The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 71

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER. 71

We conducted instruction meetings at Longmile
each Wednesday night. Without fail Uncle Simon
attended. Often, after a day of hard toil and labor
behind his mule in the cotton-field, did we see him
drag himself to church at night in order, like Mary,
to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn His blessed
Word. He told us at one time: “Pastor, after

' working all day, I can’t sit down long if I want
to come to church. I get so lame and stiff.”

One night, shortly after a Christmas service at
Longmile, we sat in front of Uncle Simon’s fire-
place. Children and grandchildren were there in
large numbers. We were talking about the chil-
dren’s Christmas program, a program which so
thrilled those present that upon request it was
repeated the following night. Said Aunt Sarah:
“To hear them children sing of Jesus’ birth is the
best present you can get. I’m sorry I can’t remem-
ber all I heard.” After looking a few seconds
thoughtfully into the flickering embers, Uncle
Simon turned to his wife and said: “Well, there
are three things you can remember: You know
yow’re a poor sinner, that Jesus is the Son of God,
and that He came down here to save you.” By
word and deed did this old soul, wherever he hap-
pened to be, show his gratitude to God for sending
to him, in the evening time of his life, the glorious
message of an all-sufficient Savior. Not once did
he return to the Church which had taught him the
wrong way —the way of works; which leads to
hell. When Uncle Simon died on August 19, 1924,
he could truthfully say, as was enlarged upon in one
of the funeral sermons: “Lord, now lettest Thou
Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen
Thy salvation.”

At an instruction meeting one night the writer
asked the question, “Wherein will the joy we shall
experience in heaven consist?” It was Uncle Simon
who answered, and it came from his innermost
heart: “Our greatest joy will be being with Jesus.”
And now, as we write this article, Uncle Simon is
experiencing that joy of joys — he is in the presence
of his blessed Redeemer.

The Other Grave.

The other grave?. Ransom Kennedy, Uncle
Simon’s neighbor, was buried there. Space will not
permit me to go into detail about what we know of
this faithful soul what persecution he suffered
when he first joined the Lutheran Church; how
enemies, by threats of all kinds, tried to keep him
and his large family away from the services; how
he returned home from church one night and found

that enemies had, with an ax, broken utensils around
his home and otherwise vented their anger over the
fact that he had joined the Lutheran Church.
Suffice it to say that the Savior kept him in His
grace until he died. The members of his family
still faithfully cling to the Lutheran Church and
show forth the Savior’s praise by consistent Chris-
tian lives.

Such were the thoughts that came to our mind
that morning as we sat on the knoll near those
two lone graves.

We pass these thoughts on to the readers of the
PIoNEER and call their attention to the voice of
both these men coming out of the graves: “If the
Lutheran Church had not come to me, I’d have gone
to hell.” It is a voice of gratitude, but also a plead-
ing voice. A voice of gratitude, for it thanks the
members of the Lutheran Church who have by their .
prayers and gifts made it possible to send to people
such as these the message of an uplifted and saving
Christ; a voice of pleading, urging us not to grow
weary in this blessed work, but to bring to many
more thousands the glorious Gospel of a loving
Savior before they sink into Christless, hopeless
graves.

Selma, Ala. G. A. Scuarrpr.

Colored Lead White to Jesus.

One block from Mount Zion Evangelical Lu-
theran Church (colored), New Orleans, there is a
large bakery where the 200 children of Mount Zion
School buy bread for their lunches.

One morning Alma was sent by her teacher to
the bakery to get some change. This occurred
near ten o’clock, just after the children had sung,
prayed, and recited their Catechism, as they do each
morning. From the tips of two hundred tongues
had sounded forth through open windows such

hymns as
Alas! and did my Savior bleed,
And did my Sov’reign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?

When Alma came into the bakery, the white
woman asked her what they learned in her school.

Alma answered, in substance: “We learn hymns,
and Bible-verses, and the Ten Commandments, and
the Creed, and all like that.”

“Well, you children surely ought to be thankful
to have a school like that,” replied the baker woman.
“JT wish I could send my girl to such a school.