The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1907, Page 22

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22

The Lutheran Pioneer.

face my dear Lord Jesus Christ, in whom I have
believed, but whom I have never scen.”

Tired of life, this devoted servant of God passed
to his eternal rest on the 7th of June, 1676, com-
forting himself in his last hour with this verse from
one of his hymns:

“Death can never kill us even,

But relief From all grief

To us then is given.

It doth close life’s mournful story
Make a way That. we may

Pass to heavenly glory.”

His body was laid to rest in the main church at
Luebben near the altar. His best monument, which
will ever keep his memory green, are his many beau-
tiful hymns, in which “he being dead yet speaketh.”
In his hymns of faith he yet speaketh, singing of
the wonderful works of God for our salvation. In
his hymns of consolation he yet speaketh, singing
peace and comfort into the hearts of the sorrowing
and afflicted. Many thousands still find comfort
‘and rest in that sweet hymn of Paul Gerhardt:

“Commit thou all thy griefs

And ways into His hands,

To His sure truth and tender care,

Who earth and heaven commands;

Who points the clouds their course,
Whom winds and seas obey,

He shall direct thy wandering feet,
He shall prepare thy, way.”

And at the dying bed of many a believer the last
two stanzas of Paul Gerhardt’s beautiful Passion
hymn are still heard:

“When hence I must betake me,
Lord, do not Thou depart!

O nevermore forsake me

When death is at my heart!
When soul and body languish,
O leave me not alone,

But take away my anguish,
By virtue of Thine own!

“Be Thou my Consolation

And shield when I must die;
Remind me of Thy passion,
When my last hour draws nigh.
My eyes shall then behold Thee,
Upon Thy cross shall dwell,

My heart by faith enfold Thee.
Who dieth thus dies well!”

Salvation in the Blood of Christ.

In 1893, at a time of great famine, a Lutheran
pastor in a German-Russian province was called
to visit a poor Jewish family which was said to be

in great need. He found the family in great
misery. The aged father lay on a bed of straw
covered with rags. There was no fire to warm the
miserable hut. Five children and four grandchil-
dren were suffering from hunger and cold. To
comfort the father, the pastor spoke to him of the
promises of the Old Testament. After listening for
some time, the old man, deeply moved, said: “Those
are precious words of comfort, and I thank you for
telling them to me, an old Jew. I know a still
better medicine, a medicine which heals the deepest
wound. It is the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son,
which cleanses us from all sin.”

When the pastor asked him how he had come
to that knowledge, he smiled, and drawing with a
trembling hand a New Testament from beneath the
straw, he said: “This is the fountain of life from
which light and consolation have come into my
soul. Here is Immanuel, God with us. Jesus is
the only Savior.”

“How did you come to know the New Testa-
ment so well?” asked the pastor.

Again the old man smiled and said: “Two
years ago I traveled to Riga with my oldest son
Saul. During our journey we one night took lodg-
ings at an inn. We had to sleep in the hayloft.
There my son found the New Testament. As it
was dark and we were not permitted to have any
light, we could not read the book. When we the
next morning handed the book to the innkeeper,
he said: “Chat is a Hebrew book; I cannot read it.
Old Simeon, who has been sleeping up in the hay-
loft for several weeks, must have forgotten it when
he left. But he will not come back for a long
time. So you may keep it. He will be glad to hear
that I let you have the book.’ In this way the
treasure became ours. My oldest son died a blessed
death, saved by the reading of this book. His last
words were: ‘Lord Jesus, remember me! Thou
didst say to the malefactor on the cross, To-day
thou shalt be with me in Paradise; and Thou wilt
not reject my poor soul.’ Then he turned toward
me and said: ‘Dear father, I am going home to
Jesus. See to it that you and all the children also
come to Jesus.’ I heard him pray in a low voice:
‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!’ He then fell asleep in the
Savior. I shall soon be with Him, saved by the
blood which cleanses from all sin.”

When the pastor the next day went to visit his
old friend, he had gone home to be with the risen
Savior in whose blood he had found forgiveness of
sin and everlasting salvation.