The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1889, Page 7

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‘The Lutheran Pioneer. q

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(For the ‘‘Lutheran Pioncer.’’)

Be not Deceived, God is not Mocked.

There was a railroad accident. ‘The killed
and wounded were taken into the small station-
house. One of the wounded called for a min-
ister of the gospel. There was a minister
present. The wounded man, upon being asked,

“Listen to me ten minutes, and hear a
simple, truthful story which I must tell for the
benefit of others. This is ’88, that was '78,
just ten years ago.
house in New York and found myself one
winter's evening in a bar-room of a hotel in a
small country town in County, N. Y. I
always hada silent contempt for religion.

“‘On that evening the conversation turned
upon religion. Rude jokes went around and
drink followed drink, the language became
coarser and coarser, until it seemed the crowd
desired in some way to show their contempt
for all religious things. Finally one of us pro-
posed to start a mock service. This was done.
Six of us knelt down on the floor of that bar-
room and mocked God. Six of us prayed to
God ,to, forgive our sins’and! the sins ‘of our
companions. We simulated the tears of peni-
tence, and closed the performance by singing
a hymn we had learned at our mothers’ knees,
‘Rock of Ages.’ When we got’ through we
were alone in the bar-room. Horror-stricken,
the rest had gone home. There were six of us.
In less than a year the hotel-keeper stumbled
and, falling, ruptured a blood vessel and died.
It was a violent death. Two years later the
young man who proposed the act, while with a
huuting party at a country house, got up in
the night to get a drink of water and, falling
to the lower floor, broke his neck and lived
only two days. The third year, Tom, the
noisiest in the mock-service, opening the wrong
door in his own house, fell to the cellar bottom
and broke his neck. The fourth had become
& conductor on a western road, and a news-
paper brought me the story of his death in
1885. He was crushed between bumpers and
died in agony. ‘There were two of us left.
Last year I found my remaining companion.
He was sunken in poverty, wife and family
dead. ‘He was trying to hide away from fate.
I gave him a bank note and laughed at the
strange story. That night a fall of six feet
from a saloon door broke his neck.

‘*Since that time I have been waiting. To-
day my time hascome. In ten years the six
men who performed that daring, impious feat
have been taken away by violent deaths.

“T have told you a true story. Lift up my
head. Higher, higher!”? With these words
his soul passed into eternity. H. L.

———s +o or oe

IF you cannot pray over a thing, and cannot
ask God to bless you in it, don’t do that thing.
A secret that you would keep from God is a
secret that you should keep from your own heart.

| had learned out of God's Word was the passage |
what might be wanted, related the following: |

I was traveling for a drug |

What one Passage of Scripture did.

A poor boy had been very much neglected
by his parents. ‘They did not send him to
school, and he could neither read nor write.
But what was worse than all, they did not}
even teach him to pray. The only thing he
of Scriptures in 1 Timothy, the first chapter
and the fifteenth verse: ‘J aithful is the saying
and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus came into
the world to save sinners.”’

He grew up to be
aman, and as he had learned nothing in his|
youth but to idle away his time in fishing,
hunting rabbits, and robbing birds’ nests, Satan
found work for him when he was older.

He joined a band of robbers, and after a long
season of wickedness, he and his companions
were caught and put to prison to await their
trial. They were tried arid found guilty of
death. At first he did not seem to be affected
and he took his sentence very cooly; but when at
length he thought of stepping upon the gallows,
the fear of death and hell came upon him. He
would not be consoled, but cried night and
day in the anguish of his soul.

One day the warden passed through the
prison hall with a stranger, and as they came to
the cell of this robber, he said to the stranger:
“In this cell sits one of those sinners who are
shortly to be hung.’’ When the robber heard
the word ‘‘sinner,’”’ that passage of Scripture
which he had learned in his youth came to his
mind once again, for he had long since for-
gotten it. He went over it in his thoughts:
“Faithful is the saying and worthy of all ac-
ceptation, that Jesus came into the world to
save sinners.” “Sinners!” thought he. “Why,
I am asinner, and therefore Jesus must have
come to save me!’’ The more he thought of
this, the more his heart was moved. It seemed
to him as if a new light was shining into his
cell, and he thought to himself: ‘This Jesus
I must learn to know.”’

He asked that a minister might come to visit
him. A minister came, and at his words the
robber’s heart was deeply moved; he shed warm
tears of penitence over his past sinful life, be-
lieved in Jesus, the Saviour of sinners, and
said that now he could die in peace. His last
wish was that the minister might step with
him upon the gallows, and in his last moments
read to him that passage once more: ‘Faith-
ful is the saying and worthy of all accepta-
tion, that Jesus came into the world to save
sinners.” ;

When the Prince (who was the stranger
whom the warden had Jed through the prison
hall) had heard all this about the robber, and
when he learned that he had been brought up
in a very irreligious way, he, like his Master,
Jesus Christ, pardoned the ‘‘sinner,’’ took him
home as his servant, and there the robber lived
to a good old age, praising God for the power

of His Word, which saved him from the gallows

and from hell.— Olive Leaf.

Africaner.

Years ago, there was in the south of Africa
a tribe of natives who were fierce and bold, and
one of them was famous above all the rest for
his courage, cruelty and wickedness. This
man’s name was Africaner. He robbed and
murdered many of the settlers from other coun-
tries who came near his territory, and he was
dreaded by everybody.

As time rolled on, however, he came under
the influence of the missionaries, and was con-
verted. Then was a change indeed. The man
who before had robbed and killed his fellow-
creatures, became kind and gentle; he no
longer was a terror.. Those who knew him
learned to love him warmly.

Once, as he was on a journey with Mr. Moffat,
a noble missionary, they came to the settle-
ment of 2 Boer—a Boer is a Dutch settler in
South Africa—and Mr. Moffat called the Boer
out. When he came and saw Mr. Moffat he
was very much frightened, saying, “It is a
ghost.’’

‘Oh, no,” replied the missionary; ‘‘I am no
ghost.”

“Yes,’’ said the farmer, ‘‘Africaner killed
you. Isawa man who told me he had looked
upon your bones.’’

“Yet I am here, well and alive; and, what
is more, Africaner has been converted.”’

‘‘Converted!’’ said the Boer, ‘‘that would
bea miracle. But now that I see you alive, I
can believe anything. Ah,” said he again, “I
would like to see Africaner if he has been con-
verted, even if he did kill my brother.’’

Mr. Moffat turned him right round and,
pointing to the man sitting near by on the
ground, said, ‘There, that is Africaner.”’

The Boer started back, for his surprise made
him forget that it was no longer a savage mur-
derer and robber on whom he was looking; but
soon he recovered himself and began a conver-
sation with Africaner. He soon found that it
was as he had heard: the savage Africaner was
truly converted and become as kind and gentle
as a child.

On thinking of it Iam not surprised that the
Dutch farmer was startled when he found that
Africaner was so near; for I remember that
when the apostle Paul was converted, the dis-
ciples were at first afraid to have anything to
do with him: ‘‘They were all afraid of him,
and believed not that he was a disciple’’ (Acts
9, 26); afterward he proved, in suffering and
affliction, that he had been converted and was
a true disciple of Christ. Just so was it with
Africaner; he proved by his life that he had
been really converted.

Very bad people can be saved—yes, and be-
come very good and faithful servants of Christ.
But there is only one way forall. It is just to
turn to Christ as your Saviour.—Morning Star.

0s

Ir we believingly refer our cause to God
He will kindly undertake and work our de-
liverance.

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