# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 07 24_S187
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

187

is offered to every penitent sinner, and so also to you. Only pray for the assurance, for the faith that grasps it and holds it fast.

Doctor: Ah God! pray? pray I cannot, I have never prayed.

Pastor: And yet you err. You certainly can pray. As well as the starving man can cry for food, the fainting man for a drink: just as well can you now cry out of your distress, that is, pray. — You surely do not mean "no"? What do you think, that you must make many fine words? You are hardly in the mood for that, and it is not necessary. This you can surely cry: JEsus, dear Master, have mercy upon me! God be merciful to me a sinner! And if you do not yet dare or are not able to do even that, you can yet sigh that God may have mercy upon you! If you will, let us pray together right now!

He consented, and now the two cried to Him who has given the promise, Matt. 18:19, 20, Mark 11:24, held these promises before Him, and He let them experience His gracious presence. What the preacher prayed, the sick man prayed after him aloud, but soon passed into such sobbing and weeping that at last the preacher could only weep with him, yet full of blessed confidence spoke his Amen. On leaving he commended to the sick man, who said that it seemed to him as if he might yet come to faith before his end, prayer and patience. Already on the following morning the coachman presented himself to the preacher, and could not stop telling, amid real floods of tears, what a wonderful change had taken place in the old gentleman since yesterday. Formerly he had left them the least rest precisely in the nights, always ringing, scolding, and cursing. But yesterday evening he had looked at them quite kindly and bidden them just to go to bed and sleep in peace. The old housekeeper, however, had nevertheless stayed up and kept watch in the next room. There she had heard how the old gentleman now prayed, now read aloud in the Bible, then slept quietly again for a while. In the morning he had greeted her kindly and ordered her to send for the preacher.

The preacher finds him in a cheerful frame of mind. He is able to believe, but says that he does not yet believe, and has still many questions, all of which are answered to him out of the Holy Scriptures. As he hears the preacher recite two old hymn verses which move him especially, he asks him to teach them to him, and repeats them after him until he knows them. They were the following verses:

The ground on which I'm grounded
Is Christ and His own blood;
This makes it that I'm founded
Upon the true, eternal good.
In me and in my living
Is naught on this earth's sod;
What Christ to me is giving,
That is worth the love of God.

My JEsus hath extinguished
What bringeth death along;
He it is who doth wash me clean,
Makes snow-white what was red.
In Him I can rejoice,
Have a hero's courage,
Need fear no judgment,
As else a sinner doth.

(Luth. Gesangbuch, No. 366.)

Also the hymn of his grandfather, "JEsus nimmt die Sünder an," etc., became very dear to him.

All his time he used to grow still more in the knowledge that his faith rests upon the Word of God. The preacher had to designate to him constantly sections of the Holy Scripture and spiritual hymns which he was now to read. The old gentleman also, and not in vain, called upon his assistant to read to him the designated passages. Hourly his heart was comforted, and a few days after that first conversation he was certain of his state of grace. Then his mouth was full of praise and glorying. Body and soul rejoiced in the living God. Now he also expressed the wish to partake once more of the holy Supper before his end, which had not happened since his confirmation. He had, he reckoned, about 14 days yet to live; so let the pastor now determine when he would administer the Supper to him. The day was fixed; almost a week passed until then, in which the sick man visibly grew in the inner man, and the preacher learned just as much, if not more, than his charge, who was old in years but youthful and fresh in spirit.

When the appointed day had come, and the preacher entered the room, he found the old man, who had not left his bed for longer than a week, fully dressed, sitting at the table. The joy of celebrating the Meal of reconciliation had made the aged man so strong that it was no trouble to him to put on his finest black clothing. He bares his snow-white head and takes every word from the lips of the preacher. When the latter passes over to the liturgy, the aged man rises, pushes back his chair, kneels down — as though he felt no weakness; lays his joy-radiant countenance against the table; and before he receives the pledges of grace of his LORD, he pours out his heart in fervent prayer.

From then on the dear old man lived 4 days more. Bodily he grew ever weaker, but his peace remained. On the fourth Sunday in Advent, 1823, the preacher went to him already before the service, and heard him say: "To-day I shall probably go over." He was still able to pray the verse: "Der Grund, da ich mich gründe," etc. After church the preacher found him in the death agony, but saw upon his countenance the same blessed joy which had distinguished it in the last days, heard him speak of his and to his JEsus, had to recite to him still his favorite verses, received from him a firm clasp of the hand and from the failing eye a long friendly look. —

The preacher, who had several official duties in the afternoon, promised him to come again as soon as possible. When he came, he heard that the aged man had just gone home quietly and painlessly.

(Contributed by Missionary Baierlein.)

Some Things Concerning the Aborigines of This Country, and What Is Being Done for Them by the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

I. Bethany.

If you go, beloved reader, from Saginaw City, in the north of Michigan, northwestward up the Titipiwassi River, you will come, after a journey of 21 miles, to a point where this river receives the Chippewa River, and thus forms a fork. If you cross the Titipiwassi River and go up the Chippewa River, you come in about one mile to four small log houses. Though these do not look exactly inviting, you will nevertheless have to resolve upon putting up there, for there is no other in the neighborhood, and should you wish to stay outside the house, the mosquitoes would very soon bring you to other thoughts. If you then set out again the next morning, you come in about two miles to the point where the Pine River empties into the Chippewa River. Having now crossed the Chippewa River also, you find on the right bank of the Pine River an Indian trail, which winds, against the course of the stream, in a southwesterly direction through the primeval thicket. This way, or more correctly roundabout way, will indeed make you quite weary, dear reader, for it is really very bad, leads under and over rotting tree trunks, through swamps miles in length, and affords you no variety; a house or a hut you do not get to see the whole day. But if you have strength and courage enough to follow it, you come in about 30 miles from the last-named four log houses to a number of bark huts which are inhabited by Indians. Besides these bark huts you will, however, also perceive a single log house, which was built a year ago and is inhabited by Missionary Baierlein, who would gladly show the poor blind Indians the way to the riches of the grace of God in Christ JEsus. The Indians call this place in their language simply "Clearing," but the missionary calls it Bethany, that is, in English: Poorhouse, because it is really in every respect a very poor place, but especially because the poor Indian heathen live on without God in this world. But since the LORD JEsus is rich unto all that call upon Him, these poor heathen are directed precisely to this rich LORD, as to Him who alone can and will make them rich. For as He once so often and so gladly called at that Bethany of the Holy Land, in the house of Lazarus and Mary and Martha, so is He also