The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1930, Page 109

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

109

dict was rendered, each time on the same question-
able basis. Pista waited for almost four years
for death.

“While in the county jail awaiting death, Pista
heard much talk about the Bible, the Word of God,
and its saving power. He now started to read the
Bible in his own language for the first time in his
life, and while he was reading it, the Holy Spirit
opened his heart and kindled in it faith in Jesus as
his Savior. He now loved the Bible because in it he
had found peace with God and had been made happy
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He also learned how to
read and write English.

“Then, while he was ready to die, by the help
and love of God, he also had a new interest in living.
He now wanted to live to help his people in Hungary
to know the Bible and the Lord Jesus as their
Savior. He wanted to serve Jesus and his fellow-
men. With this desire in his heart he started to talk
about Jesus and his precious teaching, distributing
the Bible and other good books among his fellow-
prisoners. He started a Bible class right in the jail
(even in the ‘Death Row’) with one other man. The
class very rapidly grew in numbers, and also the
interest of the class grew. Pista read the Bible to
them, explained it as best he could, and prayed for

_ and with them in the jail.

“Months passed. Instead of being sent to the
electric chair, Pista was sent to a big state prison.
Here he continued his studies, especially of the
Bible, and he was also permitted to continue the
distribution of books, especially Bibles. He was

very soon put to work in the prison library, where .

he learned to be more helpful to others. And now,
while he works in the prison library, he is also send-
ing by special privilege granted him by the
prison authorities, many Bibles and Testaments to
Hungary, to his own people, friends and poor, that
they, too, may learn the way of salvation from God’s
Word. Now, through the efforts of Pista, about two
hundred families in Hungary are reading the
blessed words of life, the story of Jesus, which never
grows old, the story which has made Pista happy
and a true missionary to the Hungarian people:
Though he still is in prison, his dream is coming
true: his own people are rejoicing in the Holy
Scriptures and are reading the Bible.

“His most earnest desire is that boys and girls
throughout the world may learn from the Bible the

way to live the true life and to love and serve Jesus

all their lives; for he is filled with the joy of Jesus’
love not only for himself, but for all.”

“The Heathen in His Blindness —.’’

Bishop Gore, in his book Prayer and the Lord’s
Prayer, relates the following incident : —

“T remember once, in the early summer of 1884,
seeing a sight in India which made a permanent im-
pression on my mind. In the modern busy street in
Calcutta, called Bow Bazaar, in which the Oxford
Mission House used to stand, I saw by the side of
the tram-line a man, stark naked, with chains round
feet and hands. He was lying flat in the dust, mea-
suring his length on the ground. He rose as I was
looking, advanced a few paces, and, standing up-
right, with his feet where his nose had marked the
dust, prostrated himself again and proceeded to go
through the same motions. He was a fakir or
devotee of some sort, and I was assured that he was
going to travel in this manner all the hundreds of
weary miles which intervene between Calcutta and
the sacred city of Benares. My first feeling was,
I fear, one of disgust and contempt at the super-
stitious folly of the man. But I hope it was soon
overtaken and checked by a consideration both
worthier and with more of humility in it — the con-
sideration, I mean, that he, in his belated ignorance
of the character of God and of the way to serve Him,
was taking a great deal more pains about his devo-
tions than I was in the habit of doing with my better
knowledge.”

Christianity presents a God who is worthy of our
love and service. He is the God of hope. He is the
God of all consolation and grace. He is the God of
all comfort and a very present Help in all trouble.
He will never leave us nor forsake us. He is our
Refuge and Strength. The only-begotten Son, who
is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed Him to
us in all His grace and love.

But the poor heathen knows not this God of love.
The nations that still sit in darkness know not the
God who so loved us that He gave us His only-
begotten Son for man’s salvation; they know not
the God who opens His hands and supplies every
need of man; a God whose wish is that all men
should be saved and enter into His presence, where
there is fulness of joy and where there are pleasures
forevermore. And we can in no way better show our
appreciation to our God, the God of love, than by
making God’s heart of love known to those who, like
the poor Hindu mentioned by Bishop Gore, are still
laboring under the delusion that by such torturing
and tormenting as he was inflicting upon himself he
could make himself acceptable to God.