The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1891, Page 35

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The Lutheran Pioneer. 35

The Highland Soldier. “As the Fool Dieth.” beside. I will allow you twenty-five pounds a
year as long as you live.’’

The old Jady burst into tears, and gratefully
accepted the sailors offer.

“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou
shalt find it after many days.” Let me explain
these words. In the land of Egypt the river
Nile overflows its banks once a year. When
the fields on the river sides are covered with
water, the people cast their seed on it, and the
seed sinks down into the soft mud. When the
water disappears, the seed takes root, and
“after many days”’ comes the harvest, and rich
crops of grain are reaped.

The lady had cast her bread upon the waters.
She had done a kind act to a poor boy; and,
“after many days,’’ he in return was able to
do her a great kindness. And he did do hera
great kindness.

—__— - om 0 -

The Duke’s Lesson.

Writing from Cairo, an American lady re-
lates the following touching incident. She was
allowed to visit the military hospital soon after
some wounded men had been brought in from
a skirmish:

The three hours we could stay were full of
work for heart and hand. One young soldier
from a Highland regiment especially excited
my interest. He had lost a limb, and could
not, the doctor said, live through the night.
I stopped at his side to see if there was any-
thing I could do for him. He lay with closed
eyes, murmuring, ‘Mother, mother.’’ I dipped
my handkerchief in a basin of ice water and
bathed his forehead where the fever flushes
burned. ‘Oh, that is good!” he said, opening
his eyes. Seeing me bending over him, he
caught my hand and kissed it. ‘Thank you,
lady,’’ he said, and smiled; ‘‘it minds me o’
my mother.’’

“Can I write to your mother?”’ I asked.

“No,” he said, ‘‘the surgeon promised to
write;’’ but could I, would I sing to him?

I hesitated a moment and looked around.
The gleam of the sun on the yellow water of
the Nile, as the western rays slanted down,
caught my eye, and suggested the river the
streams whereof shall’ make glad the city of
God. I began to sing in a low voice the hymn,
“Shall we gather at the river?’’ Eager heads
were raised around us to listen more intently,
while bass and tenor voices, weak and trem-
ulous, came in on the chorus—

The San Francisco papers contain the par-
ticulars of the recent death of a ‘‘miser,’’ named
Prof. Herman Kottinger, widely known as a
writer of prose and poetry among the Germans
on the Pacific coast. Although he was pos-
sessed of a fortune of upwards of a hundred
thousand, he lived in a wretched hut and de-
nied himself the common necessaries of life.
The poor old man bad reached the age of
90 years, but was reduced to a skeleton of forty
pounds, by a parsimony which grudged him-
self the food absolutely necessary to life. As
death approached, he was visited by his son;
but the father, mistaking his object, uttered a
frightful scream and clutching a bag of gold
which was concealed in his bed, tore it open
and filling his hands with the glittering coin,
fell back a corpse! What a lesson to all who
make gold their God! A man of learning, an
eminent scholar, a former professor in the Uni-
versity of Heidelberg, dies from starvation in
the midst of abounding wealth! Neither liter-
ature nor learning nor philosophy could do
aught to give him reason or sense. What won-
der that Jesus said of such a one: ‘‘Thou fool!
this night thy soul shall be required of thee.
Then whose shall those things be which thou
possessest?’? A man of culture and means
deliberately reducing himself to a skeleton,
sooner than part with the gold which he has
made his trust, and which he must soon leave
to others, is an awful illustration of the power
of Mammon on a human soul. Men can not
serve God and Mammon.— Workman.

There was a duke once who disguised him-
self, and placed a great rock in the middle of
the road near his palace.

Next morning a peasant came that way with
his ox-cart. ‘‘O, these lazy people!”’ said he;
‘there is this big stone right in the middle of
the road, and no one will take the trouble to
put it out of the way.’’ And so Hans went on
scolding about the laziness of the people.

Next came a gay soldier along. His head
was held back so far that he didn’t notice the
stone, so he stumbled over it. He hegan to
storm at the country people for leaving a huge
rock in the road, then went on.

Next came a company of merchants. They
filed by the rock and one of them said: ‘‘Did
you ever see the like of that big stone lying
here all the morning, and no one stopping to
take it away?”’

It lay there for three weeks, and no one tried
to move it. Then the duke sent word for his
people to meet ona certain day near where the
rock was.

The day came, and a great crowd gathered.
Old Hans, the farmer, was there, and so were
the merchants. A horn was heard, and a splen-
did cavalcade came galloping up. The duke
got down from his horse, and began to speak to
the people.

“My friends, it was I who put this stone
here three weeks ago. Every passer-by has
left it just where it was, and has scolded his
neighbor for not taking it out of the way.””

He stooped down and lifted up the stone.
Directly under it was a hollow in which lay a
small Jeathern bag. The dukeheld itup. On
it were the words, ‘‘For him who lifts up the
stone.” He untied the bag and took from it a
beautiful gold ring and twenty large, golden
coins. i ;
So they all lost the price because each wanted
his neighbor to do what he might have easily
done himself.

“Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God!”’
When the song was ended, I looked into the
face of the boy—for he was not over twenty—
and said,

“Shall you be there?”’ :
“Yes, I'll be there, through what the Lor
Jesus has done for me,’’ he answered, with his
blue eyes shining, while the light that never

was on land or sea irradiated his face.

The tears gathered in my eyes as I thought
of the mother, in her far-off Scottish home,
watching and waiting for tidings of her soldier
boy, who was breathing away his life in an
Egyptian hospital; and I sang—

—__—o ~ oo

Kindness Rewarded.

One day a lady, who was riding in a coach,
saw a lad on the road barefoot and seemingly
very foot-sore. She asked the coachman to
take him up, and said she would pay for him.
When the coach reached the end of its journey,
the kind lady found that the poor lad was
bound for the nearest seaport, to offer himself
as a sailor.

Twenty years afterwards, on the same road,
a sea-captain who was on a coach saw an old
lady walking wearily along, and he made the
coachman pull up his horses. He put the old
lady inside, saying, ‘‘I will pay for her.”’

When they next changed horses the old lady
thanked the captain; ‘For,’ said she, ‘‘I am
too poor to pay for a ride now.”

The captain told her that he always felt for
those who had to walk as she had been doing;
and said, ‘“‘I remember, twenty years ago,
near this very place, I was a poor lad walking
along the road, and a kind lady paid for me
to ride.”

“Ah,” said she, “J am that lady! but
things have changed, and I am now a poor
woman.

“Well,’’ said the captain, ‘‘God has blessed
my labor so that I can live well and help others

“In the sweet, by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore!”

then stooped and kissed his forehead.

“Come again, lady, come again;’’ I heard
on all sides as we left the barracks. I shall
go, but I shall not find my Scottish laddie, for
by to-morrow’s reveille he will have crossed
the river.

—>~+ oe

Hatr service for Christ is whole service of
Satan. There are only two kingdoms in this
world. Each man is the subject of one or the!
other. The earliest step in becoming a Chris-

—_. + ao
ian is i TTERE is not a moment without some duty.
tian is in renouncing the devil.

+) TP Ea