Pine Needles

by Susan Warner; Louis Harms

"That was."

"But I mean, people don't do so now, do they?"

"Not here, just now, in America. But nothing is changed in human nature or the relations of the two parties, since the Lord said to the serpent, 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.'"

"But does that mean that, Uncle Eden? I thought the seed of the woman was Christ?"

"It is. But the devil fights against Christ in the persons of his people; and the 'seed of the serpent,' the children of the devil, hate the children of God, from Cain's time down. 'If they have persecuted me they will also persecute you,' the Lord said."

"There is no persecution here, though, in this country, Mr. Murray?" said Flora.

"Not persecution with fire and sword. But nothing is changed, Miss Flora. It will be fire and sword again, just so soon as the devil sees his opportunity. So all history assures us. Go on, Meredith; let us see what Pastor Harms made of his text—or doesn't he tell?"

"I'll go on, sir, and you'll see. 'As you have just heard out of the Holy Scriptures, so it has been, my dear friends, with the faithful witnesses and martyrs of the truth; hacked to pieces, run through the body, slain with the sword, or left to wander in the deserts, on the mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy. Even in the New Testament we read how Peter and Paul had to suffer imprisonment, how Stephen was stoned, James beheaded with the sword; how the Jews persecuted all the confessors of the most blessed Saviour, dragged them out of their houses, threw them into prisons, and took joy in stoning them. And even as the Jews began it, the heathen have carried it on; and not hundreds or thousands, but many hundred thousands of Christians in the ten great Christian persecutions sealed their belief in the Lord Jesus and their faithful confession of His holy name with their blood. In our last year's Mission festival in Müden, I told you how the holy apostles Peter and Paul met their death like heroes and martyrs; our beloved Hermannsburg church is named after them; and I told you about Saint Lawrence, after whom the church in Müden is called. "And to-day," you are questioning, "to-day are you going to tell us about martyrs again? We conclude so, from the text you have chosen! But wherefore always about martyrs?" My beloved, I have a special love to the martyrs; and I do not know how it happens, at every Mission festival they come with special vividness before my mind. I believe it arises from this: that I am persuaded the ever-growing zeal for missions among all earnest Christians is a token that before long the Church of Christ will have to take her flight out of Europe; and so the unconscious efforts of Christians is towards preparing a place for the Church among the wilds of heathenism. And therefore I believe that the times of martyrdom will cease to be far-off times for us any longer; that the kingdom of Antichrist is drawing near with speedier and speedier steps, is becoming daily more powerful; the apostasy from Christ is becoming constantly greater and more decided; Christianity is growing more and more like a putrid carcass, and where the carcass is, there the eagles are gathered together. And therefore missions are becoming more evidently the banner around which all living Christians rally; for what is written in the Revelation xii. 14-17, will soon receive its fulfilment. And when I see such great crowds of Christians singing praise and keeping holy day, then the thought always comes to me, How would it be if persecution were to break loose now? would all these be true witnesses and martyrs, and rather bear suffering, and yield up the last drop of their blood and endure any torments, than fall away and deny Christ? Oh, and when I reflect how mightily in those times of bloody persecution the Christian Church gave her testimony and fought and suffered; what a power of Faith, Hope, and Love made itself known, that could shout for joy at the stake; and when I think how cold, how lukewarm, how loveless Christianity is now—I could almost wish for a mighty persecution to come, to break up the rotten peace of Christians, who have grown easy and luxurious and to arouse again the right heroism of the soldiers of God.

"'It is not only in the times of the Jews and the Romans, at the first founding of the Christian Church, that such mighty battles of heroes have been fought; the dear and blessed time of the Reformation has had its martyrs, who for the pure Word and true sacrament of our beloved Lutheran Church staked their persons and lives. Who does not know those two faithful disciples, who amid songs of praise were burned at the stake at Cologne on the Rhine? that Heinrich von Zutphen who had to give up his life in Ditmarsh? those thousands who were murdered or burned by the Catholic Inquisition? those thousands who had to pine away in the prisons and cloisters of the Catholics? without reckoning the hundreds of thousands in the religious wars stirred up by the Catholics, who made the battle-fields fat with their blood, and have died for the faith of their Church? And now I will tell you why I have brought you here to-day to this Tiefenthal. We stand upon holy ground here, upon ground of the martyrs. Hear what your fathers suffered for the sake of the pure, true Word and sacrament.

"'The story that I am going to tell you must have been acted out somewhere between 1521 and 1530. For in the chronicle where I have read the story mention is made of the Diet at Speier, but nothing is said of the Diet at Augsburg.'"