The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1907, Page 43

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

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43

and intercession for us. We are in great distress,
but not our prayer only ascends on high for de-
liverance, but every brother and every sister in the
holy family of God is pleading for our succor in a
holy and sincere “Our Father.”

Finally, let us yet notice that Christ bids us
say, “Our Father, which art in heaven.” Of course,
we know that Christ does not want us to believe
that God is inclosed in heaven, and that therefore
He is not on earth, for we know that God is every-
where. If God were not omnipresent, how could
He hear our prayer? ‘This expression, “which art
in heaven,” is to strengthen our faith and increase
our confidence. It reminds us of the fact that we
are not addressing an ordinary father, whose love
and power is limited, but a heavenly father, whose
love is unbounded and whose power to help has no
limits. Warthly fathers may cease to love their
children, but this heavenly Father’s love is eternal ;
earthly fathers often find it beyond their power to
help, but this heavenly father always finds a way,
and never is at a loss for means to help His beloved
children.

“Our Father, which art in heaven !”
thought!

O blessed
We are the children of God, therefore
heaven is also our home; our Father’s mansion is
As God’s children we have the blessed
hope that we will share this heaven with God, His
angels, and all the blessed.

also ours.

“O happy day, and yet far happier hour,
When wilt thou come at last,
When fearless to my Father's love and power,
Whose promise standeth fast,
My soul I gladly render?
For surely will His hand
Lead her, with guidance tender,
To heaven, her Fatherland.”
FE. J. Tu.

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Resist the Devil.

“Resist the devil and he will flee from you,”
James +, 7. — An honest Christian farmer had sold
a large quantity of wheat to be delivered. The
purchaser, relying on his well-known integrity, left
him to measure up and forward the grain. While
measuring it, as he filled the half-bushel and struck
it off evenly, this suggestion each time was thrust
into the farmer’s mind: “Strike a little under, and
you will save a bushel before you are done.” He
resisted it, of course, and it still kept coming. At
length the honest old man turned his head and said,
“Satan, if you don’t let me alone, I will heap the
bushel every time.”

A Little Boy’s Explanation of the Fourth
Commandment.

An old schoolmaster said one day to a pastor
who had come to examine his school, “I believe the
children know the Catechism word for word.”

“But do they understand it? That is the ques-
tion,” said the pastor.

The teacher only bowed respectfully, and the
examination began.

A little boy had repeated the Fourth Command-
ment: “Honor thy father and thy mother,” and he
was told to explain it. Instead of trying to do so,
the little fellow, his face covered with blushes, said
almost in a whisper: “Yesterday I showed some
strange gentleman over the mountain. The sharp
stones cut my feet, and the gentleman saw they
were bleeding and gave me money to buy shoes.
I gave it to my mother, for she had no shoes either,
and I thought I could go barefoot better than she
could.”

0 >

No Fear of Death.

One day, writes an old pastor, I went to see a
little girl who was very sick and who we all thought
had not many days to live. Finding her very calm,
I asked: “Have you no fear of death?”

“None at all,” she replied, “since my experience
with the bee.”

“How was that?” I asked.

“Last summer,” she said, “a bee came flying,
and I was very much afraid of being stung. Then
my dear mother said, ‘You keep quiet; I shall hold
my arm in front of you; then the bee will not
harm you.’ ‘The bee flew nearer and stung my
mother’s arm, thus losing its sting. ‘Then mother
said to me, ‘You see, that is what the Savior did
for us. He tasted death for us. He permitted
death to sting Him, and so robbed death of its
sting. By nature we must perish with the fear of
death; but if we trustingly lie down in the arms
of Jesus, we are safe and death cannot harm us.
Jesus has taken away the sting of death?

“And now,” added the little girl, “whenever
fear of death tries to creep into my heart, I think
of the bee which lost its sting.”

Happy child! “O death, where is thy sting?
© grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death
is sin; and the strength of sin is the Law. But
thanks be to God which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor. 15, 55.

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