The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1910, Page 69

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

69

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The Sailor’s Card.

A Christian worker, who labored for many years
among our sailors, relates that one night after sery-
ices a young sailor, who had only a few nights be-
fore been led to the Savior, came up to him, and
laying a blank card before him, asked him to write
a few words upon it, giving as his reason for the
strange request: “You will do it more plainly than
I can.”

“What must I write?” asked his friend.

“Write these words, sir: ‘I love Jesus —do
you?”

After having written them, his friend said,
“Now you must tell me what you are going to do
with the card.”

The sailor replied, “I am going to sea to-morrow,
and I am afraid if I do not take a stand at once,
I may begin to be ashamed of my religion, and let
myself be laughed out of it altogether. Now as soon
as I go on board, I shall walk straight to my bunk
and nail up this card upon it, that every one may
know that I am a Christian, and may give up all
hope of making me either ashamed or afraid of
following the Lord.”

—~ 30>

A Time to Dance.

An old colored preacher in Atlanta, Ga., lec-
tured a young man of his congregation for attend-
ing a public dance where there was much drinking
and carousing. The young man protested that the
Bible said, “There’s a time to dance.”

“Yes, dar am a time to dance,” said the old
preacher; “and it’s when a boy gets a whippin’ for
goin’ to such a dance.”

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A Wonderful Change on Sumatra.

Sumatra is. one of the largest and most im-
portant islands of the Hast India Archipelago, in-
habited by different tribes of savages, the most in-
teresting of which are the Battaks. The dwellings
of the natives are generally built on high poles.
Such dwellings, they think, give more safety and
protection.

A great change has come to Sinatra since 1834,
in which year the American missionaries Munson
and Lyman, the first evangelical missionaries on the
island, were killed and eaten by the savage Battaks.
About a year ago, the German missionary Schrey

succeeded in discovering the place where the cruel
deed was done, and recently a monument, a large
granite block with a polished cross, was there erected
in memory of the martyred missionaries. ‘The
monument bears in gilt letters this inscription in
German: “Here rest the remains of the two Ameri-
can missionaries Munson and Lyman, slain and
eaten in the year 1834. John 16, 1—3.” Under this
inscription is the following in the Battak language:
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church
of Jesus.”

In the festival service of dedication it was re-
lated that the mother of one of the murdered mis-

Dwelling of Natives on Sumatra.

sionaries, on hearing of her son’s death, did not
grieve over the loss of her boy, but was sorry that
she had not another son to take his place and tell
the Battaks of Jesus’ love. Until the end of her
life she daily prayed for the Battaks. Her prayers
were not in vain. There are now .69 missionary
laborers from a German mission society working
among the Battaks, and 82,000 have been gathered
into Christian congregations. . In the very village
whose inhabitants committed that bloody deed in
1834 the Gospel is now preached, and the son of the
leader of that murderous band, the eighty year
old chief Ombu Tombak, was one of the catechu-
mens receiving instruction preparatory to baptism.
A wonderful change through the preaching of the
Gospel !