The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1898, Page 21

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PusBLISHED BY THE HyancELIcAL LuTHERAN SynopicaL CoNFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

Entered at the Post Of_ice at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. XX.

St. Louis, Mo., June, 1898.

No. 6.

Let us pray for one another.

Let us pray for one another,
For so many hearts are aching,
And so many hearts are breaking,
And so many eyes are drenched with falling tears.
And so many feet are straying,
Loving hopes so long delaying,
As they hasten down the passage-way of years.

Let us pray for one another,
For the sands of life are falling,
And the evening bells are calling,
And the end of all things earthly soon will come;
So we’ll share cach other’s sorrow,
Waiting for that bright to-morrow,
When God’s children rest together, safe at home.
Selected.
———— + oe

Peace.

Man, as he is by nature, is at war with God;
for man is a sinner, and sin is a transgression
of God’s holy law, a rebellion against the Al-
mighty, who is ‘‘not a God that hath pleasure
in wickedness.’? He that continues in this
war against God and dies at enmity with God
is lost eternally, for ‘‘the wages of sin is
death.’’

But God does not desire the death of the
sinner. ‘‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I
have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,
but that the wicked turn from his way and
live,”” Ezek. 38, 11. Therefore God sent His
Son into the world to make peace by bearing
man’s sin and suffering the penalty of sin in
man’s stead. The lost, guilty, helpless sinner
could not make peace ; but, praises forever to
the infinite love that gave the Saviour, God
Himself ‘‘made peace through the blood of
His cross,’”” Col. 1,20. Therefore it is written
of Christ, “‘He is our Peace.’? He put away
sin by being made a sacrifice for sin. Thus
He satisfied the demands of God’s justice and
holiness, and reconciled God with man. He
put away every obstacle, removed every bar-
tier that was between the sinner and God.

Peace then is made, made long before we
were born, made more than eighteen hundred
years ago, and the Gospel is the proclamation
of that peace unto the ends of the earth.

“God was in Christ, reconciling the world |.

unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses

unto them; and hath committed unto us the
word of reconciliation. Now then we are am-
bassadors for Christ, as though God did be-
seech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s
stead, be ye reconciled to God,’’ 2 Cor. 5,
19. 20. Thus God proclaims and offers peace
to all sinners in the Gospel. He that accepts
the good news as true, and true for himself,
has peace with God. ‘Therefore being justi-
fied by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ,’’ says St. Paul.

This peace is a settled and everlasting peace;
for it rests not upon what we do or feel, but
upon that which Christ has done for us. What
can shake the peace which rests upon the fin-
ished, the perfect, the accepted work of Jesus?
Surely nothing.

‘Tis everlasting peace,
Sure as Jehoyah’s name;
’Tis stable as His steadfast throne,
Forevermore the same.
My love is oft-times low;
My joy still ebbs and flows;
But peace with Him remains the same,
No change Jehovah knows.” ~

——> - o> —e—_

Heaven.

Heaven is where Christ is. It would not be
heaven if Jesus were not there. When the
heavens opened to Stephen’s dying vision, he
saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
He saw Jesus, and when he saw Him, he saw
heaven.

A little colored boy, when on his deathbed,
was visited by a missionary, to whom he spoke
of the happiness he enjoyed and the longing
desire he had to be with Jesus. ‘‘I am going
to heaven soon; and then I shall see Jesus,
and be with Him forever,’’ said the little fel-
low. ‘‘But,”’ said the missionary, “‘if Jesus
were to leave heaven, what would you do?’’
“J would follow Him,”’ replied the boy. ‘‘But,
suppose,’’ said the missionary, ‘‘Jesus went to
hell, what would you do?” In an instant,
with an intelligent look and a smile upon his
face, he replied, ‘‘Ah, Massa! there’s no hell
where Jesus is.’’

Truly, he had caught a view of heaven’s at-
tractiveness— Jesus, Jesus only.

Christ’s Gift of Peace.

Can I do anything for you?’’ said an
officer on the battle-field to a wounded soldier
who lay weltering in his blood. ‘‘Nothing,
thank you.”’ “Shall I bring you a little water?”’
“No, I thank you; I am dying; there is one
favor you can do for me. In my knapsack
there you will find a Testament. Please open
it to the fourteenth chapter of John, and you
will find a verse that begins with the word
‘peace.’ Please read it to me.’’ The officer
got out the book and read, ‘‘Peace I leave
with you, My peace I give unto you; not as
the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not
your heart be troubled, neither let it be
afraid.’’ ‘Thank you, sir,’’ said the dying
man. “I have got that peace; I am going to
that Saviour; I want nothing more.’’ In a
few minutes his fluttering spirit had flown
away homeward to its everlasting rest. He
had come into possession of the precious
legacy his Saviour had given him.

—_1 + <0

The Bible by Heart.

We know a dear Christian woman, for many
years an invalid and great sufferer, to whom
many sleepless nights are appointed, who many
years ago ‘‘got by heart’? the book of Psalms;
and so she can say with the Psalmist, ‘‘In the
night His song shall be with me;’’ ‘“‘My soul
shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful
lips, when I remember Thee upon my bed,
and meditate on Thee in the night-watches ;””
“Mine eyes prevent the night-watches, that
I might meditate on Thy word.”’ How would
she spend her dark vigils without this mid-
night lamp?

And was it not well for that boy of Romish
parents, but taught in a Protestant Sunday-
school, whose New Testament the priest threw
into the fire, that he was able to say, ‘“Thank
God, I have learned seven chapters of St. Mat-
thew that he could not burn.”’

2 +o

‘Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips
from speaking guile.’’ Ps. 34, 13.