The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1903, Page 7

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The Lutheran Pioneer. 7

A City Missionary’s Story. Happy in Death.

him busy with her needles, he told her about
the visits he had made during the afternoon
and could not help saying, ‘‘What a wonderful
thing grace is!’ How much it willdo! There
is nothing beyond its power! Wonderful! It
can do all things!’’

Then the little sly wife said, ‘Yes, it is
wonderful, indeed, but there is one thing the
grace of God does not seem to have power
to do.”’

‘*Ah, what can that be?’’ said the husband.

“Why, it does not seem to have power to
control a minister’s temper, when a shirt-but-
ton is gone.’’

This was a good lesson for the parson, but
it was a lesson which many another man needs
to learn.

A little heathen girl, who was stolen from
her home in Africa, had, through God’s won-
derful ways, come to Germany. Here she
learned the Gospel of Jesus and was baptized.
She spent her last days in the ‘‘Pilgrim-home”’
in Basle. She had a burning desire to return
to her people, in order to tell them the Gospel
way of salvation. But the Lord had willed
otherwise. A slight illness was looked upon
by the doctor as a mild fever. But she said:
‘‘No doubt I shall get consumption, for I have
already been troubled with cough and pains
in the chest. Well, just as God wills. Iam
satisfied.’’

When the nurse entered the room, the girl
laughed and joyfully clapped her hands.
‘Pauline, are you laughing at me?’’ asked
the nurse.

“T am not laughing at you,’’ was the an-
swer; ‘I do not know what to do for joy: I
am a child of God. Oh, you white people do
not have such joy as we colored people have.
I knew nothing about the Saviour; but now
I haye a Saviour and can die easily. I am
glad to die and to go to Jesus.”’

As the nurse became worried about the sick
girl, Pauline said, ‘‘You must not be down-
cast, Christians should rejoice when one can
‘go home.”’

For every kind deed, for every word of God
that was spoken to her, she showed thankful-
ness by the looks of her eyes, which she lifted
towards heaven. She said yet many things,
but not all could be understood. Only these
words were yet heard: “Saviour — Halle-
lujah.?’ Then she quietly fell asleep in Jesus.
She was happy in death, for she could say,
‘Ror me to live is Christ; and to die is gain.”

——_. + o-oo

A city missionary, when visiting the tene-
ment houses of a large city, came to the door
of a small garret room. Upon his knocking,
afeeble voice said, ‘‘Come in,”’ and he wentin.
- There was no light, but as soon as his eyes
were accustomed to the gloom, he saw a pale
boy, about ten years of age, lying on a heap
of chips and shavings.

He asked the boy, ‘‘What are you doing
here?”’

“Hush, hush! I am hiding.’’

“Hiding? What for?’’

The child showed his white, delicate arms
covered with bruises, and swollen.

“Who was it beat you like that?’

“Hush! don’t tell him; my father did it.’’

‘What for?’’

‘Poor father got drunk and beat me be-
cause I wouldn’t steal.”’

“Did you ever steal?”

“Yes, sir, I was a thief once.’’

“Then, why don’t you steal now?’

“Because I went to the Mission School, and
they taught me, “Thou shalt not steal,’ and
told me about God in heaven and about the
Saviour. I will not steal, sir, if my father
kills me.’”’

The missionary said, ‘‘I don’t know what
to do with you at present. Here is a shilling.
I will see what I can do for you.”

The boy looked at it a moment, and then
said, ‘‘But, please, sir, wouldn’t you like to
hear my little hymn?”’

The visitor thought it strange that, lying
there without food, without fire, bruised and
beaten, the boy could sing a hymn. But he
said, ‘‘Yes, I will hear you.”’

And then, in a sweet, low voice, the child
sang:

————> - oe

Rebuked the Bishop.

The late Bishop Whittle, so well known and
beloved as missionary, tells the following little
story, which may serve as an object lesson for
some of the nervous and irritable. ‘‘I was
holding meetings in a lonely mountain dis-
trict,’’ said the bishop. ‘‘The people were
poor and ignorant, and had to come a long
way to attend the services, but they usually
showed up in time. One night I was feeling
sick, nervous, easily rattled. Right down in
front of the crowd facing me sat a handsome
young woman with a child in her arms. The
child began whimpering and crying. It kept
on, every minute it threatened to yell aloud,
and I could not fix my attention on the audi-
ence for its wailing. Every word I uttered
was punctuated by a cry or gasp, and finally
I became so rattled that I could endure it
no longer. ‘Madam,’ I said, addressing the
mother, ‘will you not take your child out of
the room? I find it useless to preach while it
is making such a disturbance.’

‘No, sir; I will not,’ was the reply. ‘I have
carried this child four miles over a rough moun-
tain road in order to hear you to-night, and if
I had patience enough to do that you should
have enough to stand my child’s crying.’

‘Never was so reproved,” said the bishop.
“That ignorant woman gave me a lesson I have
never forgotten. ‘The fatigue and discomfort
she endured in order to hear the Word of God
was a rebuke to my display of nervous irri-
tability, and possibly the child, penned up ina
close, crowded room with strange faces around
it, had as just a cause for camplaint as GY

“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, A Lesson.

Look upon a little child;
Pity my infirmity,
Suffer me to come to Thee.

“Fain would I to Thee be brought,
Gentle Lord, forbid it. not;
In the kingdom of Thy grace
Give a little child a place.”

“That's my little hymn,” added the boy,
“*sood-bye!’’”

The visitor came again in the morning,
knocked at the door—no answer; he opened
it and went in.

The shilling lay on the floor, and there,
too, lay the boy with a peaceful face.

In the night he had gone home to the
Saviour.

How thankful well cared-for children should
be for all the good things God gives them ina
Christian home! And how gladly we should,
with gifts and prayers, support our city mis-
sionaries, who look after the poor and neg-
lected in our large cities!

— > <cor or _

You cannot repent too soon, because you
do not know how soon it may be too late.

There is an old story of a minister who,
when getting ready for his parochial calls,
found a button gone from his shirt-collar.
‘All at once the good man’s patience left him.
He fretted, and scolded, and said unkind
things, until the tired wife burst into tears
and escaped to her room.

The hours of the afternoon wore away, dur-
ing which the parson called upon old Brother
Jones, who was all bowed down with rheuma-
tism, and found him patient and even cheerful.
The parson called also upon young Brother
Hall, wasting away with the consumption, and
found him anxious to go and be with Christ.
He also visited old Grandmother Smith, in her
poor, miserable hovel of a home, and found
her singing as happy as a bird. At last he
called upon young Mrs. Brown, who had a few
weeks before buried her only child, and he
found her trustful in view of God's love which
had come to her through her aflliction.

The minister went home filled with what he

—_——s eae oo

He Saw it in a New Light.

“J have been a member of your church for
thirty years,”’ said an elderly Christian to his
pastor, ‘‘and when I was laid by with sick-
ness for a week or two, only one or two came
to visit me. I was shamefully neglected.”

‘My friend,”” said the pastor, ‘‘in all those
thirty years how many sick have you visited?”
had seen, and when evening came and he was| ‘Oh,’? he replied, ‘tit never struck me in
seated in his easy-chair, his good wife near| that light.” :

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