The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1900, Page 31

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

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31

The Queen at the Paper Mill.

A queen was once riding out in her grand
carriage; the horses were tossing their plumes
as if they thought themselves a little better
than common horses, and the footmen were
all decked in red, and fecling that they had
something royal about them. The queen had
always had everything she wanted and so was
quite miserable because she could not think of
& new want to supply, or a new place to visit.

At last she remembered that a new paper
mill had recently been built a few miles out of
the city. Now, she had never seen a paper

mill, and so she determined to visit it; so,
stopping and leaving her carriage a little way
off from it, she walked into it, not as a queen,
but as an unknown common lady. She went in
alone, and told the owner she would like to see
his mill. He was, at the time, in a great
hurry, and did not know it was the
queen. But he said to himself, ‘‘I can
gratify the curiosity of this lady, and
add to her knowledge, and, though I
am very much hurried, yet, I will do
this kindness.’’ He then showed her
all the machinery, how they bleach the
rags and make them white, how they
grind them into pulp, how they make
sheets of paper, and smooth and dry
them, and make them beautiful. The
queen was astonished and delighted.
She would now have something new of
which to think and talk. -

Just as she was on the point of leaving
the mill, she saw a room filled with old,
worn-out, dirty rags. At the door of
the room was u great multitude of poor,
dirty men and women, and children,
bringing old bags on their backs filled
with bits of rags and paper, and parts
of old newspapers, and the like, all
exceedingly filthy. ‘These were rag-pickers,
who had picked these old things out of the
streets and gutters of the great city.

‘(What do you do with all these vile things?”’
said the queen.

“Why, madam, I make paper of them. To
be sure they are not a very profitable stock,
but I can use them, and it keeps these poor
creatures in bread.’’

“But these rags? Why, sir, they are of all
colors, and how do you make them white?”

“Oh, I have the power of taking out all the
dirt, and the old colors. You see that scarlet
and that crimson, yet I can make scarlet and
crimson, the hardest colors to remove, become
white as snow.’”

‘‘Wonderful, wonderful,’’ said the queen.

She then took her leave, but the polite owner
of the mill insisted on walking and seeing her
safe in her carriage. When she got in and
bowed to him with a smile, and he saw all the
grand establishment, he knew it was the queen.

“Well, well,”? said he, ‘‘she has learned
something at any rate. I wish it may be a
lesson in true religion.”’

A few days after the queen saw lying on her
writing-desk a pile of the most beautifully pol-
ished paper she had everseen. On each sheet
were letters of her own name and her own like-
ness. How she did admire it! She found, also,
a note within, which she read. It ran thus:

‘Will my queen be pleased to accept a
specimen of my paper, with the assurance that
every sheet was manufactured out of the con-
tents of those dirty bags which she saw on the
backs of the poor rag-pickers? All the filth
and the colors are washed out, and I trust the
result is such as even a queen may admire.
Will the queen also allow me to say that I
have had many a good sermon preached to me
in my mill? I can understand how our Lord
Jesus Christ can take the poor heathen, the

low, sinful creatures everywhere, viler than
were the rags, and wash them and make them

Colored Lutheran Chapel at Mansura, La.

clean; and how, though their sins be as scar-
let, He can make them whiter than snow ; and,
though they be red like crimson, He can make
them as wool; and can see that He can write
His own name on their foreheads, as the queen
will find her own name on exch sheet of paper;
and I sec how, as these filthy rags may go into
the palace and bé admired, some pvor vile sin-
ner may be washed in the blood of the Lamb,
and be received into the palace of the great
King of heaven.’’ — Selected.

2. eae oe

Hudson Taylor’s Faith.

Hudson Taylor was a man of great faith in
God. His first trip to China as a missionary
was made in a sailing vessel. ‘The ship was
becalmed, so the story runs, close to the shore
of a cannibal island, and, unable to go about,
was slowly drifting shoreward to the savages
who were anticipating a feast. The captain
came to Mr. Taylor and besought him to pray
for help from God.

“J will,’’ said Taylor, ‘provided you set
your sails to catch the breeze.”

The captain declined to make himself a
laughing-stock by unfurling sails in a dead
calm.

Taylor said, ‘‘I will not undertake to pray
for the vessel unless you will prepare the sails.””

It was done. While Taylor was engaged
in prayer there was a knock at the door of
his stateroom. ‘‘Who is there?’

The captain’s voice responded, ‘‘Are you
still praying for wind?’’

‘*Yes.””

‘Well,’ said the captain, ‘‘you’d better
stop praying, for we have more wind than we
can well manage.’’

Sure enough, when but a hundred yards
from shore, a strong wind had struck the sails
of the boat, and the cannibals were cheated
out of their human prey.

———9- + oem e+ |

Praying Over It.

The late Dr. M. D. Hoge, of Riech-
mond, Va., tells of two Christian men
who ‘fell out.”” One heard that the
other was talking against him, and went
to him, and said: ‘‘Will you be kind
enough to tell me my faults to my face,
that I may profit by your Christian can-
dor and try to get rid of them?”’ ‘*Yes,
sir,”’ replied the other, ‘‘I will do it.”
They went aside and the former said:
“Before you commence telling what you
think wrong in me, will you please bow
down with me and let us pray over it,
that my eyes may be opened to see my
faults as you will tell them? You will
lead in the prayer.’’ It was done, and,
when the prayer was over, the man who
had sought the interview said: ‘‘Now
proceed with what you have to complain
of in me.’? But the other replied:
‘After praying over it it looks so little that
it is not worth talking about. The truth is,
I feel now that in going around talking against
you I have been serving the devil myself, and
have need that you pray for me and forgive
me the wrong I have done you.”’

.
ooo

True Courtesy.

The Hon. Daniel Webster was walking with
a friend in Washington, when a colored man
passing by bowed very low to him. Mr. Web-
ster returned as deep an obeisance.

“Do you bow in that way to a darkey?”
asked his friend.

‘Would you have me outdone in politeness
by a negro?” replied the great statesman.

—> —- oe

REMEMBER what Luther said, ‘I know no
other God, and will not know of any other
God, but the Babe in the manger and the
Man of Sorrows on the cross. He, the Son of
the everlasting Father, alone is my God and
Saviour.”” ‘