The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1900, Page 19

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The Lutheran Pioneer. 19

it is true or right is plainly making a play-
thing of an oath. How can you swear to some-
thing where you are not even certain that you
‘can say « plain ‘‘Yes’’ to it? Herod thus once
played with an oath (Matt. 14, 6—9), and in
consequence of doing so he became a mur-
derer. And when in our days men in joining
“secret societies’ swear that they will not re-
veal the secrets they may there learn and that
they will faithfully uphold all the principles
of their lodge, they likewise grossly sin against
the Second Commandment; for how do they
know that everything is right before it is told
them what the secrets and rules are ?— Equally
sinful is it to swear to do something which is
in itself a sin. Such an oath some Jews once
took when they swore that they would not eat
and drink until they had killed Paul (Acts
23, 12). Such oaths are also to-day taken
by the anarchists and people of like stamp.
It may also happen that you in the heat of
anger be tempted to swear to do something
that is sinful. May God then help you, how-
ever, that you add not sin to sin by keeping
such an oath!—JIt is also sinful to swear in
Jrivolous things. An oath is too solemn a
thing to be used in our ordinary, everyday con-
versation. In your ordinary business trans-
actions ‘‘let your communication be, Yea, yea;
Nay, nay; for whatever is more than these
cometh of evil’’ (Matt. 5,37). The man who

. Swears upon every occasion is not to be trusted,
and the man that demands an oath in trivial
matters is just as untrustworthy.

What swearing is permitted, and even en-
joined? Answer: Whenever the glory of God
and the welfare of our neighbor demands it.
Thus Jesus swore when adjured by Caiaphas
(Matt. 26, 63. 64), and Eliezer swore to faith-
fully carry out the command of Abraham (Gen.
24, 3).— When the soldier swears to faithfully
defend the flag of his country, and the judge
takes the oath of office they are doing nothing
wrong. It is by no means wrong when the
court demands us to swear on the witness-
stand (Hebr. G, 16). Deut. 6,13 we read in
plain words: ‘‘Thou shalt fear the Lord thy
God, and serve Him, and shalt swear by His
name.’’ Let us only see to it that when we
take an oath, it be in the fear of the Lord
and in His service, then such an oath will be
well pleasing unto Him. ¥F.J.L.

—s +o e  e

“The Book of Heaven.”

Rey. Edgerton R. Young, the missionary to
the Indians in the far northwest wilderness of
British America, tells in one of his addresses
this touching story:

“Often have I been ashamed of the little-
ness of my love by the devotion of these In-
dians, and their love for the Bible. Let me
give you an incident. One of our Indians,
With his son, came away down from the dis-
tant hunting-grounds to fish on the shores of
Our Great Lakes. This man and his son came

down to fish, and they made splendid fish-
eries, put up the white fish on a staging where
the foxes and wolves could not reach them,
and one night the father said, ‘My son, we
leave to-morrow morning early ; put the Book
of Heaven in your pack; we go back one hun-
dred and forty miles to our distant hunting-
ground to join the mother and the others in
the wigwam home.’
his Bible in his pack, so that they might take
it home.
said to the young man, ‘Nephew, lend me the
Book of Heaven that I may read a little; I
have loaned mine.’ So the pack was opened,
and the Bible taken out; the man read for a
time, and then threw the Bible back among
the blankets and went out.

So the young man put

Later on, along came an uncle and

“The next morning the father and son

started very early on their homeward jour-
ney. They strapped on their snow-shoes and
walked seventy miles, dug a hole in the snow
at night, and had prayers and lay down and
slept.
after prayers, they pushed on and made
seventy miles more, and reached home. That
night the father said to his son, ‘Give me the
Book of Heaven, that the mother and the rest
may read the Word and have prayers.’ As the
son opened the pack, he said, ‘Uncle asked
for the book two nights ago, and it was not
put back.’ The father was disappointed, but
said little.
put a few cooked rabbits in his pack, and
away he started. He walked that day seventy
miles and reached the camp where he and his
son had stopped two nights before. The next
day he had made the other seventy miles, and
reached the lake and found his Bible in his

The next morning, bright and early,

The next morning he rose early,

brother’s wigwam. The next morning he
started again, and walking in the two days
one hundred and forty miles, was back at
home once more. That Indian walked on
snow-shoes two hundred and eighty miles
through the wild forest of the Northwest to
regain his copy of the Word of God. Would
we do that much to regain our Bibles? Oh, the
power of the Gospel! It can go down very
low and reach men deeply sunk in sin, and
can save them, and make them devout stu-
dents and great lovers of the blessed Book!”’
Selected.

oe

The Infidel.

A young clerk in a large Virginia bank was
the leader of an infidel club. He was sent to
Kentucky on horseback with more than one
hundred thousand dollars in bank-bills. He
was obliged to go through a part of the coun-
try where highway robbery and murder were
frequent, so he arranged to go through by day-
light, but took the wrong road, lost his way,
wandered blindly through the darkness, until
at ten o’clock he found himself in a wretched-
looking cabin. He was terrified lest he was
in the home of one of the robbers, who were
the terror of the country. The woman gave

him some supper, and proposed that he retire.
But he would not. He examined his pistols,
and determined to sell his life dearly. The
man of the house returned. He was a fierce-
looking hunter, wearing a deer-skin hunting
shirt and bear-skin cap, and much fatigued,
and in no talking mood, all of which boded
no good. He replied, ‘‘No, I will sit by the
fire all night.”’ He was terribly alarmed, and
expected this would be his last night. His in-
fidel principles gave him no comfort. His
fears grew to agony.

The backwoodsman rose, reached over the
stranger’s head to a little shelf, took down an
old book, and said: ‘‘Well, stranger, if you
won’t go to bed, I will, but I always read a
chapter of Holy Scripture before I rest.’’

| Alarm was at once removed. The infidel had

now full confidence in the Bible. He was safe.
The man who kept an old Bible in the house,
and read it, and bent his knees, would do him
no harm. He listened to the prayers of the
Christian, dismissed his fears, laid down in the
rude cabin and slept as calmly as under his
father’s roof. — Selected.

+ + 2 i oe

“Somebody Forgets.”

A little boy, living in the most poverty-
stricken section of a great city, found his way
into a mission school and became a Christian.
One day not long after, some one tried to
shake the child’s faith by asking him some
puzzling questions. ‘‘If God really loves you,
why doesn’t He take better care of you? Why
doesn’t He tell somebody to send you a pair
of shoes, or else coal enough so that you can
keep warm this winter?”’

The boy thought a moment and then said,
as the tears rushed to his eyes, ‘‘I guess He
does tell somebody, and somebody forgets.”’

The saddest thing about the answer is its
truth. God is not unmindful of His little ones.
Whether they are in want of fire or food or
advice or sympathy, He calls us to supply
the things that are needed. He tells us that
every act of kindness or helpfulness done to
the least or lowest of His creatures He will
count as done to. Him. But not all of His
purposes are carried out; often because we
choose our own pleasure rather than His will,
often because somebody forgets.

Somebody forgets! That is one of the rea-
sons for the pinched faces we see sometimes,
and which haunt us for days after, for half
clad, shivering bodies and for cheerless homes.
That is one of the reasons why there are chil-
dren in this dear land of ours who have never
heard Christ’s name except in curses. It is
the explanation for more than half the sin and
sorrow of this world. Is it not high time for
each of us to ask the question, ‘‘Am I among
those who forget ?’’ — Selected.

_—_—_—— - oe

He that walks most with Christ will know
most of the glory of Christ.