The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1904, Page 22

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22 The Lutheran Pioneer.

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We Will Not Despair.

The way is long and dreary,
The path is bleak and bare,

Our feet are worn and weary,
But we will not despair.

More heavy was Thy burden,
More desolate Thy way,

O Lamb of God, who takest
The sin of the world away —

Have mercy on us!

Our hearts are faint with sorrow,
Heavy and sad to bear;

For we dread the bitter morrow,
But we will not despair.

Thou knowest all our anguish,
And Thou wilt bid it cease.

O Lamb of God, who takest
The sin of the world away —

Give us Thy peace!
f Adelaide Proctor.

+ 0-2. —___-

The Foretaste of Everlasting Life.

In the year 1622, a fierce persecution arose in
Japan against the Christian religion and its con-
fessors. In the town of Firando, thirty-seven were
executed, among whom was a little boy between six
and seven years of age, who hastened to death with
such manifestations of joy, and singing Christian
psalms in the Japanese language, as to cause un-
bounded wonder at this firmness in one so tender
in years. ;

In the year 1627, on the 8th of February, in a
hamlet near the city of Nagasaki, twelve persons

"were seized and violently martyred, having been

burned in different parts of their bodies with red-
hot iron, and afterwards beaten to death. What
was most remarkable in this execution was that a
six-year old child stood these tests of faith with un-
wavering firmness. :

In 1651, in the town of Diarbekr, in Mesopo-
_ tamia, an Armenian Christian child of ten or twelve
years, on an unjust charge, was | flayed alive by the
Turks. On the first day the skin was removed
from half of the back, and he was permitted in this
condition to pass the night, that they might resume
the work on the following day, and continue the
poor child’s torture the longer. In the meantime,

’ the Mohammedans endeavored to persuade the boy

‘that, by the acceptance of their faith, he might es-
cape martyrdom. His mother also came to her
poor son, and besought him, with many tears, by

|. means of the confession of the doctrine of the Turks,
_ to save his life.

Yet no entreaties could cause his

: firmness to waver, but he said with great boldness

that thus far he had willingly suffered all this pain,
that he was ready also to suffer more, and that all
this did not give him so much trouble, as that his
own mother should tempt him to deny his Saviour.
All that followed he suffered with great patience,
until the Pasha of the place, moved with pity, cut
off his head, and thus freed him from all suffering.

I maintain that no one can deny that the firm-
ness of such weak and tender shildren, under such
fearful ordeals, and the sweet joy which they found
in bitter death, cannot be explained otherwise than
by a power from on high, and a supernatural con-
fidence, which is properly to be called a foretaste of
everlasting life. — Christian Scriver.

a

“Thy Mercies Have no Date.”

When you write a letter you put a date to it,
which shows the day and month and year when it
was written. If you know the date of a man’s birth
and the date of his death, you can take the one from
the other, and then you can tell exactly how long
he lived in this world of ours.

But God’s mercies ‘‘have no date.’”? You can-
not fix a time when they began, for they are ‘‘from
everlasting.’”? You cannot fix a time when they
will end, for they are ‘‘to everlasting.”’

They are like God Himself, ‘‘from everlasting to
everlasting.’’
past, and He will be a God of love throughout all
eternity to come.

Have you any share in His mercy? Then you
may rejoice and give thanks, because His mercy
endureth forever.

Why He Believed in the Bible.

A scoffer asked a Christian: ‘‘Do you believe in
the Bible?”’ ‘‘Most certainly I do,’? promptly came
the reply. ‘‘Why do-you believe in it?’? said the
former. ‘‘Because Iam acquainted with its Author.”
This simple testimony of the believer so perplexed
the other that he turned away without another word.

God’s Promise.

The Lord does not promise His children that
they shall be without trial and tribulation; quite
the opposite: He tells them they shall have to:meet

both the one and the other; but He promises to be

with His people in trial and tribulations, and this
is infinitely better. — Selected.

He was a God of love in all eternity °