The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 14

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are so very careless concerning the religious teach-
ing of their sons and daughters during these years?

When Luther said that he that has the youth
has promise of the future, he surely did not mean
that parents should think that they have done their
whole or even half of their duty to their children
by providing a religious training for them up to
the day of their confirmation. Luther insists upon
a continuance of this training through youth to
manhood and beyond. Parents cannot shift the
responsibility by weakly saying that their sons and
daughters do not want to go to Sunday-school or
to Bible class. Neither can the Church place the
responsibility altogether upon the parents. The
Church and the parents must recognize the fact
that they. jointly have the commission to see to the
spiritual care of the youth. ‘The conservation of
our youth before and after confirmation is one of
our most sacred duties and a missionary oppor-
tunity that holds the greatest promise of bountiful
returns. This isa truth so vital and so self-evident
that it ought to make its way to the minds of us
all and fill us with an overwhelming conviction as
to our duty. — F.J.L.

The Worth of a Soul.

The worth of a soul! Who can count its value?
Who can appraise its worth? An immortal soul
-is beyond all price. In money, one soul is of more
value than the wealth of the whole world. In suf-
fering, it is better that all the people of the world
should suffer all their lives on earth if, by their
suffering one soul could be saved. In journeying,
no foreign land is too distant, or any part of it
too inaccessible, for all the people of the world to
take a trip there, if by so doing one soul could be
saved.

There is no trouble too great, no humiliation
too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong,
no labor too hard, no expense too large, —it is
worth it all if spent in the effort to win a soul. Of
all creations in this world and in the world to come,
the greatest, the most wonderful, the most priceless,
the most enduring, is a soul.

God loves the soul more than any other creature.
He fashioned it after His own image and made it
like unto Himself. Every soul has departed and
gone astray from God, and God has bought every
soul back again with a price. That price was the
blood of His only-begotten Son, who took upon
Himself the sin of the world, suffered the death

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

penalty, that the soul might be saved, cleansed, and
made whole again. God loves every soul with an
everlasting love, greater and deeper than any human
love can possibly be.

Satan hates the soul. In Satan’s enmity towards
God he is using all his energy, using every snare,
his utmost cunning, employing every means with
the one single purpose of ruining the soul of man,
because Satan knows the soul of man is God’s most
cherished creation, the very apple of Fis eye.

A soul will never die. When this earth of‘ ours
has crumbled to dust and has passed away into the:
forgotten past, the soul will still be in its freshness
of youth. ~

When, in the fathomless future, eternity has
become hoary with age, the soul will still be young. '

When a million million eternities have each
lived out their endless ages and have rolled by into
the unthinkable past and are no more, the soul will
still be living, a conscious personal reality, endowed
with perpetual youth and perpetual life. *

God has said: “He that winneth souls is wise.”

Tf Christians would only realize the value and
immortality of the soul and the shortness of this
earthly life; they would work feverishly, unceas-
ingly, with all their greatest energy, day after day,
year after year, that they might save one.

O Christians, are there souls passing your way?
Are you bestirring yourselves in their behalf that
they might have eternal life and joy, or are you
allowing them to cross your path and pass on un-
warned to eternal death?

The Need in Foreign Lands.

There are various needs in foreign lands, but
the greatest of all is their need of Christ. One is
apt to feel that the missionaries in foreign lands
are too few as compared with the great need and
the amount of work which must be accomplished
in order that all may have an opportunity to hear
the message of salvation. Considering the appall-
ing need in foreign lands and the number of Chris-
tian workers in the homeland as compared with
those in foreign lands, one is inclined to believe
that Christian workers should be more evenly
divided.

It has been repeatedly said, “Why go to the ~
foreign field when there is so much work in the
homeland ?”- This statement is all too true; but are
we not to heed the command of Christ which says: