The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1911, Page 68

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

The Lutheran :Pioneer.

At Rest.

The Rey. C. F. W. Sapper entered into rest
July 3 of the present year, at the age of near 78
years, after 45 years’ faithful service in the ministry.
He came to America in 1866, after having finished
a course of study in a Lutheran Mission Seminary
in Germany, and in all the years of his ministry in
our country he proved himself a devoted friend of
mission work. He was a member of our first Mis-
sion Board for Colored Missions, chosen by the
Synodical Conference in 1877. In the following
year he wrote and submitted to the Synodical Con-
ference the first report of our colored Mission, en-

THE REV. C. F. W. SAPPER.
Born August 6, 1833; died July 23, i911.

couraging the Conference to continue “this glorious
work with all zeal.” “If others,” he said, “do mis-
_ Sion work among heathen who live 10,000, yea,
20,000 miles away in regions difficult to reach, how
much more should we care for the poor negroes
whom the greed of white people brought here, and
many of whom ask us to care for them and their

children, and to bring them the pure Gospel and -

_ the unadulterated Sacraments.” If we, to whom
God has intrusted the pure Gospel, would not do
this work, then “we, alas, should be like the unfaith-
ful servant who laid up in a napkin the pound in-
trusted to him (Luke 19, 2).”

Rey. Sapper, as one who knew him well writes,
“was not a man who kept his pound laid up in a
napkin; he was very industrious and active, and a

great friend of missions.” or twenty-one years he
served as a member of our Mission Board, assisting
also for many years in the editing of our German
mission paper. Upon his own request the Synodical
Conference, in 1898, dismissed him from the Mis-
sion Board on account of advanced age, “thanking
him heartily for his excellent services of many
years.” ,

“They that be wise shall shine as the brightness
of the firmament, and they that turn many to right-
eousness as the stars forever and ever.” Dan. 12, 3.

ewe

The Pharisee Became a Publican.

A pastor sat at the bed of a sick man whom he
had been called to visit. Before the pastor could
put any questions, the man raised himself up in
bed and said, “You see, pastor, I have a good heart,
and I don’t know how I deserved being laid up in
bed with this sickness. I have always been good,
and have done much good to other people. ‘This is
also my comfort now, Eat I have alw: ays done right
and need fear no one.”

In this wise the man went on for a while. At
last he turned to the pastor with an expectant look,
and as the pastor remained silent, as if he were in
deep thoughts, the man asked, “Why don’t you say
something ?”

“Oh,” replied the pastor, “it is with me as it
was with Job’s friends.”

“How was it with them?” asked the sick man
with a curious look.

“Well, listen,” said the pastor opening his Bible,
“T will read it to you. Here in the Book of Job,
in the thirty-second chapter, first verse, we read:
‘So these three men ceased to answer Job, because
he was righteous in his own eyes.’”

The reply made the man restless, and he asked
the pastor what was wrong with him. He then
listened attentively as the pastor showed him from
the holy Law of God that there is none righteous,
no, not one. The pastor ‘also spoke to him of
Christ, who said: “They that are whole have no
need of the physician, but they that are sick. I
came not to call the righteous, but sinners to re-
pentance.” He told him of Christ’s work for the
salvation of sinners.

The self-righteous Pharisee became a penitent
publican, trusting as a poor sinner in God’s mercy
in Christ Jesus, who came to seek and to saye that
which is lost. ;