The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1912, Page 50

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50 The (Lutheran Pioneer.

for him to be saved, there is everything to do out
of love to Him who has saved him.

It is said that some years ago, when there was
slavery in our country, a gentleman visited one of
the Southern stave markets and was filled with sym-
pathy for a poor, distressed-looking slave woman
who was standing in one corner of the room, wait-
ing to be sold. He determined to be her friend by
setting her free. So he went to the auctioneer who
was selling the slaves, and paid her price. ‘Then he
stepped over to her and said, “I have just bought

your freedom, you are at liberty.” But this word
"was too big for her little mind. She did not under-
stand him, and stared vacantly into his face. He
said, “You are free.” But she could not comprehend
what free meant. He wondered how he could make
plain to her what he had done for her. He tried
again and said, “I have just paid the price for you.
You are mine, I give you back to yourself. You are
your own mistress.” She well knew what mistress
was, and she comprehended what he had done for
her. ‘Tears of gratitude flowed down her cheeks,
and she cast herself at his feet and exclaimed,
“Massa, massa, let me live for you all the rest of
my life.”

When we by faith come to know the infinite love
that Jesus has for us, a love that drew Him from
His throne to the cross to be made “sin for us”
and to suffer all punishment that was due to us,
we, too, shall realize that we are “not our own,
for we are bought with a price,” and shall joyfully
“glorify Him in our bodies and in our spirits which
are His,” not in order to be saved, but out of loving
gratitude to Jesus who has saved and has redeemed
us, lost and condemned creatures, purchased and won
us from all sins, from death, and from the power of
the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy
precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and
death, that we might be His own, and live under Him
in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting right-
cousness, innocence, and blessedness. i

- Counting Every Hair.

In the early years of my ministry, writes an old

pastor, there was a most interesting woman, cighty-"

seven years of age, blind and bedridden for fifteen

years, whom it was a great privilege to know. She

was s0 bright and cheerful, so quaint in her sayings,
and her mind and heart had become so stored with
the knowledge of God’s Word, upon which she had

fed daily by her own reading, and then by the read-
ing of others in her blindness, that it was a blessing
to visit her, not to impart, but to receive, comfort
and strength in the disheartening battle of life.

On one oceasion she said to me, “I have been in
a horrible darkness since you were here last.”

“You in horrible darkness?” was my reply.
“Why, I cannot imagine that you are ever in dark-
ness; while I know, alas! too well that my steps
often walk in darkness through unbelief. It dis-
courages me to learn that an old saint like you,
just on the borders of everlasting light, gets into
darkness.”

She then stated that a young married lady, an
earnest and useful Christian, who lived near her,
had been summoned’ out of the world. Some one
had told her of the death, and she began to wonder
why she, an old and blind and bedridden woman,
was suffered to remain. All of a sudden it occurred
to her mind that God had forgotten her, that, havy-
ing so many people to look after, He had ceased to
remember her in her worthlessness; “and,” she
added, “you cannot know the dreadful darkness
that overwhelmed my soul at the thought.”

“But you are out of the darkness now; how
did you get out?”

“There is but one way to get out of darkness,”
she answered; “and that is by going to the Word.”

“What particular part of the Word led you into
the light?”

“I remembered that the Lord Jesus said, ‘Are
not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of
them shall not fall on the ground without your
Father. But the very hairs of your head are all
numbered.’ A long time ago I had children of my
own, and I loved them as much as most mothers

love their children, I suppose. I washed their faces .

many a time, and brushed their hair many a time;
but I never thought enough of one of my children
to count every hair on its head. Since my Father
thinks enough of me to count every hair on my
old gray head, I told the devil to go away; and he
troubled me no more.”

So the tempted saint rested her soul on the
Word of our Lord Jesus Christ, and found peace.

“Ye Cannot Serve God and Mammon.”

“To have money and property,” says Luther,
“is not sinful; but what is meant is that thou
shouldst not allow them to be thy masters; rather
that thou shouldst be their master.”