The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1888, Page 7

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‘The Lutheran Pioneer.

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A Noble Act of Heroism.

I remember a little incident that happened
many years ago. When I was in Cornwall, in
1854, I visited the mine where the incident oc-
curred. Carlyle refers to the story in one of
the chapters of his ‘‘Life of Sterling.’’ Two}
men were sinking a shaft. It was dangerous |
business, for it was necessary to blast the rock.
It was their custom to cut the fuse with a sharp
knife. One man then entered the bucket and
thade a signal to be hauled up.
bucket again descended, the other man entered
it, and with one hand on the signal rope and
the other holding the fire, he touched the fuse,
made the signal, and was rapidly drawn up be-
fore the explosion took place.

One day they left the knife above, and rather
than ascend to procure it, they cut the fuse
with a sharp stone. It took fire. ‘‘The fuse is
on fire.’” Both men leaped into the bucket.
and made the signal; but the windlass would
haul up but one man at a time; only one could
escape. One of the men leaped out, and said
to the other, ‘‘ Up wi’ ye; I’ll be in heaven in
a minute.’’ With lightning speed the bucket
was drawn up, and the old man was saved.
The explosion took place. Men descended, ex-
pecting to find the mangled body of the other
miner; but the blast had loosened a mass of
rock, and it lay diagonally across him; and
with the exception of a few bruises and a little
scorching, he was unhurt. When asked why
he urged his comrade to escape, he gave a rea-
son that skeptics would Jaugh at. If there is
any being on the face of the earth I pity, it is
a skeptic. I would not be what is called a
‘skeptic’? to-day for all the wealth of the
world. But what did this hero gay when asked,
“Why did you insist on this other man’s as-

cending?”’ In his quaint dialect he replied,
‘* Because I knowed my soul was safe; for I’ve
gie it in the hands of Him of whom it is said,
that faithfulness is the ‘girdle of His reins,’
and I knowed that what I gied Him He’d never
gie up. But t’other chap was an awful wicked
lad, and I wanted to gie him another chance.”’
All the infidelity in the world cannot produce
such a signal act of heroism as that.—Z. C.

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A Little Slave-Girl.

In Travancore, a region of Southern India’

that is still ruled by its native prince, slavery
in its very worst form continues.

The poor slaves work -in the swamps where
rice is grown, called paddy, fields. Their life
is one of direst suffering and hardship—half-
starved and beaten by their owners, hated and
despised by even the lowest and vilest of their
neighbors.

But even on this dark region light has
dawned, and devoted men have gone there to
tell of a Father's love, a Saviour’s death, a
Holy Spirit's comfort, a rest and home for the
weary and heavy Jaden. They preached in the |

When the}

, | by dying instead of them, that she was known

villages, in the fields, by the road-side; like
their Great Master, they preached anywhere
and everywhere, and many received the good
news of great joy, and got pardon and peace,
and new hearts and the blessed hope. But
}masters and overseers and the unconverted
slaves joined in the fiercest persecution of the|
| poor Christians, and death and torture was to
many the messenger who came to conduct the
weary, suffering child to the presence of his|
Saviour.

But the persecution did not, could not stop |
the spread of the Gospel. It was too precious,
too different from all they had ever heard be-|

fore, to be given up or hidden. Each one who
received it spoke of it to others. Among these
was a little slave-girl, thirteen years old, who
was so earnest, so successful, too, in telling of
the beloved Saviour who came into the world
to save sinners by Himself bearing their sins

by the name of the Child Apostle. Cruelly
did she suffer for her faithfulness, but on and
on she went, often winning by her perseverance
those who had been her most cruel enemies.

The late Bishop of Madras, on his visitation
tour, came to Travancore, and held a confirma-
tion. Among others who were presented to
him was this child, her face and neck and. arms
all disfigured and scarred by blows.

The Bishop’s eyes filled with tears as he
said, ‘‘ My child, how could you bear this?”

She looked up in his face with simple sur-
prise, and said, ‘‘Sir, don’t you like to suffer
for Christ?”’ :

It was well this dear child did not put off her
work for God, for the very next year cholera
raged through the district, and she was one of
the first whom it sent that she might see Him
whom unseen she loved—‘‘might enter into the
joy of her Lord.” —The Gospel in all Lands.

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What a Little One may do.

There was once a little English girl, three
years old, living in‘India. This little girl used
to go out walking with an old Hindoo servant,
and one day, as they passed a ruined heathen
temple, the old man turned aside to make his
“salaam,’’ or bow, to the dumb idol.

“Saamy,’’ asked the child, wondering, ‘what
for you do that?*’

‘Oh, missy,’’ said he, ‘‘that’s my god.””

“Your god?” cried the little girl, “‘your
god, Saamy? Why, your god no can see; no
can hear; no can walk; your god stone. My
God see everything; ay, God make you, make
me, make everything.’’

Not long after this, the little girl went away,
and the old man, with tears in his eyes, promised
to love her God. And so she taught him her
prayers, and very soon he learned to read the
Bible, and accepting his Saviour became a good
Christian man. So you see even this little bit
of a child could be God’s messenger.. She had
the honor of leading a soul to Christ. :

Praying better than Stealing.

Some poor families Jived near a wood-wharf.
In one of the cabins was a man who, when he
was sober, took good care of his family; but
the public house would get his earnings, and
then they suffered. In consequence of a drunken
frolic he fell sick. The cold crept into his
cabin, and but one stick was left in the cellar.

One night he called his eldest boy, John, to
the bedside and whispered something in his ear.

“Can't do it, father,’’ said John.

“Can’t! Why not?’’ said the father, angrily.

‘* Because I learned at Sunday-school, ‘Thou
shalt not steal,’’’ answered John.

‘‘And did you not learn, ‘Mind your par-
ents,’ too?’’

“Yes, father,’’ answered the boy.

“Well, then, mind you, do what I tell you.’

The boy did not know how to argue with his
father, for his father wanted him to go in the
night and steal some sticks from the wood-
wharf;-so John said to his father, ‘‘I can pray
to-night for some w cod; ; it’s better than stealing
I know.’’

And when he crept up to the loft where his
straw bed was, he did go to God iu prayer. He
prayed the Lord’s Prayer, which his Sunday-
school teacher had taught him, only putting in
something about the wood, for he knew God
would give wood as well as ‘‘daily bread.’’

The next noon, when he came home from
school, what do you think he caught sight of
the first thing after turning the corner? A load
of wood before the door—his door. Yes, there
it was. His mother told him the overseer of
the poor sent it; but he believed it was God,
and so it was.—

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Two Pennies.

It was a bright spring evening when little
Polly stole softly into her father’s room, with
shoeless feet, and her golden hair falling lightly
over her white nightgown; for it was bedtime,
and she had come to say ‘“‘ Good-night.”

“Father,” said the little one, raising her
blue eyes to his kind face, ‘‘father, may I say
my prayers beside you, for mother is too ill for
me to go to her. to-night?”

‘«Yes, pet,’’ he answered, tenderly, stroking
the curly head.

And reverently the child knelt down beside
him, and repeated her evening prayer, adding
at the close with special earnestness, ‘‘God bless
my two pennies.””

What can the child mean? thought her father
in surprise, and when the little white robed
figure was gone, he went and asked her mother
if she knew what their little daughter meant.

-‘©Q, Yes!” said the lady. **Polly has prayed
that prayer every night since she put her two
pennies Hitts the plate at the last missionary
meeting.”

Dear reader, have you ever prayed to God for
a blessing on the pennies you have put into the
missionary box? If not, be ‘sure you never
forget to do so in the future: