The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1906, Page 73

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY

MONTHLY.

PuBLISHED BY THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN SYNODICAL CONFERENCE OF Nort AMERICA.

R. A. BISCHOFF, Editor.

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

Vol. XXVIII.

No. 10.

Ee Lewis, Mo., October, 1906. ae

: A Mission Prayer.

“O Lord, our God, arise,

The cause of truth maintain,

And wide o’er all the peopled world
Extend its blessed reign.

“Thou Prince of Life, arise,

Nor let Thy glory cease;

Far spread the conquests of Thy grace,
And bless the earth with peace.

“O Holy Spirit, rise,
Dispel foul error’s night,
And o’er a dark and ruined world
Let shine Thy Gospel light.”

— 2-2-2 —____—_

The Reformation.

There is but one true Reformation. It is the
reformation of the Church in the sixteenth century,
effected by God through His servant, Dr. Martin
Luther. This blessed work of God we commemorate
with joy and thanksgiving on Reformation Day.
And well may we thank God for the many blessings
of the Reformation, and especially for the precious
Gospel which it has secured to us.

It is true, the Bible, in which the Gospel is
found, was given long before Luther’s time. But
that blessed Book was kept away from the people,
and the Gospel was hidden under the rubbish of
false, soul-destroying doctrines invented by men.
Very few even of the learned had any acquaintance
with the Bible. Those who were called to be the

teachers of the Church had mostly never seen it, .

much less had they ever read it. The people gen-
erally did not know that such a book as the Bible
existed. Luther was already a young man of almost
twenty when he for the first time saw a complete

Bible. The Book of God became dear to his heart,
for in it he found the pure Gospel. He brought the
Bible to the knowledge of the Church as the only
tule and standard of faith and life. He made the
people acquainted with it by giving them a trans-
lation which all could understand. Thus the Gos-
pel, which had so long been hidden, was drawn

' forth again and brought among the people as it had

never been brought among them before.

Not only by giving back to the people an open
Bible did Luther secure to the Church the precious
Gospel, but also by his writings and by his preach-
ing. Before Luther’s time gross errors and false-
hoods were taught in the schools and preached in
the churches. Christ was dishonored, and the glory
which belongs to Him alone was given to men. The
way of salvation was hidden, and those who should
have led the anxious souls into that way were lead-
ing them into ways in which they must be eternally
lost. Souls seeking salvation were directed, not to
the Savior and His work of redemption, but to
their own works and to the works and prayers of
saints, who could not save themselves, much less

-save others.

In this dreadful darkness which covered the
Church Luther held up the bright, powerful light
of the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith
in Jesus. With word and pen he set forth the pure
Gospel truth and warned against all false teachers
by whom souls were led astray. He proclaimed
aloud the Gospel which he had found in the Bible
and which had given peace and rest to his own soul.
He preached in his sermons and made known in his
Catechisms, and hymns, and in his many other
writings Christ as the only Savior and the name of