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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
April 1926
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How God’s Word Won the
ELDER LI’ S HYMN OF VICTORY “ Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable g ift! Who shall separate us from the love o f Christ? For I am persuaded that n e i t h e r death, nor life, nor angels, n o r principalities, n o r powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love o f God whicH is in Christ Jesus, my Lord! “ Thanks be u n t o God fo r Christ, risen in glory, o f g l o r i o u s body! He assures our mortal bodies becoming glorious, too! O death, where is thy sting? O g r a v e , where is thy victory? Hallelujah!”
Heart of a Heathen Leper DR. CHARLES ERNEST SCOTT Presbyterian Missionary Author of “ China From Within” and other books.
We are exceedingly grateful to Dr. Scott for this thrilling story which he has sent for publication in The King • Business, demonstrating, as it does, that God s Word is still quick and powerful'* and able to break down all the barriers which con- front those blind ones who seek the light.
was your striking leper illustration about Mr. Ting’s father. I didn’t know he had a father!” Now Mr. Ting is the only Christian in that village; but one of the most model, up-standing Christians I know: reliable in his word and conduct, a tlther; always at church in summer’s heat and winter’s cold, even at harvest time, though he had to trudge a good many miles to meet with God's people; faithful in prayer and withal a good Bible student, a verse-memorizing Christian. It was outside of his yard wall we had stood as we preached this day to the crowd we had just left. He had brought us benches on which to sit, and hot tea to drink, for which our aching legs and parched throats were grateful. I continued: “ I could see that your supposed case of Mr. Ting’s father beiifg a leper made a great hit with the audience. They pricked up their ears, as it were, when you referred to him, and acted intensely interested. You held ’em to the end.” “ Ah !” answered the old E l d e r quietly. Though I could not see his face in the dark, I knew that as he spoke, he was meditatively pulling at his moustache. ■ “ Ah !” he continued, “ that was no mere illustration. That was the real fact! His father was a leper!” “ You don’t mean It!” I exclaimed in astonishment. "How long ago? How did it happen? When did he die? I never heard about this! Tell me, please!” I was all attention. I knew a good story was ahead. The old Elder is a forceful speaker, skilled after many years of practice in the art of holding a street crowd; and he has had many and wonderful experiences, as a Chris tian leader, pioneering with the Gospel among heathen folk, and this is what he told: "Yes! His father was a leper! How he got the leprosy nobody knew. They say they get it sleeping out on the
T was late a f t e r n o o n of Thanksgiving Day. All that festival day I had s p e n t walking from village to vil
lage preaching on the streets in a cer tain section of my field. The darkness was settling down; the wind had arisen, driving the dust in clouds along the unkempt village street. I folded up my roll of large colored New Testament pictures and started off with my companion for “ home”— i.e., for a cold, dirt-floored, mud- walled room in another village, some miles away, where we were to camp down for the night. I confess I felt a trifle homesick, as I thought of my dear ones, scattered in different parts of the world; but I was sure that on that glad day they were all having a regulation feast appropriate to the memorable occasion celebrated; that they were where it was warm and light and clean; and that they were enjoying the companionship of those dear and congenial to them. In this reflection I was cheered; and with my friend of many years, thankfully trudged on through the deepening gloom. I had been preaching about the pic tured story of the “ Ten Lepers”— of those nine who were ungrateful, and of that one who alone came back to render thanks to his Lord. And while preaching, as I studied the stolid faces of the listeners who packed around the picture, I thought: "How like the nine ingrates these are: How unapprecia tive of the mercy of God! How leagues removed from accepting His grace. But, not to let discouragement work in my mind— a discouragement due in part, doubtless, to being cold and tired, travel-stained and hungry I addressed my fellow-preacher, the old Elder, with a word of sincere compli ment: “ That was a fine speech you made. Very graphically you set forth the story of the ten, with all the Chi nese ‘atmosphere’ your audience could desire. But what impressed me most
damp threshing floors at night watch ing the crops piled thereon. Anyway he, ¿like some people described in the Bible, had spent a lot of money on doc tors and ‘was none bettered of them.’ Nobody could help him. He had a good farm and a comfortable living; was a man who could read. His two sons tilled his land. He gave himself to the study of books— Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist. He was afraid to die. He knew that all too soon he must succumb to his dread disease, and he wanted to get ready. But in vain. From all he read or heard or experienced he knew not how. "Now the older Ting was what' the world calls a ‘good’ man. People trusted and honored him; and the heathen are very slow to do that. In their superstitious credulity and covet ousness they have been bitten so many times by adventurers and sharpers and selfish men that they are cautious, wary of one’s integrity and good in tent. But they were different with Mr. Ting. They felt he was reliable!— an unusual product of our heathenism. However, their kindly attitude did not make him feel comfortable in his soul. He couldn’t sleep for thinking on the future and what it might hold in store for him. To be told that he had thfee souls; and that when his old, disin tegrated body should be put Into the big coffin already prepared for him by filial sons, and at which he looked every day (for it half filled one of his house rooms); to be told that one of
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