The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1902, Page 33

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Che Lutheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED BY THE HvaNGELICAL LutweraN SynopicaL CONFERENCE or NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XXIV.

St. Louis, Mo., September, 1902.

No. 9.

Waiting.

They are waiting everywhere,
Where the flelds of earth are fair,
Where the rivers nobly run,

Where the blossoms seek the sun,
Where the hills rise high and grand,
Looking proudly o’er the land—
Waiting! Waiting! Waiting!

They are waiting in the wild,
Sick and weary and defiled,

And the Saviour’s healing Word
They have never, never heard,
Ever hungry and unfed,

Left without the Living Bread—
Waiting! Waiting! Waiting!

Oh, the long, long years are flown,
Since the Master bade His own
Bear the message far and wide
Of a Saviour crucifled;

. Flash the light o’er vale and hill—
Yet they sit in darkness still—

Waiting! Waiting! Waiting!
. Sarah G. Stock.

Waste not Your Days.

Just simply to live, to breathe and eat and
sleep, is not enough; a great deal also depends
upon how you live and pass your days. For
let us remember, my dear friend, the days of
our life are in reality not ours, they do not
belong to us in such a sense as to give us the
right to use them just as we please. We are
not the masters of our own time, and whoever
thinks so is making a great mistake.

+ Who, then, is the master of our time? God.

..-- The days of our life area giftofGod. Every

hour we live is a token of His grace and good-
ness. But this gift of God, our life, is not an
outright gift, it is not our own in the sense
that we may use it as we will, but it is rather
a gift over which God has placed us as stew-
ards. Being, then, stewards of our days, it
is plain that some day we shall be called upon
to give account of our stewardship. There
will be a day when God will ask us to give ac-
count of every year, month, week, day, hour,
minute, and second that we have lived. Have
you ever earnestly thought of this, dear reader,
that a day will come, is, perhaps, even now
not far distant, when every wasted minute will
have to be accounted for?

This fact, that we must some day give an
account of our life, becomes the more serious
when we consider the fleetness of time. Our
days are like smoke, so quickly are they con-
sumed, Ps. 102, 3. They are swifter than a
weaver’s shuttle; they are like the wind, and
pass away as acloud, Job7, 6.7.9. Our days
and years melt away quickly, as does the snow
before the warm rays of the sun. Oh, how
precious is, therefore, every moment!

The moments fly, a minute ’s gone;
The minutes fly, an hour is run;
The day is fled, the night is here;
Thus files a week, 2 month, a year.

And once gone, we cannot buy back even a
moment of our life with tons of gold.

How necessary is it, therefore, that we take
heed and make the best of our time, and that
we all do this—rich and poor, high and low,
old and young.

You say you have been doing this already?
Friend, you are saying whatis not true. Think
a little and you will find many an hour that
you must be ashamed of. You will find many
wasted hours, many sinful hours, many hours
passed in serving the devil. Have you not
passed much of your time in sinful idleness
and vain amusements? How many divine sery-
ices that found you not where you should have
been? How many hours of your life passed in
harming your own soul and hurting your neigh-
bor? Yes, friend, be candid; you have lost
much precious time, and there is many an hour
in your life of which you cannot give account.

Shall we continue to waste our precious
time? No, no. Let us rather, by the grace
of God, to His honor and glory acknowledge
His great mercy and praise Him for His bene-
fits. For the welfare of our own souls, let us
acknowledge our sins with contrite hearts,
seek forgiveness through faith in Christ Jesus,
and promise God no longer to pass our days
in serving the lusts of the flesh, but according
to the will of God.

The present moment files,
And bears our life away;
Lord, make Thy servants truly wise,
That they may live to-day.
One thing” demand our care,
Oh, be it still pursued,
Lest, slighted once, the season fair
Should never be renewed. F.J.L.

-

: .

Peace.

“Can I do anything for you?’’ said an of-
ficer in one of our glory battles in America,
during that awful conflict, to one of the lads
in blue, whose life was trickling sway upon
the green sward.

; ep NoLning said the dying soldier, ‘‘noth-
ing!” —

“Shall I get you a little water?’’

‘‘No, thank you, I am dying.’’

“Ts there nothing I can do?’’ said the offli-
cer; ‘‘shall I write a letter to your friends?’’

‘No, [have no friends that you can write to.
But there is one thing I should be much obliged
to you for. In my knapsack you will find a
Testament. Open it at the 14th chapter of
St. John, and near the end you will find a
passage that begins with the word ‘Peace.’
Please read it.’’

The officer took up the blood-stained haver-
sack, took out the Testament, and turned to
that chapter which your pastor has read so
often, as a lamp in the valley of the shadow
of death, the matchless 14th chapter of John;
and he 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 that peace; I am going to the Saviour.”’
And winging its way from the poor, bleed-
ing body, the spirit ascended; and, as Noah
stretched out his hand to the dove, the infinite
Love grasped him and drew himin. For him
to live was Christ; for him to die was gain—
gain everlasting! — Ex.

oe 6 ee

Salvation for Nothing.

A man may as well think of buying light
from the sun, or air from the atmosphere, or
water from the well-spring, or minerals from
the earth, or fish from the:sea, as think of buy-

}ing salvation from God with any kind of price.

The sun gives his light, the atmosphere its air,
the well-spring its water, the earth its min-
erals, the sea its fish: all man has to do is to
take them and use them. So God has given
salvation to man. All he has to do is to take
it by faith, use, and enjoy it.