The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1922, Page 34

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34

tliat they are God’s children in Christ seek the
companionship of those who professedly are un-
believers and possibly make their boast of belonging
to “the big church,” then there is every reason to
fear that the professed child of God is in great
danger of renouncing his sonship in the near future,
if it has not actually been done already.

It is unreasonable, it is inexcusable, it is an act
of spiritual suicide for a Christian man — for one
who confesses that Christ has redeemed, purchased,
and won him from sin, death, and the power of the
devil and who desires to be separated unto God and
His service — to join with men who are unbelievers,
and some of whom are openly profane, and be a
brother with them. Surely, to say the least, such
a man is taking chances so great, that if he docs
not lose his faith, it is due to a special miracle of
God’s grace.

A Christian man who deliberately joins a lodge
whose membership is largely made up of people of
the world is taking his spiritual life into his hands.
This step, taken by so many professing Christians;
has done more mischief to individual Christian men
by turning their hearts away from God and His
service, and to the Church by robbing her of her
members, than possibly any other one enemy of
Christ. There never was a time when the cry,
“Come out from among tliem and be ye separate,
saith the Lord,” was more needed than at this
present day.

By extending the hand of spiritual brotherhood
to such as are not of the same faith with you in
Christ Jesus, you are entering a fraternal relation-
ship which God’s Word forbids in plainest terms;
and by entering into this intimate relationship
with those'from whom your God and Savior wants
you to separate, you are exposing yourself to the
terrible temptation of preferring the brotherhood of
the lodge tothe brotherhood of the Church, and of
thus denying Him who has said: “Whosoever shall
deny Me before men, him will I also deny before
My Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 10, 33.

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the
counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of
sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”
Ps. 1, 1. F. J. L.

_ Alabama Notes.

No, they were not caliphs in gorgeous garments,

but simple children of God, recruits in that vast _

army of sound Lutheranism, moving in solid and

The Lutheran Pioneer.

unwayering phalanx down the ages; laying sieee to
the bulwarks of superstition and spiritual igno-
rance; storming the breastworks of emotionalism
and good works, and overcoming the fortifications
of unionism, rationalism, and all forms of false ang
pernicious doctrine. No, they were not caliphs,
arrayed in purple and fine linen, but simple sol-
diers, uniformed in the righteousness of Christ and
following the banner on which is emblazoned, in
letters of dripping blood, the cheering message, “Ye
shall reap if ye faint not.” Simple soldiers they
were, who stepped into line and received each the
command from their Captain: “Right the good
fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto
thou art also called, and hast professed a good pro-
fession before many witnesses.” A full score and
one they were, whose’ ancestors, in the jungles on
the west coast of Africa, bowed down to wood and
stone. One and twenty recruits they were, who
stepped into line with those whose progenitors did
battle around old Wittenberg for “the faith once
delivered to the saints.” When the sturdy Saxons
were contending for the faith along the banks of
“the Father of Waters,’ the grandparents and
parents of these recruits were placed upon the block
and sold like cattle to the highest bidder.

Simple folk they were, who, after months of
instruction in the fundamental doctrines of the
Christian religion as taught and confessed by the
Lutheran Church, stepped forth and confessed this
doctrine before God and His holy angels in heaven,
before the world and its sin and mockery, and be-
fore the devils in hell as they gnashed and ground
their teeth. Twenty-one they were, who stepped
forward in their frayed garments to renounce the
devil and all his works. One by one they came,
fifteen in number, and bowed their heads over the
battered tin wash-basin to receive the “washing of
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,” that
they “should be made heirs according to the hope
of eternal life.” One by one they came, fourteen in
number, and knelt before the home-made table,
which does duty as altar, lectern, and pulpit, and
vowed allegiance to God and the Evangelical Lu-
theran Church until death shall take them hence.
These twenty-one souls who gave “reason for the
hope that is in them,” and made “a good profession
before many witnesses” by their baptism and con-
firmation, ranged in age all the way from budding
seven, the first flush of the springtime of life, to
ripe fifty, when the snows of winter begin to blanket
the bowing head.