The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1922, Page 93

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The Lutheran Pioneer.

93

The whole land is a haunted house of disorderly
superstitions, ghosts and demons, demigods, house-
hold gods, local gods, tribal gods, and universal gods,
with their countless shrines and temples. The whole
country is alive with imaginary terrors. ‘The very
air seems to be a realm swarming with ghostly fears.
Devotees by means of self-inflicted tortures are
working with might and main to free themselves

‘from some dire fate or with some hoped-for merit.
And the wily Brahman, with his monopoly of en-
chantments, knows how to keep in absolute mental
servility the spell-bound Hindu. The Brahman
priest claims to be even superior to the gods, who
at his behest will turn milk into wine, plants into
meat, give back life to the dead, and kill those whom
the Brahman will have put out of the way. For
this reason it is not surprising that the following
remarkable saying is current almost everywhere
throughout India: “The whole universe is subject
to the gods; the gods are subject to the mantras
[texts from the sacred Hindu books]; the mantras
to the Brahmans; therefore the Brahmans are

‘ our gods.”

Thus a gross darkness rests upon the hearts of
the poor Hindus. A heavy burden of false belief,
distressing and degrading, has become fixed upon
their consciences, and there it will remain until the
light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ breaks in upon
their night and leads them into the blessed liberty
of truth. God speed the day! F. J. La.

> o>

The Gospel’s Power.

The Rey. H. Nott, a missionary in the South
Sea Islands, once read_a passage of the Gospel ac-
cording to St. John to a large number of heathen
that had gathered around him. When he had read
the 16th verse of the third chapter, one of the na-
‘ tives, who had listened with the greatest attention,
cried out, “What words did you just now read? Let
me hear them again!” The missionary again read
the verse: “God so loved the world that He gave
His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
*The heathen jumped up and exclaimed, “Is that
true? Can that be true? God so loves the world,
although the world does not love Him? He loves
:the world so’ much that He gave His only-begotten
Son, that He should die in order that men may live?
Can that be true?”
The missionary read the verse a third time, and

told the man that it was true indeed, and that this
was the glad news which God had sent to them for
their salvation, and that every sinner that believes
in that Son of God should not perish, but have ever-
lasting life.

The astonished heathen was overpowered by this
glad Gospel-news. Tears rolled down his cheeks,
and he left the meeting in order that he might medi-
tate upon that love of God which on that day had
touched his heart. In this love he found perfect
rest and peace for his soul. F. J. L.

The Power of Satan.

A missionary in the Tinnevelly District, South
India, relates the following occurrence : —

“A priest appeared at the devil-temple before
the expectant visitors. A caldron was over the fire,
and in it was a mass of lead in a molten state.
‘Behold!’ calmly cried the priest, ‘the demon is
in me. I will prove to you all the presence within
me of the omnipotent divinity.’ With that he lifted
the caldron and poured the liquid lead over his head.
Horns were blown, tom-toms beaten, fresh logs of
resinous wood flung into the fire, and goats sacri-
ficed. The priest staggered about a little, and then
fell down in a fainting fit. Three days afterward
he died in awful agony. But his mind was clear
and calm to the very last. The last words he uttered
were: .“Nane salye sami, that is, I am the true
Lord.’ In the midst of his fearful torture and even
in the hour of death he believed with the fiercest
certainty of faith that his body was the inviolate
shrine of the demon he adored. That demon was
to him the Supreme. With that indwelling demon
he identified himself. So he died with a cry de-
nouncing his own divinity. This is terrible, but it
is true.” F. J. L.

A Good Korean Plan.

A Korean came into the study of a missionary
one day and said, “I have been memorizing some
verses in the Bible, and thought I would come and
recite them to you.” The missionary listened while
the convert repeated in Korean, without a verbal
error, the entire Sermon on the Mount. Feeling
that some practical advice might be helpful, the mis-
sionary said, “You have a marvelous memory to be
able to repeat this long passage without a mistake.
However, if you simply memorize it, it will do you