The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1912, Page 42

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42

Jesus!” And how gladly should they, in grateful
love, prove themselves His friends by spreading
the knowledge of His love and by leading others
to Him who is the sinners’ Friend. ‘Those who
love Him will be patient and earnest in all mis-
sionary work for His dear sake, who is our best
and truest Friend.

—-- ee

The old Lutheran theologian Dannhauer’ re-
lates in one of his sermons on the Catechism that
a man was once brought into court for a crime
which he had committed when drunk. ‘The man
excused himself by saying that he had acted under
the influence of too much wine, so that the wine
was the guilty party, not he, since he at the time
was not in his right senses.

The judge replied: “Indeed! And as the wine
did the crime, I shall sentence the bottle to be
hanged in which the wine was.” And the criminal
was executed.

“So,” adds Dannhauer, “the most high Judge
of all will do on the last day, the day of judgment.
He will punish the bottle for the wine; that is,
He will punish man on account of his drunken-
ness.”

Therefore, “take heed to yourselves, lest at any
time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting
and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that
day come upon, you unawares,” Luke 26, 34.

The Bible plainly tells us that “drunkards shall
not inherit the kingdom of God,” 1 Cor. 6, 9. 10.

A Child’s Sermon.

Nearly a half century since, a Christian man
sat by his fireside, while his only. child, a little boy,
was playing on the hearth. The father had just
received the morning newspaper, and commenced
to read it, when the child, climbing upon the
father’s knee, snatched the paper playfully away,
saying, “Bible first, papa; Bible first!” ‘

The child’s utterance came like a supernatural -

voice, and the father could not forget the lesson
thus conveyed. To deepen the impression, sick-
ness soon entered that home, and the busy little
limbs were stilled and the loving lips silenced by
death. As the father bowed over that lifeless form
of his beloved boy, he felt that the child had

The Lutheran Pioneer.

preached to him a sermon such as he had never,
never before heard. It was a short homily, but it
reached the heart. ‘The child’s sermon became the
man’s life motto. He went to duty with these words
ever foremost, “Bible first, papa; Bible first!” He
resolved in: business, in pleasure, in work, in wor-
ship, and in rest, to let the Scripture teaching take
the Jead. He studied the Bible at home, he taught
it in the Sunday-school, he kept its precepts before
him in all the transactions of life. In getting and
in giving he followed the light of the Holy Volume.
The result was that heaven smiled upon his under-
takings. As he scattered in his charity, he gained.
Wealth was bestowed upon him by God. Ile em-
ployed it in benefiting his race, and at a ripe old
age passed away to his reward, leaving five churches
in Philadelphia, erected by his munificence, to tes-
tify his deep interest in the cause of Christ.

Such was the career of the well-known American
engineer, Matthias W. Baldwin, who devoted the
second engine he constructed to the work of the
American Sunday-School Union, and thus afforded
the means for issuing the first Christian literature
for the young ever printed in America by steam.

The Bible First.

Welcoming the New Testament.

A missionary who has for many years labored
among the Jews in’ Europe writes that in many
places the New Testament is now welcomed, whilst
fifty years ago he seldom found a Jew that would
even touch the book, much less read it. “At that
time,” he says, “a missionary would rejoice when
he met a Jew that would accept the New ‘Testa-
ment as a present.” — “Conditions,” he says, “have
changed. The New Testament is no longer given
as a present, but Jews stretch out their hands for
the, book and buy thousands of copies. During the
year in which I labored in Roumania, I could sell
to Jews at one of my stations 2,942 New ‘Testa-
ments or portions of the sacred book. -A Jew who
had bought an entire Bible said to me in reference
to the New Testament, ‘Nowhere can one find more
touching and more glorious doctrines than in this
book. They take hold of the heart with such power
that it seems almost impossible to resist the con-
viction that Jesus is the Messiah.’ And another,
kissing the New Testament, exclaimed, ‘Oh, this
is God’s book! It tells the truth.’ Pointing to
the New Testament, a boy on his sickbed said,