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THE KING’S BUSINESS
FIRST HONORS FOR FATHER AND MOTHER
The Farmer’s Boy’s Choice
T WAS preaching in a town in one of our western cities. There was a great in terest in the community. Scores of people were coming to Christ. We had a great time. One day an old farmer came to my room at the hotel. He was all in a quiver, boiling over with emotion, and I put my arms round him, gave him my best «eat, pulled out my chair close to his, took his hand asJgently as I could, and said, “What is thé matter?” I thought, maybe, some sudden calamity had befallen him. He pulled a letter out of his pocket, and, with trem bling hands, held it out and said; “I have come to talk to you about this letter.” He was a very illiterate, hard-working man. He said : “We have a boy, our only child. He is said to be the brightest hoy in this town. He graduated at the university with honors when he was only nineteen, and we are very proud of him. He is a good Christian boy, too. But his education has cost us a great deal, sir; we have not a thing in the world we can call our own. We live on rented land and work just one horse. We do all the work, I plough with the horse, and the wife, she does the hoeing, and by this means we have been able to keep him in school all these years. It has been an awful pinch at times, looked as if we would have to call him back, but we kept him there. We were very proud of him when he graduated at the university. We sent him to another university to take a post graduate course, and take his doctor’s de gree. Hé graduated there and got his hon ors. It cost us a great deal more. Wé have had to sell off everything we had except a few rags we kept on our back. Wife has takën in washing,' arid, I have mended shoes.” I could see his hands as he turned them. They ,were horny and bony. He said:
“If you could see her hands! They are just about like mine,, except her fingers are all worn where she sewed at night. We have had a hard time, but we have a Chris tian boy, sir.” Then he cried, and I cried. Then he cried a little more, and each of us cried. It does us^ good to cry like that. I am glad I have a chance, even in England, to cry when I want. But I began to get curious, and restless to reach the point. I said: “What has that letter to do with it?” Then he said: “The other day, when he graduated and got his final diploma up in the north, he sent us a telegram, and I will show you; it read like this: ‘Got first honors.’ We did not have any money at home; we went to a neighbor’s house and borrowed enough to telegraph back, and this is what we telegraphed: ‘Mother and father are proud of you.’ ” “Well, I got this letter two or three days afterwards.” He opened it, and read it: “ ‘D ear F ather and M other : Your tele gram broke my heart. I wish you had not sent it. Don’t you send me another like it. You talk about being proud of me. You know I am not thinking about any honor I can get for myself. When they read my name out, the first thing I thought of was mother and father. I thought about your hardship and toil, and the mother’s work, and if ever I do get the opportunity, I will give you the sweetest place to live in that this world can offer.’” Ah, my friends, that tells the story in a nut-shell. Why all this work, and heart ache, and preaching, and praying, and every thing that you are trying to do in the name of Jesus? What is the secret of it? It is that wound in the side. -Those pierced hands. That thorn-pierced face..; .That j is the sum and substance of why? we work, for Jesus.— Selected.
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