The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1898, Page 37

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Ghe Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY

MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED BY THE HVANGELICAL LuTHERAN SynopicaL CoNFERENCE OF Nortu AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XX.

St. Louis, Mo., October, 1898.

No. 10.

Luther’s Grief for his Daughter Lena.

Death comes with cold and icy hand

To every home, in every land;

Sometimes when at the least we think,
Some loved one passes o’er the brink.
And so it was in Luther’s home,

A lovely flower, not yet full blown.

One day when all the doors were shut,
Death came and plucked the precious bud.

’Twas in October, long ago

When autumn winds began to blow,
Just when the leaves began to drop,
Poor Luther’s Lena went to God.
She was the sweetest of the fold,
He loved her dearly, we are told;
But when he knew that she must go,
He said, ‘‘The Father wills it so.”’

He asked her would she like to stay

Or would she rather fly away?

Then, while cold death her bosom chills,
She said, ‘‘Dear father, as God wills.”
And while she lingered, while she slept
He fell upon his knees and wept;

He prayed that her death might be sweet,
And In his arms she fell asleep.

Then quietly the angels came
And carried her across the plain;
While Luther weeps, and sobs, and sighs
His Lena floats beyond the skies.
“ve sent a Saint to Heaven,’’ he says,
*fA lovely Spirit, saved by grace;
There in the harbor of sweet rest,
Her Soul shall be forever blest.”
L. A. Barr.

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Forgiveness of Sins.

He that has not forgiveness of sins is a most
wretched and unhappy man. Heis still under
the wrath of a just and holy God and walks in
the way that leads to everlasting damnation.
But ‘‘blessed are they whose iniquities are for-
given and whose sins are covered. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute
sin,” Rom. 4, 7. 8.

It is, therefore, -of the greatest importance
to know how to get forgiveness of sins. Many
are misled by the false doctrine of the Roman
church, which teaches that forgiveness of sins
18 obtained by man’s own works and right-
Cousness. ‘‘The papists,”? says Luther, ‘‘have,
by this wicked and blasphemous doctrine, not

only darkened the Gospel, but have taken it
clean away, and have buried Christ utterly.’’
It was through Dr. Luther that the Gospel
was brought to light again and that Christ was
again preached as the Saviour of sinners, in
whom alone forgiveness of sins is found.

In order to get forgiveness of sins, Luther
went the way pointed out in the Roman Cath-
olic church. He entered the cloister, he
prayed, he fasted, he was most zealous in
what were called good works. None more
zealous, none more earnest than he! But all
in vain. Peace and forgiveness of sins can
never be found in the way which the Roman
Catholic church teaches, but only in the way
which the Bible teaches.

When Luther was near despair, God opened
to him the Holy Scriptures and brought him
to a knowledge of the Gospel, from which he
learned that forgiveness of sins is a free gift
of God’s grace in Christ, the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sins of the world. Luther
believed in his Saviour, and thus found for-
giveness of sins, peace, and everlasting life.
His soul was filled with joy, and the Gospel
which gave forgiveness, and joy, and peace,
and rest to him he made known with voice
and pen and defended it against all its ene-
mies. Thus he became ‘the Reformer of the
Church, through whom God again made known
to the world the Gospel which had been hid-
den for centuries under the rubbish of human
doctrines.

There is no other way to obtain forgiveness
of sins than the Gospel way which the Bible
reyeals and which Luther taught. Christ
‘tbore our sins in His own body on the tree.”’
Therefore ‘tin Christ we haye redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins,
according to the riches of His grace,’”’ Eph.
1,7. By His life, sufferings, and death Christ
redeemed all sinners from sin and all its woe,
and procured for all forgiveness of sin. This
forgiveness is offered to every sinner in the
Gospel. He that believes the Gospel accepts
the pardon offered to him by God Himself.
The moment he believes, his sins are for-
given. By that faith he is united to Jesus,
and is accepted as Jesus is accepted, and
loved as Jesus is loved, and righteous as Jesus

is righteous. His sins God will remember no
more. He blots them out like a thick cloud.
He casts them as it were into the depths of
the sea. ‘‘Blessed is the man to whom God
will not impute sin.’’

Are you one of those blessed children of
God? Do you believe that your sins are
washed away in the blood of Christ and-for-
given for His sake? If you have forgiveness of
sins through faith in Jesus, you are a blessed
child of God and an heir of heaven. ‘‘For
where there is forgiveness of sin, there is also
life and salvation.”’

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Turning - Points.

“The entrance of thy words giveth light.”— Psatm 119, 130.

A profane shopman crams into his pocket
a leaf of a Bible, and reads the last words of
Daniel: ‘‘Go thou thy way, till the end be,
for thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the
end of the days,’’ and begins to think what
his own lot will be when days are ended.

A Goettingen professor opens s big-printed
Bible to sec if he has eyesight enough to read
it, and alights on the passage, ‘‘I will bring
the blind by a way that they knew not,’’ and
in reading it the eyes of his understanding are
enlightened.

Cromwell’s soldier opens his Bible to see
how far the musket ball has pierced, and finds
it stopped at the verse, ‘‘Rejoice, O young
man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer
thee in the days of thy youth; and walk in
the ways of thine heart and the sight of thine
eyes; but know thou that for all these things
God will bring thee into judgment.”

And in a frolic the Kentish soldier opens a
Bible which his broken-hearted mother had
sent him, and the first sentence that is seen is
the text so familiar in boyish days, ‘‘Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden,’”’ and the weary profligate prepares for
rest to Jesus.

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Says Luther: ‘The slanderer has the devil

on his tongue, but he who listens has him in”

his ear. There is not much difference!”?

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