The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 25

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

Facing an early operation, Asa thought earnestly
over his past years of carelessness and impenitence.
He then wrote a letter to his congregation, asking
forgiveness and requesting the services of its pastor,
whose admonitions he had met with procrastination
all these years. After he had received absolution
and Holy Communion, the operation was bravely
faced, and with God’s help it was successful. The
operation, however, effected no cure, and Asa was
soon discharged and classified as a partially disabled
veteran, receiving a monthly pension of $12.

In the mean time, times got so hard on Rampart
Street that Asa realized no more than ten cents
from his shoe-shine stand. Many an hour was spent
sitting around and waiting for a stray nickel to
drop in, and this long-time unemployment provided
opportunity for him to do for others what others
had done for him while he was in the hospital.

A year has now elapsed during which Asa has
regularly visited the city hospital from one to three
times a week, spending as high as three and even
five hours at a time going from bed to bed in both
the male and female wards, distributing American
Lutheran Publicity tracts to about six hundred
patients and reading from them whenever the pa-
tient so desired.

Soon all the spare tracts in the New Orleans
churches had been asked for and distributed, and
there was no money on hand to send for more. Then
an appeal was made for all discarded Sunday-school
literature, which by and by was also used up. One
shipment even came prepaid all the way from
Emmaus Church, St. Louis, through the kindness
of Miss Irma Hahn. The writing of hymns on
sheets of paper for distribution was next resorted to;
sometimes he wrote till 2 a..1., copying in all 200
hymns. This proved too tiring, however, and now,
destitute of all literature, Asa goes from bed to bed,
talking with the patients, relating an appropriate
Bible-story, explaining a verse of Scripture, or
reading a selection from the Bible, and praying for
and with the patient, especially Luther’s morning
and evening prayers and the Lord’s Prayer.

Asa Johnson is now well known in the hospital
and is readily admitted because he does not interfere
with the nurses’ rounds of; duty and because he
cheers and comforts the patients in an acceptable
manner. During the days when literature was
amply distributed, many patients saved up every
tract and pamphlet, and when they arrived at home
from the hospital, they proudly exhibited a con-
siderable stack, to be distributed throughout the city
or the village. Even now, with no literature, the

regular visitor is greeted on many sides and finds
Teady access to many patients to ask them the all-
important question, “Do you know the Savior?”
Tf the patient does not confess his faith in Jesus,
Asa at once tells him about Christ’s suffering and
dying for him on the cross. Then he inquires as to
his church connections and asks him if he would
welcome the services of a Lutheran pastor.

When a patient is found who desires instruction
and the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, his name is
given to the pastor for follow-up. Within the past
thirty days two patients died in the hospital who
by the grace of God had thus been brought to
Christ, Thomas Cooper, aged 72, and Henry Davis,
aged 47. In addition to new souls won, lost sheep
are found and brought back, fellow-members are
unexpectedly seen and cheered, and the pastor is
notified of their presence at the hospital.

How many are really brought to faith through
this bedside ministration one cannot venture to
guess; but there are abundant indications that
dozens, by being properly spoken to at an opportune
moment, have been saved from eternal perdition.
This layman’s activity may therefore be listed as
one way of capitalizing hard times and exchanging
temporal for eternal blessings. O. W. L.

Our Home Missionaries in Olden Days.

This is what one of the fathers writes about his
pioneering days in North Dakota in the eighties of
last century : —

“Besides my preaching-places in the neighbor-
hood where I lived, I was compelled to be away from
home every four or five weeks for a stretch of nine
days in succession. So long it took me to visit the
distant preaching-places in the northwestern part of
the State [North Dakota]. When I would get home
from these trips, my smallest child would treat me
like a stranger. Once I was lost on one of my trips
in a blizzard and finally found shelter behind a hay-
stack. I wrapped my gown around my head to
protect my ears and face and pressed myself into
the hay as far as I could. I tried my best to keep
awake; lest in falling asleep I might never have
awaked in this life. The cold gripped my lower
extremities tighter and tighter. I felt that I must
move on if I did not wish to freeze to death.
Putting forth the utmost exertion, I at last suc-
ceeded in walking on and once more set out, with-
out any definite goal, into the dark night. After
two hours of aimless walking and stumbling I came