The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1909, Page 12

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12

The Lutheran Pioneer.

The great missionary apostle desired the prayers
of the Christians for himself and for the cause in
which he labored. ‘This ought to move us to pray
earnestly’ and diligently for our missionaries and
for the mission cause. By prayer we help our rep-
resentatives in the mission field.

If we are sincere in our prayers, we shall also
be cheerful and liberal givers, and thus gladly help
in the mission work with our gifts. We must not
be like the man who prayed for a poor family in
the neighborhood, but never gave them anything
from his well-filled barn. He acted like a hypo-
crite. A praying Christian is also a paying Chris-
tian. For the spread of Christ’s kingdom he gladly
gives as God has prospered him:

Let us not forget to help our representatives in
the mission field with our prayers and with our
gifts for the mission treasury!

How Much Water?

A colored preacher in the South was annoyed
by Baptist proselyters, who worried his people with
their notion that immersion is the only valid mode
of: baptism, and that every one who wanted to be-
come a Christian. or join the church must be
“dipped.”? This induced him to preach on the sub-
ject to instruct his people, and he made use of a
good illustration to show the fallacy of the immer-
sionist notion, as follows:

“My brethren,” said he, “if I were to sprinkle
some water on the head of a person, but would not
say any words while doing it, would that be bap-
tism ?”

“No,” was the answer from the congregation.

He asked again: “If I would dip a person
under water once forward or once backward, but
would not say any words with it, would that be
baptism ?”

“No,” was again the answer.

Again he asked: “If I were to dip a person
under water three times forward, or three times
backward, and say no words to it, would that be
baptism ?””

*No,” was again the answer.

He continued: “If I were to take a person into
a river, or creek, or baptistery, and have him stand
in the water up to his waist, and then pour or
sprinkle a handful of water on his head, but say
no words with it, would that be baptism?”

“No,” was again the answer.

“But if,” now said the preacher, “in all these
different ways of baptizing persons, I had said:
‘I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, would that have
made it baptism?”

“Yes,” was the answer that came from the con-
gregation.

“Well, then,” said the preacher, “don’t you see
that baptism does not depend on the amount of
water that is used, nor on the manner in whieh it
is applied, but on the Word of God connected with
the water? That makes it baptism, and it does
not matter how it is performed, if the Word of
God is properly used with it.”

- a Oe

Silenced.

When a certain young university student of Ger-
many was traveling through Baden, he espied a vil-
lage with a very fine church, and remarked to sev-
eral intelligent-looking men near by: “These good
people might have put their money to better use
had they erected a hall of music or a club house in-
stead of so fine a church.”

“What have you against the church ?”
his neighbor.

“What intelligent man
nowadays?” was the reply.
people go to church.”

“Then T must be an ignoramus,” remarked one.

“And I must be one also,” said another.

“And I belong to the same company,” chimed
in a third. ;

It so happened that the first was a university
professor in Leipsic; the second, an official of high
rank in the government; and the third, president
of a college in Berlin.

When the young man discovered what a fool he
had made of himself, he withdrew from this dis-
tinguished company. — Lx.

remarked

sares for the church
“None but ignorant

——— + -—#e-e- -

A Subject for Eternity.

A preacher had spoken in his sermon on the
subject of Christ as the Deliverer. On his way
home from church he said to one of his hearers,
an old Scotchman: “I didn’t finish the subject.”

“Ah, man,” was the reply, “you didn’t expect
to finish, did ye? It-will take all eternity to finish
telling what Christ has done for man.”