The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 173

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

173

The opening of the school has greatly increased
the interest of the colored friends of our mission.
The attendance at the services is better than it
ever has been. The members are doing all they
can to encourage and help the teacher, and. they
work hard for the school.

The school has been loaned the equipment once
used in the school of Grace Church at Westwood.
A friend of the school has donated a desk for the
teacher. The members of the mission have helped
to bring the equipment into a proper state of
repair.

May God bless the labors of His young worker
and through him lead many souls to Jesus, the
only Savior ! —

In this connection it may be stated that Pastor
Kase confirmed a class of six adults in June and
received another member in July. The mission
now has eighteen communicants. A new adult
class has been organized, and instruction has begun.
There are about ten members in this class.

Who Owns the Corn?

In the dark days of the World War the follow-
ing incident is said to have occurred in Indiana:

A Government agent came into a certain neighbor- .

hood looking for seed-corn. He found a farmer
who had 500 bushels of the valuable grain. With-
out revealing his identity, he asked the farmer
what he intended to do with it? “I am going to
feed it to my hogs, of course,” replied the farmer.
“Oh, don’t do that! There are hundreds of far-
mers looking for seed-corn.” “I don’t care if they
are. It’s my corn, and I am going to feed it to
my hogs.” “But just think,” exclaimed the agent,
“the Government will give you a big price for 1t.”
“JT don’t care what the Government will do,” said
the farmer. “It’s my corn, and I’ll do what I
please with my own.”

It was then that the agent revealed who he was
and said: “No, you will not. Your corn is: not
yours at all. It belongs to the Government.. Don’t
‘you lay a finger on it! When the person who
telated this story was through, he added: “Say,
it’s surely funny, but nobody owns anything
nowadays.” , .

None of us has ever owned anything, in: the
sense that we had the right to do with it as we
pleased, regardless of the: rights of God and man.
There never was a-time when our Government did
not have the right to take our’ corn, our wheat, our

money, our sons, and even our lives, if the common
good demanded it. Only it took a World War to
teach us this great truth and bring it out so that
we all saw it. The fact of the whole matter, in the
final analysis, is that you and I are not the owners
of anything, but only the stewards of the things
that have been placed in our hands for a while.

God is the real Owner of all things, and the
consistent Christian acknowledges God as the
sovereign Owner of his farm or his business or his
money. The consistent Christian never forgets
that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness
thereof.” God is the Owner, we are only stewards.
God made this plain to Adam when He placed him
in the Garden of Eden. He reminded Israel of this
fact again and again. Just read, for example,
Deut. 8, 11—18 as a proof in point.

Nine Persons Baptized in Cincinnati.

The woman. at the right is the mother
of all but the largest child.

God is the Owner, we are the owers. God lays
claim to heaven and earth. His is the land together
with all the silver and gold. His are the beasts of
the forests, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the
sea, and the cattle on a thousand hills. His are
our bodies and souls because He created us. His
we are, above all, because He has bought us with
a price.

But if God is: the Owner and we the owers of
all we possess, then we should be ready to acknowl-
edge it by setting apart for the Lord a proportionate
part of our income. It is not enough that we
acknowledge the truth that all we have is God’s;
for the mere admission.does not mean anything.
We must not merely admit God’s ownership by
piously saying, “All that I have is God’s,” but we
must make a material acknowledgment of it if we
want to be sincere. That person, surely, is honest
neither with God nor with himself,-who admits