The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1905, Page 43

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The Lutheran Pioneer!

43

Why Not Sooner?

In a history of the life and labors of Dr. Living-
stone, the great African missionary, we read that
near one of the places where he had opened a mis-
sion school lived the chief of one of the savage
tribes of Africa. This chief received the mission-
ary with great joy and listened attentively to the
teachings of the Bible. When he became fully ac-
quainted with the contents of that precious Book,
he was puzzled to know why the Christian people
had not sent the good news to his people long be-
fore they did. He would say to Livingstone, ‘‘My
forefathers! Oh, why did the Christians not send
them this Word? They all died in darkness !?’

Rey. W. Gill, missionary in the South Sea Islands,
reports that at a meeting of native Christians an old
man rose and said, ‘There is one thing I want to
ask: Can it be that the Christian people in England
have had this Gospel of peace for many long years
and have never sent it to us until now? Oh, that
they had sent it sooner! Had they sent it sooner I
should not to-day be solitary, sad-hearted, mourn-
ing my murdered wife and children. Oh, that they
had sent it sooner!’’

When Kapiolani, Queen of the Hawaiian Islands,
was told by an old priest how a little boy was of-
fered in sacrifice to idols, she hid her face with her
hands and, weeping, said, ‘‘Oh! why did not Chris-
tians come sooner and teach us better things?”’

When Miss West spoke to an Armenian con-
verted woman about returning to America, the
woman begged, ‘‘Oh, don’t go; stay longer and
teach us!’’ And then she added: ‘‘Why didn’t
the missionaries come sooner? If they had only
come when I was young, I too might have worked
for Christ.”’

Such cries of lament come from the mission field
as a reproach on many a Christian’s neglect of his
mission duty and his disregard of the Saviour’s
command given to the Church as a farewell charge
on the day of His ascension into heaven: ‘‘Go ye
into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every
creature.’’ This missionary command is given to
all Christians, and there is work for everyone to do.
Every Christian can at least uphold the hands of
the laborers in the mission field by his prayers and
with his means. And then, knowing that the harvest
is great and that the laborers are few, Christians must
see to it that laborers are prepared for their work
and sent into the harvest field. Also in our Colored
Mission the laborers are few, so very few. Let us,
therefore, not forget to enable the Mission Board by
our gifts soon to erect the college building at Greens-

boro, N. C., where young colored men are to be pre-
pared for mission work among their own race. Let
us not delay the matter. Also from this mission
field the lament has been heard, ‘‘ Why did you not
come sooner?’”’ Also in this mission field there are
thousands that know not the Gospel.
They’re groping 'mid sin’s hopeless ways,
So wretched and so blind;
On them have dawned no Gospel rays,
No path of peace they find.
“Go preach my Gospel!’ Christ has said;
“Go, all my famished feed—
To every creature give Life’s bread,
O’er earth my message speed.”

i

A Saviour from All Sin.

A pastor one Sunday missed from her place in
the house of God one of those faithful ones never
absent from the place of worship without urgent
reasons. When he called at her home he found
her on a sickbed. After a little, she began to tell
him of her experience that Sunday.

‘As I lay here,’’ she said, ‘‘there suddenly
came to me a picture, it seemed to me, of all the
sins I had ever committed. They were more than
I could count—sins of heart and sins of life; sins
of shortcoming and sins of transgression; sins of
thought and sins of tongue. And well I knew that
every one of them deserved God’s wrath and pun-
ishment now and forever!?’

_ The pastor now expected a dismal account of
spiritual distress. But what was his joy to hear
her confess her firm trust in the blood of Christ.
He asked her, ‘‘Well, how did this view of your
sins affect you?’ ‘‘Why,’’ she exclaimed, ‘‘glory
to God for a Saviour whose blood cleanses from all
sin!”

—_—>---s——- —___

The Prayer of Faith.

This only is a living faith which does not doubt
that God in His goodness has the gracious will to
do what we pray for. Faith does not doubt that
God is kindly disposed toward the person, and will-
ing and ready to do him all good. But whether the
things we ask for with a believing heart be good
and profitable to us we know not. God alone

knows this. (Rom. 8, 26.) Therefore faith prays
after this manner, that it leaves everything to the
gracious will of God if it be to His honor and our
own welfare, not doubting that God will give it;
and, if itis not'to be given, trusting that His di-
vine will refuses to give it out of bountiful grace,