IN MOURNING FOR GOD by Emily Christlieb

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 25, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 21.

IN MOURNING FOR GOD.

By Emily Christlieb

Once when Martin Luther was paying a consolatory visit to a noble lady of Wittemberg, widow of Hans von Selmnitz, who had been murdered in Halle, in 1519, after conversing with her for some time and listening patiently to her complaints, he related two incidents in his own life.

“At one time I was sorely vexed and tried by my own sinfulness, by the wickedness of the world, and by the dangers that beset the church. One morning I saw my wife dressed in mourning. Surprised, I asked her who had died. ‘Do you not know?’ she replied; ‘God in Heaven is dead.’ ‘How can you talk such nonsense, Katie,’ I said, ‘how can God die? Why, he is immortal, and will live through all eternity.’ ‘Is that really true?’ she asked. ‘Of course,’ I said, still not perceiving what she was aiming at, ‘how can you doubt it? As surely as there is a God in Heaven, so sure is it that he can never die.’ ‘And yet,’ she said, ‘though you do not doubt that,—yet you are so hopeless and discouraged?’ Then I observed what a wise woman my wife was, and mastered my sadness.”

“Another time my friend Pommer comforted me in the following way: ‘No doubt God in Heaven is thinking, What shall I do with this man? I have given him so many great and glorious gifts, and yet he cannot trust my grace.’ These words comforted me as though they had been spoken by an angel from Heaven; they went straight to my heart and remained firmly there.

“And now, I will say to you, God is thinking how many good things this child of mine has received from me. She is my child by baptism; to redeem her I gave my only Son from Heaven to suffer death on the cross. In the sacrament of the Lord’s supper I gave her all my heavenly gifts, and yet she doubts my grace! When temptation comes, take your eyes quickly from your own sinfulness, and fix them on the Man who bore your sins on the cross. Thus you will take fresh courage. There is nothing pleases the devil better than when you torture yourself with doubts, and lose sight of Christ.”

Luther had a special gift for comforting the tempted, and many were the requests that came to him from far and near to help such. Mrs. Selmnitz said that, when he had been thus comforting her, she only wished to be able to close her eyes and not open them again in this world, for she then felt perfectly safe and assured of her acceptance in Christ.—Emily Christlieb, in Day of Rest.