The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1895, Page 3

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

The Lutheran Pioneer.

New Year’s Greeting.

“Not as the world giveth,
Give I to you!”’
° Saith the Redeemer,
Faithful and true;
May He enrich thee,
This New Year’s Day,
With gifts from His treasure
That pass not away.

++ <> oe

A Story of a Useful Life.

As we enter a new year, let us remember
that there is work for every one. God has
given each his talents, and be they many or

* few, He wants us to use them according to our
ability. You need not brood over any infir-
mity of yours and be sad because you can not
be of any use to your fellow-men. Let me tell
you the story of a crippled cobbler who led
a very useful life.

He lived at Portsmouth, England, and was
the son of a poor laborer in the royal dock-
yards. As soon as the boy’s hands could be
set at anything, he had to help his father in the
yards. After working thus for fifteen years,
he fell one day, was lamed for life, could work
no more in royal dockyards. Fortunately his
hands were still free and strong. Yes; he
would rest his lameness on the bench of a shoe-
maker and use his hands in cobbling shoes.
From that time on-that-was his work. He-was
a mender of old shoes. He did not even rise
to be a maker of new shoes. But he did some-

. thing far better. He had a nephew, one of the
children of poverty and lame as he was. He
took him in. He undertook to bring him up.
He began to teach him regularly the little he

‘knew himself. Then the thought struck him
—Why could he not teach two children as well

‘as one; why not three, four, five, six and so
on of the children who could get no better
schooling than the streets? The son of a poor
woman who sold sweetmeats was his second
pupil. Soon he got in others—the worst chil-
dren of a bad neighborhood. Finally, he had
a class of something like forty; girls on one
side, boys on the other of his cobbler’s bench.
His little room could hold no more. Then, as
he hammered and stitched at his worn shoes,
he taught his children. He was too poor to
buy books for them. - They were too poor to
buy books for themselves. ‘orn pieces of
hand-bills for teaching letters, a few slates
for teaching writing and figuring—such was
the best he could muster. But he was quite
inyentive in his way of teaching. He would
gently strike a child on the hand. ‘‘What is
this??? he would ask the child. ‘My hand,’
the child would say. ‘“‘Spell it,’? he would re-
quire, and so, making lesson books of familiar
things, the child would get on. He also taught
his children how to cook, to mend their shoes ;
cared for their health, too, had all sorts of
Temedies for cuts, scalds, bruises, chilblains;
Saw that his children should haye good play-

| he forget the children’s souls.

mates also; made for them balls, bows, arrows,
many playthings with his own hands. Nor did
He told them
Bible stories, taught them of God and Christ
and the way to heaven by faith in the Saviour
of sinners.

So the years went on, and many a class of
street arabs graduated from this school of the
cobbler’s shop. Meantime he earned his daily
bread by steadily mending shoes.

Well, he had grown to be sixty-two years
old, and there was only one fear that troubled
him, that old age and sickness would keep him
from doing his work. ‘‘How I wish you were
rich,’’ a lady said to him one day. ‘‘I don’t
know, ma’am,’’ he answered; ‘‘but this I do
know, there can’t be in all England a happier
man than I; and I am sure everything is for
the best.?’

On the Christmas eve of the year 1838, with
that one fear shadowing him, he said to some
one: ‘‘I have but one wish now, that when
I grow too old to support myself_and to work
at my school, I may die suddenly, just as a
bird drops off its perch.’? Well, on the New
Year’s Day of 1839, this cobbler was at the
house of a gentleman, talking about his school
and was holding in his hand one of his pupil’s
slates, which he was showing. Like a lightning
flash, smitten with apoplexy, he fell dead on
the floor. So God had granted his wish.

In his cobbler shop the little school children
‘were waiting for the return of their beloved
friend and master. He came back, but only
as he was carried back. Ah, the sobs that re-
sounded in the cobbler’s shop that day! They
say that for many days afterward groups of
his scholars were still wandering up and down
in front.of his house; they could not believe
that the door would open to them no more;
that they would never again see their friend
waiting for them with his smiling face at that
threshold. But the seed ‘this poor cobbler
planted did not die, if he must. The growth
of charitable schools for outcast children in
Great Britain springs from the seed he planted
in his cobbler’s shop in the poor and narrow
street. It was John Pounds, the crippled
cobbler of Portsmouth, Englind, who planted
the seed and did this needful missionary work.

2 oo -

The. Two Passengers.

On the train were two passengers, both
strangers, and yet both interesting to the ob-
server. Onc had handcuffs on his wrists, and
although he sometimes laughed, there was no
joy in his heart, and nolightinhisface. Every
one that looked upon him thought, ‘*He is go-
ing to prison! Poor fellow!”

The other -passenger had packages in his
arms, and a happy look on his face as if ex-
pecting something pleasant, anda restlessness
in his manner which showed that he was glad
the train sped on so swiftly. Every one that
Jooked upon him thought, ‘‘He’s going home,
and his home-going is happy!”” ;

These passengers remind us of the two
classes that we meet everywhere on life’s jour-
ney. The one, bound in chains of sin and evil
habit, are going to prison; the other, with
joys and hopes and treasures and dear friends
on ahead, are simply going home, and the joy
of the home-going lights up the heart and the
face, even here, where they are pilgrims and
strangers, and their lives declare plainly that
they are seeking a better land. They are on
the way to the mansions in their Father’s
house.

To which of the two classes do you belong?

> - ome oe

My Bible.

The late Dr. Tyng says: ‘‘I once called to
visit a dying lady in Philadelphia; I had knelt
often in prayer with her. Her husband was
an atheist, an English atheist, a cold-hearted
English atheist. There is no such being be-
side him on the face of the globe. That was
her husband. On the day on which that sweet
Christian woman died she put her hand under
her pillow and took out a beautiful, well-worn,
tear-moistened Bible. She called her husband,
and he came, and she said, ‘Do you know this
little book?’ And he answered, ‘It is your
Bible.’ And she replied: ‘It is my Bible; it
has been everything to me; it has converted,
strengthened, cheered and saved me; now
I am going to Him who gave it to me, andI
shall want it no more; open your hands.’ And
she put it between his two hands and pressed
them together about it. ‘My dear husband,
do you know what I am doing?’ ‘Yes, dear, -
you are giving me your Bible.’ ‘No, darling,
Iam giving you your Bible, and God has sent
me to give you this sweet book before I die.
Now put it in your bosom. Will you keep it
there? Will you read it, for me?’ ‘I will,
my dear.’ : :

“J placed,’’ said Dr. Tyng, ‘‘this dear lady
dead in the tomb behind my church. Perhaps
three weeks afterward that husband came to
my study, weeping profusely. ‘Oh, my friend,’
said he, ‘my friend, I have found what she
meant—it is my Bible, every word of it was
written for me. I read it over night by night;
I bless God, it is my Bible. Will you take me
into your church where she was?’ ‘With all
my heart.’ And that once proud, worldly,
hostile man, hating this blessed Bible, came
with no arguments, with no objections, with
no difliculties suggested, with no questions to
unravel, but binding this word on his heart of
memory and love. It was God’s message of
direct salvation to his soul, as direct as if there
was not another Bible in Philadelphia, and an
angel from heaven had brought him this.””

Haye you such a book, reader? One you
love and study and can clasp to your heart
and say, This is my Bible? We all need just.
such a book. 5 ee

2 oa

Some mourn more the shame which sin

brings, than the sin which brings the shame.