The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1906, Page 41

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY

MOONTHLY.

PuBLIsHeD BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SyNopIcaL CONFERENCE OF NortH AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

Entered at the Post Office at St. Louls, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. XXVIII.

No. 6.

St. Louis, Mo., June, 1906.

The Poor Saint.

Suggested by the Gospel for the first Sunday after Trinity.

No earthly glory crowned his brow,
No earthly prospect on him smiled,
Through want he traced his way below,
Through sorrow, God’s confiding child.

Amid life’s sad and fleeting scene
His hope was fixed on joys above,
In all the storms of grief serene,
Supported by a Father’s love.

How sweet the change in one glad hour!
The ransomed soul, without a sigh,
Exulting in a Savior’s power,
Breathed its last breath and rose on high.
Ah! Lord, let all the earth deride,
Let shame and poverty be mine,
So death be by Thy power defied,
So angel arms conduct to Thine!

Dr. 0. P. Krauth.

Two Beggars.

The one was a beggar in this world, longing for
a crumb of bread; but he was rich in the other
world, enjoying all the treasures of heaven. The
other was rich in this world, enjoying the “good
things” of the earth; but he was a beggar in the
other world, longing for a drop of water to cool
his tongue in the flames of hell.

Lazarus was the beggar in this world. He was
laid at the rich man’s gate, “full of sores, and de-
siring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from
the rich man’s table.” A wretched beggar! Friend-
less, helpless, homeless! ‘Tortured by the pangs of
hunger! Suffering the pains of sickness, his body
being covered with sores!

4

His path in life was,

indeed, the thorny path of want, and misery, and
pain, and suffering. But it had a happy ending.
“The beggar died, and was carried by the angels
into Abraham’s bosom,” where he was comforted.
He was taken to the place where God wipes away all
tears and where the weary are at rest. Blessed
change! From poverty and want to eternal riches!
From sorrows and sufferings to everlasting joys!
How came the poor beggar to this place of bliss?
Not through his poverty and sufferings. No.
Among the poor and wretched in this world the
devil has many servants who will spend eternity
with him in hell. We know from the Bible that
only by faith in the Savior we can enter heaven.
“God so loved the world, that He gave His only-

- begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him

should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Again
we read: “He that believeth on the Son hath ever-
lasting life.” Lazarus, the poor, sick beggar, was
by faith a child of God and an heir of heaven. He
was one of God’s poor, “rich in faith.’ THis pa-
tience in bearing his poverty and sufferings was a
fruit of his faith. As a child of God he submitted
to the will of his heavenly Father, trusting only in
Him as his Helper and Friend, who would in due
time relieve him. It was a believing child of God
that was carried by the angels into Abraham’s
bosom, to be with Abraham, “the father of all them
that believe,” and with all the saints in everlasting
bliss. It was a believing heir of heaven that joined
the throng of those of whom it is written: “These
are they that came out of great tribulation, and
have washed their robes, and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before
the throne of God, and serve Him day and night
in His temple; and He that sitteth on the throne