The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1912, Page 59

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The Lutheran Pioneer. 59

Wisdom and Love.

All God’s purposes are wisdom,

All His gracious dealings, love ;
This He'll make as clear as noonday
When we reach our home above.
Schooldays then forever over,

Grand the Holy-day will be —

We shall rest from all our sorrow,
Praising Him eternally.

Black Susannah.

Black Susannah lives in the Yomba country,
in Western Africa. It is a wild, rocky piece of
land. Under one of the big rocks is a large cave,
which had at one time been the dwelling-place of
robbers. For some reason or other the robbers
cleared off and went somewhere else.

By-and-by some of the black people in that part
of Africa, who were always in danger of being
Caught and sold into slavery, found out the’ cave
and thought it would be a good place to hide away
from the slave-hunters. Soon some more black
people came, and at last there were so many that
they built huis, and planted the ground, and were
no longer afraid of their enemies. ‘They gave their
village the name Abbeokuta, a word which means
in their own language “under the stone” — because
of the cave in which they had first found refuge.

-Something better still happened to them. , One
day the first missionary came and brought them
the Gospel of Jesus. His labors, and the labors of
others that followed him, were abundantly blessed,
and there were soon a happy Christian people at
Abbeokuta.

Here it was that Black Susannah lived. She
had once been a heathen. She was black still in
her outward form, but her heart had been made
white, washed in the blood of Jesus; and she did
all she could, to bring others into His fold.

One Sunday morning a native woman came to
her to ask some question about the market and
other matters; but Susannah was just getting ready
to go to church and would not be kept from services
by her visitor.

The woman turned to go away, when Susannah

remembered she might do some work for the Savior, .
‘and calling after the woman, she said, “Suppose you

stop and go with me to God’s house.”
The woman replied she could not go to a Chris-

aan Blee, of worship with all the hesthen’ orna-

ments and charms with which her arms and feet
were covered.

“Do not mind them,” said Susannah, “they need
not hinder you; nobody will observe them.” And
at last the Christian and the heathen went together
to the house of God.

Hfow new it all was to the poor, ignorant black
heathen woman! ‘The attention, the reverent be-
havior, the singing, the praying to an unseen Being,
the beautiful words of the service, astonished her
greatly. But when the preacher began his sermon,
she listened in wonder and delight to the story of
the cross, the like of which she had never before
heard. And-as he went on, she loosed her orna-
ments; one after another she let them drop gently
on the floor till at the end of the sermon not one
was left. What did she want of such things as
these if that Savior of whom she had heard could
save and keep and defend in life and death?

She became a regular attendant, and soon wished
to be baptized. But there was one thing that
troubled her —a very sad thing.
her only child for a sum of money which she owed
and could not pay. Her friends soon found means
to pay the money and gave her back her child, and
the mother’s joy was great.

And Susannah’s joy must have been hardly less
to think that not only had she made a mother and

child happy, but that by God’s-grace she had been.

the means of turning a soul from heathen darkness
and misery to Christian light and blessedness. —

Do you not think we might take a lesson and
learn from Black Susannah what a blessed thing
it is to bring others into the fold of Jesus, the
Good Shepherd?

Faithful.

At a time when Christians in Turkey were per-
secuted by the enemies of the Gospel, a young man
was threatened with death unless he became a
Moslem, a follower of the false prophet Moham-
med. He would not deny the true God, but rather
chose death. His cruel enemies then struck his
head off. His body was taken to his mother who,
taking his hand and kissing it, said, “Rather so,
my son, than living to deny our Lord. and Savior.”

Axx’ the world is afraid of death, and yet it
me the blessed antidote, the Word of God.
Inther.

She had pawned -