O I remember those rich, filled days as clearly as if they had ended only yesterday; and yet it is four years since this unique and unforgettable man stirred the hearts of all who listened to him then. Fearlessly, but not with the fearlessness of despair like some philosophers, but in the blissful fearlessness of faith in the Son of God, he has now crossed over to that distant — for us still distant — land where he will reawaken to a more beautiful, deeper, purer life. Thus his death was the affirmation and confirmation of what he taught, and at the same time the crowning of this evangelical life. I remember that Prof. Pieper in his lecture at that time — it must have been the same morning or afternoon when I noted down the words mentioned at the beginning — quoted a line from the old beautiful hymn ‘I Am a Guest on Earth’. It reads:
“I walk my roads,
That lead to home.
Where my Father will
comfort me without measure.
He has now recovered in the truest and fullest sense of the word and is comforted forever. So it is we who are to be mourned, not he. We have no lasting city here, but the future, eternal one we seek. He has found it, while we do not know how long the way will still be, which God has still destined us to go.
“I was not fortunate enough to be able to call Prof. Pieper my teacher; how very different my path would probably have been! I heard him for barely a week. But this was already enough to make me feel richly endowed by him today and forever. How bright and golden then the sunshine broke through the windows of the little schoolhouse in Stony Plain, where pastors, church officials, and guests listened to his words! Sometimes, when he paused in his lecture to collect himself for a new section, there was such silence in the room that you could have heard a pin drop to the floor. He had all the hearers completely under his spell, and scarcely ever have I experienced the truth of the word of Scripture, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,’ so vividly as in those days at Stony Plain. A manly piety radiated around this man who - of this I am convinced — could not only teach but also fight, a knight of the Holy Spirit without fear and reproach, a worthy descendant of Luther, who did not allow himself to be traded and marketed, but served with an incorruptible heart the one who had called him, a man of 'Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise; God help me! Amen', a truly exemplary preacher of the Word of God.
“I am grateful to my Creator for granting me the days then at the feet of this man equally unshakable in faith and doctrine. His venerable figure will always be to me one of the few whose example is worth living up to — or, more modestly, trying to live up to; for he combined in himself keenness of intellect with great modesty and goodness of heart, boldness and high flight of thought with a wide-ranging compassion for all living things, readiness for any serious discussion with an unshakable faith in the Gospel.
“A faithful and untiring servant of his Lord and Savior has gone home, whither only our hope and longing can follow him.
“Truly and once again, it is we, not he, who are to be lamented.”
And shall we add a word of recommendation especially for our congregation members? Half a year ago a faithful reader of the “Lutheraner” wrote to us, among other things, the following: “While reading the ‘Lutheraner’ of January 10 and the article ‘Our Delegate Synod’ written by you, I thought of father Dr. Pieper, who is now resting in God, how he gave the wonderful lecture ‘The Open Heaven’ at the second to last Delegate Synod in 1929 at River Forest. I was a delegate at that time, and the lecture left such an impression on me that I always remember the Open Heaven.” Thus writes a plain, simple Christian. L. F.
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