The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1896, Page 11

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

ii

We are holding services at present in a pri-
yate house. If we are to carry on the work
successfully, we ought to have a chapel of our
own. May the many friends of the ‘‘Negro
Mission’? soon enable the Board to help us
build the so much needed house to hold our
servicesin. We just want a plain neat chapel,
something that will cost two or three hundred
dollars. If we do not work-this field now,
some other denomination will; for we have
many opponents in our mission field. There-
fore we must work diligently and avail our-

selves of every opportunity that presents itself.
Yours for the Lord and the Church,
: Missionary,
Charlotte, N. C.

4 ono

- The Child Martyr.

Iam sure your young readers will be in-
terested in a story about a boy only nine years
of age, who, rather than deny Christ, suffered
the death of a brave young martyr. It was at
Antioch, where the disciples were first called
Christians, that a deacon from the church of
Cesarea was suffering dreadful tortures that
he might be forced to deny the Lord that
bought him with His own precious blood.
This martyr said: ‘I believe there is but one
God and one mediator between God and man.”
His body was almost torn in pieces. At last he
said: ‘‘Call.a little child who has been..truly.
converted and let him decide whether it would
be better to worship one God, the Maker of
heaven and earth, and one Saviour, who died
on the cross for us, or to worship the gods
many and the lords many whom the Romans
Served.??

Just then a Christian Roman mother, who
had come to look upon the dreadful sufferings
of the martyr, drew near with her little boy
nine years of age. The question was asked
the child, and he quickly replied: ‘‘God is
one, and Jesus Christ is one with the Father.’

The prosecutor heard these words and was
filled with rage. ‘‘O base and wicked Chris-
tian mother,’’ he said, ‘‘thou hast taught this
child to answer thus.’? Then, turning to the
boy, he said: ‘Tell me, child, who taught
you thus to speak! How did you learn this
faith?’

The boy looked lovingly into his mother’s
face. ‘(My mother taught me that Jesus Christ
loved little children, and died on the cross,
and so I learned to love Him for His love
to me.”

‘SAh,”? said the cruel judge, ‘‘we will see
what the love of Christ can do for you,’’ and
at a sign the officers who stood ready with
their rods, after the fashion of the Romans,
instantly seized’ the boy, and laid their heavy
blows upon his bleeding back.

“Now we will see,’ cried the judge, ‘‘what
the love of Christ can do for him.”

As the blood Was streaming from the ten-
der flesh of the dear boy, his mother replied :

‘‘The love of Jesus enables him to endure what | Again the man did as requested, half-amused,

his Master endured for him and for us all.’’

Again they smote the child, not only to tor-
ture him, but his mother also, and the cruel
judge asked again: ‘‘What can the love of
Christ do for him now?”

Many eyes were filled with tears as the
mother answered: ‘‘It teaches him to forgive
his persecutors.’’ =

When he was told that if he would deny
Christ they would cease to lay upon him the
cruel blows that were fast driving the life from
his body, he answered: ‘‘There is no other
God but one, and Jesus Christ is the Redeemer
of the world. He loves me and I love Him,
and I am soon going to live with Him forever
in heaven.’

At length the child fainted, and one of
these cruel murderers tossed the boy’s man-
gled body into the arms of his mother, crying:
‘See what the love of your Christ has done
for him.’’

Pressing him gently to her own crushed
heart, the mother answered: ‘‘That love will
take him from the wrath of man to the peace
of heaven.”

“Mother,” cried the dying boy, ‘‘give me
a drop of water from our cool well upon my
tongue.’’ And then the little martyr’s voice
was silent. :

The mother said: ‘‘Already thou hast tasted
of the well which springeth up ‘to everlasting
life.. I, ere long, will follow after. thee.”

The dear boy then gently opened his eyes
as if he had just returned from heaven for a
moment, and looked to where the elder mar-
tyr was suffering in the agonies of death, and
said: ‘There is but one God and one Saviour
who died for us on the cross.” EE. P. H.

sor oro

He gave Himself.

An exchange recently printed an anecdote
of a brave little Scotch fellow, who made a
resolve, and, we believe, kept it, too.

Many years ago in Scotland, the story runs,
a boy went one day to a missionary meeting.
His heart was deeply stirred when he heard
about people who did not know of Jesus. He
determined that he would be a missionary
himself when he grew up. When the mecting
was about to close there was a notice given
that a collection would be taken at the door.
Now the boy had not a cent in his pocket,
and as he was ashamed to go out and not
make any contribution, he hung behind the
rest of the people, hoping that the collectors
would do their work and depart before he
should appear. But as he was stealing toward
the door one of the men heard him, and turn-
ing back held the plate toward him. The boy
stood still for a moment and then looked at
the man, and then said quietly:

‘Please hold it a little lower, sir.’ The
man complied with the request. ,

‘Lower still, sir,’? said the boy sgain.

half-curious.

“You'd better put it on the ground,’ per-
sisted the boy; and when this direction was
followed he stepped into the plate and glanced
up with a smile.

“It’s all I have to give, sir,’’ he said, ‘but
if God will let me, I will be a missionary
some day.”

And there was nobody in all the church
that day who gave so much as the lad with
nothing in his pockets.

—> -o-<0 + —__

“What a Cooked Ox has to Preach.”

A young missionary of the Berlin Society
had, after the country fashion, slaughtered
an ox and invited a great throng of Caffres
to his wedding feast.

‘After it the Christians march home sing-
ing, heartily thanking us for the delightful
feast, which we have made ready for them.
I also rejoice. My feast-ox also delivers his
sermon; he discourses of the untroubled joy
of the Christians. Heathen feasts mostly end
in wailing and woe. ‘The Christian enjoys
himself before, during, and after the feast—
that is, if it is really celebrated in the Lord.
The heathen also openly declare so many men
they had never before seen eating together.
And what astonished them most, all, they
said, had been so joyous and likeminded. One
heathen does not trust another, not even him
who has bidden him to the feast. Therefore,
when they slaughter, the flesh is divided and
shared out, and every one cooks and eats at
home. There with us now all the flesh was
cooked at once and consumed in brotherly
fellowship. One trusts the other. Even the
heathen forget with Mynheer their fear of the _
food of strangers, and eat and trust Mynheer
and his Christians.”’ .

—_s+ o-oo

“Do You Know Jesus?”

‘Do you know Jesus?”? The question was
put to a pious young wife, who, having~been
suddenly stricken down by typhus fever, lay
sick unto death, and unconscious of every
loving friend by whom she was surrounded.

Languidly opening her dying eyes, she re-
sponded, whilst a bright smile played upon
her lips: ‘‘Jesus—Jesus—0O, yes, I do know
Jesus; why, He has long been my dearest
friend! Know Jesus? why, He is my Saviour:
He is close to me now, close here, quite close.
Let me clasp the hand of one who talks to me
of my friend, my brother.’”’

After a short illness of four days she was
called home to be with Christ.

Ir may be true that we ‘‘make no note of
time, but by its loss.’” We should mark it by
its eternal gain, for ‘‘now is our salvation
nearer than when we began.’’