The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1932, Sheet 121

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comforter.

‘difficult for him to go out alone.

-and see Him face to face.

only once; that was on Easter Day, and on the
Tuesday after Easter he died. Cripple though he
was, neither rain nor cold could keep him from
church. He never complained of his troubles and
woes. When asked as to his welfare, his answer
would be, “Thank God, it is no worse,” or, “Thank
God, it is better than I deserve.” He was a great
Often did his young and inexperienced
pastor seek and find comfort with him. He de-
lighted in visiting the sick, to comfort them with
God’s Word, and sing to them with his deep, mellow
voice. He was a great friend of the schoolchildren,
and these, in turn, dearly loved their Uncle Jarvis.
He was respected and loved by all that knew him,

-old and young, white and colored.

During the last months of his life his eyesight
became very bad. He was no longer able to read
his beloved Bible, and it was getting to be quite
One day his
pastor asked him what he would do if he should

‘become totally blind. His answer was: “Now I go
‘to the people, and they are kind enough to give me

to eat; when once I am blind, the Lord will send
the people to me to give me what I need.”
But God did not let it come to that. The heay-

enly Father relieved him from all earthly want

before he became helpless. He took to bed on
Easter Day. The next morning the doctor pro-
nounced his illness to be pneumonia. That after-

noon his pastor gave him Holy Communion. Uncle

Jarvis expressed it as his opinion that he would

not recover, but expected soon to be with his Savior
When his pastor visited
him on Tuesday morning, he complained of severe
pains in his chest, but added that his Savior had

‘suffered much more for him. He rejoiced in the

fact that the pains he was suffering were an indi-

‘cation that he would soon be where all pain and

sorrow would be at an end.
Later in the day his old friend Teacher Vix
visited him. At first he seemed not to recognize

‘him, but when the latter repeated some Bible-verses

to him, he began to smile and nodded with his head
to show his assent. And when Teacher Vix sang
Unele Jarvis’s favorite hymn, “Let Me Be Thine
Forever,’ he seemed to take on new life. His
thoughts seemed to be centered on the last stanzas
of the hymn “O Bleeding Head and Wounded,”
and several times he said, “Lord, do not Thou
depart!” Tis last words were, “My Consolation!
My Shield!” And we may truly say, “Who dicth
‘thus dies well.”

118 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

The writer cannot close this sketch without re-
lating one more incident which so very plainly
shows the character of our Uncle Jarvis. On the
day after the funeral his pastor went to pay the
rent for the room which he had occupied. He laid
two dollars on the table, for that was the rental.
“You owe me only one dollar,” said the woman
from whom he had rented the room. “But isn’t
the rent two dollars?” asked the pastor. “Yes,”
replied the woman, “but Uncle Jarvis already paid
me a dollar.” We never learned where he had got
the dollar, but probably he had saved it little by
little and had then paid half of the rent to save
that much expense to the church.

This, dear reader, is a fruit of our mission
among the freedmen. When reading this sketch on
Hannibal Jarvis, do you not feel that our work is
well paid, that our labors are richly blessed? Does
not Uncle Jarvis’s faith, life, and death say to you
and me: “Be followers together of me and mark
them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample” ?

F. J. L.

The Penalty of Success.

That hardly sounds right, does it? It sounds
contradictory, does it not? And we admit that we
chose the heading to arrest your attention. We use
“penalty” in the sense of a liability imposed upon
a person for doing, or omitting to do, a thing. We
use “success” here.in the sense of the desirable end-
ing of what you worked for or the attainment of
the object for which you have labored. We strive
for “success,” but we do not seek the “penalties.”
They come unsought with success, without our
wishing for them. The successful business man tells
of the unthought-of responsibilities, the insistent
demands, the unreasonable criticism, that come to
him as the ‘penalty of his success. The manufac-
turer whose dream was blocks of factory buildings
and thousands of agencies finds that with the reali-
zation of his dream have come anxicties he had not
dreamed of and competition so keen that it gives
him many sleepless nights. The schoolboy at the
end of his class has a penalty to pay for his position.
Yes, in one form or another the penalty of success
will always come. Jt has come also to us.

Thousands of Christian men, women, and chil-
dren throughout our Church have been beseeching
the Throne of Grace for years and have shown the
sincerity of their prayers by zealously working that
success might attend the missions of our Church.