The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1920, Sheet 27

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The Lutheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

PuBLisHED BY THE EvanGcenical Lutneran Synopical ConFrERENCE oF NortH AMERICA.

REv. F. J. LANKENAU, EDITOR.

Published monthly by Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo.

Subscription price, 25 cts. per annum, payable strictly In advance.

Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at St. Louis, Mo., under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for In section 1103,

Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 5, 1918,

Vol. XLII.

No. 4.

ST. LOUIS, MO.,

APRIL, 1920.

Christ’s Grace Is Sufficient for Us.

Our Lord and Shepherd guideth us
With willing hand and smiling face,
And day and night provideth us
With all-suflicient grace. i

Tis precious Word delights our heart,
Oh, how we love His holy place
Where He on Sunday doth impart
His all-sufficient grace.

Whene’er «2 cross we have to bear,
With shoulders stooped and weary pace,
He doth our strength revive, repair,
With all-sufficient grace.

He gives His Church true willingness,

Yea, zeal to work, that Adam’s race

Might gain deliv’rance from distress
By all-sufficient grace.

We thank our Savior dear and kind,
Who died, and rose from vile disgrace,
In order that we all might find

‘ His all-sufficient grace. H. Osteruus.

——

Christianity the Religion of Joy.

The heathen devotee separates himself from the
company of his fellow-men, tortures his body, and
dwarfs his mind in the vain endeavor to please his
god. The poor Hindu mother casts her own flesh
and blood into the sacred waters of the river Ganges

“to appease the wrath of her angry god. The Chinese
ancestral worshiper sacrifices his daily necessities at
the sacred shrine of his departed fathers to satisfy
the angry spirits. The Mohammedan observes usec-
less and senseless rites without end to obtain the

good will of Allah for this life and his favor in the
next. Countless blind heathen sit and lie on sharp
spikes for weeks and hang over fire for days to gain
final entrance into the abode of eternal bliss. Yet,
notwithstanding all their endeavors, we know that
all their efforts must end in final failure and ever-
lasting disappointment. All man’s self-inflicted tor-
tures, all man’s self-chosen penances cannot avail.
Should man’s tears forever flow, should his zeal no
languor know, these for sin cannot atone; these,
and though they should be multiplied by thousand
times thousand, cannot satisfy the demands of di-
vine justice nor quiet the accusing conscience and
uneasy heart of man.

Christianity, on the other hand, stands out all
alone, in contrast with all man’s self-invented re-
ligions, and gives: to its -followers that which no
other religion can give —true peace of conscience
and satisfaction in this world and eternal>bliss in
the life to come; for Christianity is founded on the
Gospel of the redeeming love through the death and
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing can
really and permanently satisfy the souls of men and
women but Christ, and therefore the need for the
Gospel-message will remain as long as a heathen
temple’ or a Mohammedan mosque lifts dome or

minaret to the sky.

To us Christians, Christ has entrusted the only
means of bringing true joy to men in this life and
in the life hereafter. You and I are responsible for
the happiness of our fellow-men. If ‘we neglect to
acquaint them! with the true and only source of
happiness, ours is the blame if eternal despair
should be their lot. We cannot shift nor cast off
this responsibility. Nor should we wish to do so;