The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1911, Page 1

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Che Lutheran Pioneer.

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

Pustisuep By THE Evancenican Lutueran SynopicaL Conrerence or Nort AMERICA.
R. A. BISCHOFTH, Eprror.

. Entered at the Post Ofice at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. XXXIII.

No. 1.

Jesus.

Jesus! shall our watchword be

As the New Year’s dawn spreads o'er us;
‘Jesus’ name alone will we

As our standard bear before us;

In His covenant we stand,

Journeying to the Promised Land.

JESUS’ name and Jesus’ Word

Shall resound in fullest’ measure

In our churehes, and be heard.

May we tread His courts with pleasure,
That our hearts through grace anew
Prove a holy temple, too.

Jesus’ name shall lighten pain,
And in all our ills relieve us;
Losses thus shall turn to gain —
And to blessings what seemed grievous.
Jesus’ name is Sun and Shield,
Here must all our sorrows yield.
B. Schmolke.

One Thing Needful.

At the beginning of a newyear it is well to re-
member the Savior’s words: “One thing is need-
ful.” THe spoke these words in the home of the
two sisters Martha and Mary.’ Martha was busy,
“cumbered about much serving;” but Mary “sat
at Jesus’ feet and heard His word.” When Martha
complained that she was left to serve alone, Jesus
said to her: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and
troubled about. many things; but one thing is
needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part,
which shall not be taken away from her,” Luke 10,
41. 42. The one thing needful, which Mary had
chosen as the good part, was the hearing of Jesus’
words for her soul’s salvation.

One thing is needful! Words of warning not
to neglect’ the hearing of God’s Word, the Gospel
of Jesus, in which salvation is brought to us and

ST. LOUIS, MO., JANUARY, 1911.

by which we are led to faith in the Savior and also
kept in the true faith until our earthly pilgrimage
is ended! ‘The passing years remind us that we
also shall pass away. Every year brings us nearer
the grave and the judgment. What folly to neglect
or reject the Gospel of Jesus and thus neglect and
reject salvation! What fools are they who secck
only the riches, the honors, the pleasures of this
passing world and neglect the eternal welfare of
their immortal souls! How sad will be the lot of
him who was all his life “careful and troubled about
many things,” while the “one thing needful” was
forgotten! “What is a man profited, if he shall
gain the whole world and lose his own soul?- Or -
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?”.

> Matt. 16, 26.

One thing is needful! Words of comfort for
God’s children! They know not what the new year
will bring them. It may bring earthly losses and
sorrows and sickness and death. But they can be
of good cheer. Having the one thing needful, they
will have a happy new year, though all that the
world calls happiness be taken from them. In the
Gospel of Jesus they have the assurance that their
sins are forgiven; that they are heirs of heaven;
that Jesus is their Guide even unto death, and that
He will receive them to glory when life’s little day
is ended.

One thing is needful! Words of encouragement
in all our mission work! In bringing the Gospel
of Jesus to perishing sinners, we bring them the one
thing needful, not a mere earthly blessing, but a
heavenly blessing for their everlasting salvation.
There cannot be a more important, a more blessed
work for those who, like Mary, have learned at
Jesus’ feet the blessedness of the one thing needful.

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