389
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
October, 1936
Junior KING’S BUSINESS B y M a r t h a S. H o o k e r
A TRAVEL STORY B y E thel S. Low
■ ast spring when we l e f t our h om e in San Joaquin Valley, in C a lifo r n ia , and w en t on a lo n g motor trip, I play ed a game, all by myself, as we trav eled. Y o u n ev er could gu ess it. I tried to see how m any d i f f e r e n t kinds of children I could count. There were three kinds, beside j u s t p la in Americans, to start with, because right at home we have the cute little Chi nese boys and girls, and the polite little Japanese, and in S to c k to n , j u s t thirty miles away, I had become ac qu a in ted wi t h a g r o u p o f t h e ever met, Filipinos.
week-day Bible class, if you have one. Now, how many kinds of children did I find on my trip? Did you count them
so many children pouring out of them that they looked like baskets of fruit being spilled out. The children were all smiling and showing their pretty white teeth. They were Negro children, as of course you have guessed. We drove across several states, and then into another country, Canada. One day in Toronto, a minister came and asked me to go with him to a Mission. On the way he told me there were more kinds of children there than at any place he had ever been. It was a wonderful Sunday- school, and the leader asked me to talk to the children. I told them about my game, and asked all those who were not Canadian or from the United States to stand. Almost everybody stood. Each told from what country he or his people came. We counted, and there were fourteen different kinds. Let’s see whether I can remember them all. You keep count for me. There were Scotch, Irish, English, French, Swe di s h , G erm an , Ukranian, Czechoslovakian, Jugoslavian, Italian, Aus trian, Greek, and Russian. Now comes the wonderful part. I asked different ones to say John 3 :16 in their own language, and they did. O f course, you know that verse, don’t you? These children love the Lord Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, as you do, and though the verse sounded different in every language,
A Chinese Girl Smiles a Greeting brightest children I
Photograph by H. Armstrong Roberts A Friendly Negro Boy as I named them? Yes. there were twenty- one. And how many kinds are you going to love and pray for? Twenty-one! Tommy’ s Best Vacation Day N o sooner had school closed than Tommy began to plan how he would spend his vacation days. He did not have to wonder long, because the very first week one of his friends invited him to the beach. What a day that was for Tommy! O f course he went in swimming, and the water was wonderful. He had a good time splashing and dashing in the foamy waves. Then rolling and tumbling on the sand was great fun! Tommy would stretch out on the beach while his friend piled sand all over him. It felt so good to lie there in the warm sun! Just before noontime, as Tommy and his playmate turned away from the beach, they heard something which made them stop and listen. Who was that singing? They looked down the beach. There under some large umbrellas were many children, singing at the tops of their voices. Who were they, and what were they sing ing? Then the two boys saw a big banner over the umbrellas which said “ Children’s Special Service Mission.” They went closer and listened. The children were singing about Jesus and His love, and their faces looked very happy. Tommy tried to hear every word of the song. When they finished singing, a young man with a jar of dark-looking water stepped to the front. Tommy wondered what it could be. “This dirty water,” said the man, “is
Down the map we went, until we came to El Centro, in the great Imperial Valley, and there we saw hundreds o f little brown
it meant the same Saviour and salvation to each one. Then I thought about the other children I had seen, the Negroes, the Mexicans, Indians, Fi l i pi no s , Jap anese, and Chinese. Have they all had the oppor tunity of hearing about the Lord Jesus and of His love for boys and girls? There are a few Sunday-schools for children o f all of these g r o up s , but not nearly enough. There are thou sands of c hi l dr e n repre sented by these ki nds I have nam ed that know nothing of Jesus Christ. They do not know that He died on the cross for them. And I am sorry to tell you, but I know people who
children, with brown hair generally curly, and great brown eyes, and dimples. They were dirty, oh yes, for they were playing out in their front yards, but they were beautiful in spite of the dirt. And when they smi l ed at you in their f r i e n d l y way, you just l o v e d them . They were Mexicans.
Then we drove across Arizona, and, shyly peek ing out of their hogans (h o g a n s are their poor sh a ck s or huts) , were more children, and they, too, were brown and dirty. They had very stra ig h t black hair, and they didn’t smile and show any dim ples; they just looked at us timidl'y. Can you guess who they were ? Yes, they were Indians. At Juarez, Mexico, we saw many more Mexican children, and then we started across the immense state of Texas. There I was disappointed, for all the time I was looking for a kind of children that I had heard lived in Texas, and I didn’t see a one. Then we rode through Arkansas, and we saw a few o f them, but when we crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis and went on into Tennessee, we saw hun dreds o f this kind o f little folk. They were on the streets and in the fields. W e saw dozens o f old cabins, with
A Flower Girl from Below Our Southern Border
hate them because they are not Americans, and they call them unkind names. I hope you will never do that, because the Lord Jesus loves every one o f them j ust as much as He loves you. I want you to love all these children and pray for them, But there is something even more awful I want to tell you. There are millions, yes, millions of American children that have never heard of Jesus Christ, except in swearing. Some o f these children live in your town, wherever you are. You can pray for them, too, and can love them and tell them about Jesus. You can ask them to come to Sunday-school, or to your
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online