The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1892, Page 18

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1S _ ‘The Lutheran Pioneer.

SS ——— eee

grace must be brought fo the heathen. And
‘| the Christians must see to it that this is done;

This is the command which Christ gave His| for to the Christians the Lord has given the
disciples shortly before He ascended to heaven.|command: ‘Preach the Gospel to every
He said to them: ‘‘Go ye into all the world,|creature!”’? Let us heed this last and great
and preach the Gospel to every creature. He] command of our Lord, knowing that ‘he that

- that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; | believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but
but he that believeth not shall be damned,’’ | he that believeth not shall be damned.’’
Mark 16, 15. Aj

The disciples heeded this command of their
Master. They were His witnesses to the Jews
and to the Gentiles. ‘They went out into the
world, and as faithful missionaries preached
the Gospel to every creature. Amid all dan-
gers, and hardships, and persecutions they
never gave up their glorious work. They
labored for the spread of the Gospel until the
hour of their death.

‘Preach the Gospel to every creature!’’
This command is given not only to the dis-
ciples who were witnesses of the Lord’s ascen-
sion, but to the entire Church of Christ; for
the Gospel is to be preached and sinners are
to be saved until the Lord comes. It is,
therefore, eyery Christian’s duty—and a
blessed duty it is—to sce to it that this com-
mand of our Lord is obeyed. It is related of
the Duke of Wellington that when a certain
minister asked him whether he thought it
worth while to preach the Gospel to the Hin-
doos, the old General asked, ‘‘What are your
marching orders, sir?’’ The minister said,
“Go ye into all the world, and preach the
Gospel to every creature.’”? ‘‘Then follow
your orders,”’ said the General; ‘‘your only
duty is to obey.”’

The old General was right. It is our duty
simply to obey our Master’s last and great

“Preach the Gospel to every Creature.”

The Certainty of the Gospel.

The firmest thing in the universe is the cross
on which the world’s Redeemer is crucified.
Though shadows and gloom gathered ’round
that scene of suffering, yet the suffering has
passed, and all gloom and darkness have
passed with it, and higher and brighter than
the sun, shines forth the transfigured face of
our ascended Lord. No eclipse will ever
shadow this effulgent truth: ‘‘Whoso be-
lieveth in me shall have eternal life, and I
will raise him up at the last day.’? We come
to-day unto the cross of Christ, and lay our
hands upon his eternal strength. ‘Thousands
before us have done it, and have found rest.
Tremulous age has trusted here, and lost its
weakness. Penitence has resorted here, and
found its confidence. Suffering has fled here
for help, and discovered its strength. Tens,
hundreds and thousands of thousands, when
passing through the prostration and mystery
of death, have turned an eye, and put forth
a hand, to the cross of Him who was lifted up
to draw all men unto Him, and smiles of con-
fidence have driven away the shadows of the
grave. Come to-day, and lay your hand upon
the cross and say, ‘‘I know whom I have be-
lieved, and that He is able to keep that I have

command: ‘‘Preach the Gospel to every i ; *
_-ereature!’’ We can then leave the results to | Committed unto Him against that day.’’ Stand
Him. He-says, ‘‘He that believeth and is by the cross, and leaning upon its strength,

exclaim, ‘‘I am pursuaded that neither death
nor life . . . nor things present, nor things to
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.’’—Selected.

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baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth
not shall be damned.’’, Not all accepted the
Gospel when it was brought to them by the
apostles. -And the heathen world is no better
to-day than it was in their times. We often
read in missionary papers that the heathen
world is standing on the tiptoe of eager ex-
pectation, pleading with outstretched hand for
the coming of the missionary to remove their
/ blindness. But the eloquence which describes
/the heathen as begging for the bread of life
‘is nonsense. Our pastors laboring among
Germans, and Americans, and Norwegians,
and other so-called Christian nations find hard
{ work; and the colored people down South,
and the heathen in ‘China, and Africa, and
‘India, and on the islands, are no more inclined
pean other people to turn to God from idols,
to serve the living and true God, and to wait
. ‘for His Son from heaven. ‘The mind of the
flesh in them also is enmity against God, and
nothing but the power of the Holy Ghost can
subdue this enmity, as with sinners among so-
called Christian nations. But the Holy Ghost
does His work through the Word of God and
the Sacraments. Therefore those means of

The “Prayer-Sticks” of the Pueblo Indians.

How, many of my young countrymen who
have read of the ‘‘prayer-wheels’’ of Burmah,
and the paper prayers of the Chinese, know
that there is a mechanical prayer used by
thousands of people in the United States?
The Pueblo ‘‘prayer-stick”’ is quite as curious
a device as those’of the heathen Orient; and
the feather is the chief part of it.

Prowling in sheltered ravines about any
Pueblo town, the curiosity-seeker will find,
stuck in the ground, carefully whittled sticks,
each with a tuft of downy feattiers (generally
white) bound at the top.

Each of these sticks is a peayereaa none
the less earnest and sincere because so mis-
guided. Around the remote pueblo of Zuni
I have counted over three thousand of these

strange invocations in one day’s ramble; but
never a tithe as many by any other pueblo.
According to the nature of the prayer, the

stick, the feathers, and the manner of tying
them vary. ‘The Indian who has a favor to
ask of the Trues prepares his feather-prayer
with great solemnity and secrecy, takes it to
& proper spot, prays to all those above, and
plants the prayer-stick that it may continue
his petition after he has gone home.

GC. F. Lummis, in April St. Nicholas.

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Pigs for Service.

In his work ‘‘The Miracles of Missions,’’
Rey. A. T. Pierson thus describes an offering
of the South Sea Islanders: On one occasion
Mr. Williams explained the manner in which
English Christians raised money to send the
Gospel to the heathen, and the natives ex-
pressed great regret at not having money that
they might help in the same good work of caus-
ing the Word of God to grow. Mr. Williams
replied ‘If you have no money you have
something that. takes the place of’ money;
something to buy money with.’”’ He then re-
ferred to the pigs that he had brought to the
island on his first visit, and which had so in-
creased that every family possessed them;
and he suggested that if every family in the
island would set apart a pig for causing the
Word of God to grow, and when the ships
came would sell the pigs for money, a large
offering might be raised. The natives were
delighted with the idea, and the next morning
the squealing of the pigs which were receiving
the ‘‘the mark of the Lord’’ in their ears, were
heard from one end of the settlement to the
other. On Mr. Williams’ return to the island
the native treasurer put into his hands one
hundred and three pounds, the product of the
sales. It was the first money they had ever
possessed, and every farthing of it was given
to the cause of Christ.

A Christian loves Mission Work.

Dr. Luther says: ‘‘It is a Christian heart’s
desire and delight to see many people come
to the grace of God, and with them to render
praise and thanksgiving to God. For such
a desire mightily awakens the spirit of prayer
and supplication. A Christian can not help
feeling concern for all people and praying and
sighing for them, that the name of God be
hallowed and His kingdom come, and that the
lies of Satan be everywhere put to shame and
his rule over the poor souls be checked and
destroyed.” ;
2+ <6 pp

Tue wealthy miser lives as'a poor man here:
but he must give account as a rich man in the
day of judgment.

‘As soon as God makes a man a Christian
by faith, Satan loses a subject and finds an
enemy. °