The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1895, Page 10

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"one, two or three years,

__ wild beasts; therefore jt
preach and teach the Word in season and out

10

In Sorrow’s Hour.

Men, faithless, slept
When Jesus wept

In agony.
And let His cry
Unheard go by

In His Gethsemane.

When Christians weep,
God does not sleep;
He stoops to sec
Each falling tear,
Each sigh to hear
In their Gethsemane.

ee

The Season of Lent.

*€In this season of
the year itis customary
for the Church, both
in her hymns and ser-
mons, to dwell espe-
cially upon the passion
of Christ. We also will
follow this custom. In-
deed we consider it
very appropriate that
the narrative of the
sufferings of our Lord
should, at a certain
fixed period ofthe year,
be read in the churches
to the people, word for
word, from beginning
to end, and that it be
fully explained tothem,
so that they may un-
derstand its use, and
derive from it much
consolation. Itis sadly
evident with what ef-
fect the devil resists
the Gospel, though it
be preached daily, and.
how the hearts. grow
cold towards it, so that
they do not amend, but
rather grow worse from
yeartoyear. This dis-
‘tressing fact ought
surely to prompt us to
continue in the preach-
ing of the Word, and
especially of{that part of it which tells of
the suffering and death of Christ. We must
endeavor to have the people know and appre-
ciate this part of the Gospel; nor dare we be
derelict in the performance of thjs duty. If
we would neglectjto preach on this subject
the people would
surely forget it. Eyen we, who continually
busy ourselves with the Word, experience a
decrease of interest in it if we neglect the
perusal of it for a day or two; how great then
would be the injury to the people at large, if
they should miss the preaching of these truths
for 8 year or two? They would become as
is 80 urgent that we

Selected.

ft season. The deyil is ever active in resist-

The Lutheran Pioneer.

SSS “(sss S  —————E—Ee—EE

|ing the eflicacy of the Word, else there would they are outcasts and are not considered worth

jbe many believers, and people would be con-
jverted; for surely it is now preached often

jand clearly.’? — Luther.
i —> +o o>
Sorrowful Childhood.

The Rey. W. F. Gray, of Hankow, China,
| writes a very interesting letter on the subject
jof the sorrowful condition of the children,
|especially of the little girls, of China.
| quote a few extracts from his letter:

In Christian America there are plenty of
good Christian homes where friendless chil-
dren may find love and shelter, but in heathen
China there are very few homes any. better
than the worst tenement house of the slums.
There is no bright side to heathenism for the
children. Orphans and worse than orphans
the most of them are, specially the girls.

Every Chinaman regards it as a great calam-
ity to die without leaving at least one son to
Keep up the family name, and so a high value
is placed on boys. If the parents die they are
readily provided for, and it often happens that
a boy is bound and adopted by some old
people who are so unfortunate as to have no
sons,

But with the girls it is altogether different ;

We

the trouble of raising.

The Chinese have many common sayings,
such as: ‘‘A boy is worth ten times as much
as‘a girl.’ ‘If a girl does no harm it is
enough; you can not expect her te be either
useful or good.’’ A large per cent of the
girls are destroyed in infancy, and many more
cast out to perish unless some kindly disposed
person should chance to take pity on them.

The great majority of Chinese parents do
not care to be troubled with more than one or
two girls at most, and
it is very common for
the mother to drown
the girl babies.

Many women con-
fess, seemingly with a
clear conscience, to
having destroyed in
this way four and five

children.

To prevent this whole-
sale murder and neg-
lect, foundling hospi-
tals have been estab-
lished either by men of
means, or officials, in
most of the large cities.
These hospitals are hor-
rible places, and excite
both pity and indigna-
tion in the minds of
those who visit them.
The poor infants sent
to them receive neither
care nor kindness, and
are barely kept alive on
a kind of porridge made
from rice and water.
Of course many of the
children die, which is
perhaps fortunate, for
dark as this picture is,
the lives of those who
grow up under these

circumstances are
darker still. At the
very best it is a life of
servitude and suffering
without a ray of hope either for the present
or future.

Only a bare beginning has been made by
Christian missionaries, but this beam of light
from the Star of Bethlehem is beginning to
penetrate the spiritual darkness of this great
Empire, ;
—s—+ oo oe

How to do it at Home.

“Doctor,”? said a gentleman to his pastor,
“how can I best train up my boy in the way
he should go???

“By going that way yourself,’ blandly re-
sponded the pastor.

———- <>

Mex of prayer are men of power.