. 2.

St. Louis, Mo., February, 1887.

A Prayer.

The way is long and dreary,
The path is bleak and bare;
Our fect are worn and weary,
But we will not despair:
More heavy was thy burden,
More desolate thy way ;—
O Lamb of God, who takest
The Sin of the world away.
Have mercy on us.

The snows lie thick around us

In the dark and gloomy night;
And the tempest wails above us,

And the stars have hid their light;
But blacker was the darkness

Round Calvary’s cross that day ;—
O Lamb of God, who takest

The sin of the world away.

Have mercy on us.

Our hearts are faint with sorrow,
Heavy and hard to bear;

For we dread the bitter morrow,
But we will not despair:

Thou knowest all our anguish,
And thou wilt bid it cease ;—

O Lamb of God, who takest
The sin of the world away.

Grant us thy peace.
Selected.

—_=»——- o> 0 ee

Christ or Hell?

All the world are guilty before God (Rom.
8,19). Death, to the sinner, is the door to
eternal woe. All who have died without faith
in the Saviour are in woe now. It is true they
will be raised to judgment, but already their
spirits are in eternal misery. Millions are in
misery now, fixed, eternal. Many, alarmed at
this dread reality, fall into the devil’s snare,
and close their eyes to the terrible future at
their door. They love themselves, the world,
their sins, their pleasures. They love darkness
rather than light, because their deeds are evil,
and, blind-folded and duped, rush on to an
eternity of woe. They pass the only way of
escape, spurning God’s provision of grace.
Christ, if even professed with the lips, is re-
fused as a present Saviour. They know they
cannot have Christ and sin, and they love sin
best.

Again and again God’s Word sounds the warn-
ing note. Stop on your mad career; you are
rushing to hell’s brink. Your back is towards
God and His love. And yet he pleads with
you to stop. There is one way of escape, and
only one—God’s way. ‘‘God so loved the
world that He gave His only-begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not per-
ish but have everlasting life,’’ John 3, 16.
‘©We all know that,’’ you say. So much the
worse for you, sinner, if you heed it not. The
greater your light and knowledge, the greater
your responsibility. God will judge in right-
eousness, and it will be better for a poor igno-
rant heathen than a nominal Christian in that
day. I press it upon you again—you may die
to-day. Die to-day, and pass to-night in hell—
your doom sealed, sealed to all eternity. You,
who probably meant to be saved some day—lost,
eternally lost. Your life hangs upon a thread.

The glory of man surrounds you on all hands,
but man and all his glory are going to the
grave. Which is it to be with you? Christ or
hell? With the Son of God’s love and His
redeemed, or with the devil and his angels?
Eternal glory, or the lake of fire? Eternal
bliss, or eternal woe? Worshiping round the
throne, or wailing in hell? Singing the new
song, or weeping and gnashing of teeth? In!
marvellous light, or the blackness of darkness?
It is one or the other for all. If you will have
self, the world, and sin now, you must have hell
hereafter. If you accept Christ now, you shall
have glory with Him forever. Which is it to
be? The pleasures of sin for a season, or pleas-
ures at God’s right hand for evermore.

commits tous. Health, wealth, time, strength,
position, powers of mind, etc., are all so many
talents, of which we shall have to give an ac-
count on the day of the Lord.

We have no hard Master to deal with. He
knows exactly how much He has committed to
us, and it is accepted according to what a man
hath, and not according to what he hath not,
2 Cor. 8, 12.

If He has given us money, we are respon-
sible to use it for Him. So with ourtime. It
is the Lord’s, and should be laid out most care-
fully in His service. .

So with influence, position in life. AI] may
be used for Him. They belong to Him, and
we are robbing Him if in any way we use them
to exalt and glorify ourselves.

Mental gifts and powers are the same. If
we use them for self, to get praise from man,
we are wasting our Lord’s goods, and we shall
be eternal losers.

Let us judge ourselves, our circumstances,
our powers, and see whether we are being good
stewards—whether the Lord will be able to say
to us, ‘‘ Well done, good and faithful servant !’”
and, if not, let us gird our loins at once, and
seek henceforth to spend and to be spent for
Him. We have only a little while left. Let
us make the most of it, and see how much
time, strength, money, influence, powers, we
cand send up to heaven, 1 Tim. 6, 17—19.

o<—_e

Avoiding Anxiety.

Payson, on his dying bed, said to his daugh-
ter, ‘You will avoid much pain and anxiety if
you will learn to trust all your concerns in
God’s hands. ‘Cast all your care upon Him,
for He careth for you.’ But if you merely go
and say that you cast your care upon Him,
you will come away with the load on your
shoulders.”’

—— OE 0

OED ee

Stewardship.

“Every one of us shall give account of him-
self to God,’ Rom. 14, 12.
Salvation is the free gift of God through
Christ Jesus our Lord; ‘‘ not of works, lest any
man should boast.’”? But after we are saved,
we are no niore our own; we are bought with
a price, and everything we have belongs to
Christ.

Thus we are stewards and responsible to
Him for the use we make of everything He

Ir is not to be borne that Christian people
should say, We cannot know whether God is
favorable to us or not. On the contrary, we
should learn to say, I know that I believe in
Christ, and therefore that God is my gracious
Father.—Juuther.