March 1932
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
T h e
121
0 Ûari iodÙarUcllh&urYOUNG READERS . . . B y F lorence N ye W hitwell
CLOTHES [Continued from last month] “Consider the lilies” (Matt. 6:28).
asked her a day or two afterward, when we were at tea to gether, how it had come about, I mean, how she had come to follow Christ. Her story is not long. Late one winter afternoon, Sonia was walking along one of the Avenues in New York City. The dusk was com ing down, and it began to snow. She had not been away from Russia long, and she was homesick. One of the great brick churches on the Avenue looked inviting. The win dows were aglow with light, and she could hear an organ pealing. She slipped into a rear pew to listen. The choir was having a rehearsal, and something in the manner and words of the man who was directing them, and playing the organ, interested her. “ ‘What is it that impresses me so pleasantly in him ?’ she questioned within herself. She finally decided that he had found peace—just that! “The song the choir was rehearsing was something about angels. She managed to make out the words: “Angels of Jesus, angels of light, Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night. “She felt herself to be a pilgrim of the night, indeed. Her eyelids were hot with the drops she would not allow to fall.
“S onia ’ s friend ! That’s what I ’ve become, Connie. And if you had lived in International House, you would realize that this is really extraordinary. “ ^ T arly last fall , she slipped quietly into International ^ House, clad in the little fur-edged garments that I have already described to you. They were anything but varied, and yet, somehow, they were elegant, and also elo quent—with an eloquence of a rare simplicity, of a real ele gance, and of a something that I can describe only as dis tinction. Somehow, Sonia has achieved this. She is distinguished, and this quite apart from clothe's. The mo ment we all saw her here, we knew. “ ‘Who,’ asked a football man, ‘is that royal highness over there from the steepes ? Bring on the volga boatmen —we must amuse her!’ “Sonia received all their attentions with a certain pas sivity that in no way committed her, and which was. very effective. One of the Freshman girls was looking at her as she held court one day before the great fireplace. “ ‘What is wrong with you ?’ I asked her. ‘You look very unhappy about something.’ “ ‘Mascara is the matter,’ the Freshman said mourn fully, ‘and lipstick and rose red rouge and eyelashes that you paste on—’n everything.’ “I glanced at her and saw that she knew whereof she spoke by immediate and visible experience. There it was— all before me! I looked for a moment at the spectacle and then turned to see Sonia standing there, lithe and slender and pale as a snow maiden—for she is, in very fact, a white Russian—Sonia in her strange elegance, exquisite, and a little remote, with her pure, fair skin and shining eyes touched with the glow of the firelight!And the poor Fresh man child in her tawdry make-up, not elegant nor exquisite, nor even natural! Not an inch of her own complexion was in view, for what parts she had not rouged, she had calci- mined with a white stuff that was deadly. And she herself felt the contrast. “That was the beginning of my liking for Sonia, and then, one night at the symphony, they were playing Rus sian music—oh, ‘Prince Igor,’ and ‘Lcherazade’ of Rimsky Korsakov—and the expression in her eyes and the bitter half-smile on her lips made me say to her in the aisle, “ ‘This music means more to a Russian than to Amer icans like myself!’ She just said, on a deep note, ‘Ah, Russia!’ and some how, it was tragedy. Her eyes looked far off and I felt her sorrow, and saw it. “Then she told me that the Soviets are not the real Rus sia. They are internationalists. Stalin is an oriental, really, she says. The old Russia lives, for her, only in its music. ‘ O r t was some t im e after this that she came to my room that evening, because she saw me carrying a New Testament into class and told me she was a Christian, too, and so there were two of us in International House. I
"Onward we go, for still we hear them singing, 'Come~ weary souls, for Jesus bids you come.’ And through the dark, its echoes sweetly ringing, The music o f the gospel leads us home.
“A deep longing of her soul was suddenly made clear to her.- She wanted to be led home. Did this song mean that all she had to do was to slip her cold fingers into a kind warm hand and be led? She had had little religious train ing, but a desperate need was driving her.
"Far, far away, like bells at evening pealing, The voice o f Jesus sounds o'er land and sea; And laden souls by thousands meekly stealing, King Shepherd turn their weary steps to Thee.
“It was Jesus! He was the One—the kind Shepherd who led you home! And so, to the simple words of an old hymn, Sonia was led home by the sweet singing of the gospel. As she slipped away, she heard them still: "And heaven, the heart’s true home, Will come at last. Angels of Jesus, angels ----- . “The church door closed behind her. She was on the Avenue, where the snow was falling fast. It was night. But Sonia was only conscious of an angel band singing to welcome her. “And that was how Sonia came to follow Christ. ct gjfFTER SHE HADtold me this, I began to talk about In- ternational House and rejoice that I was staying there, more than ever, because I had met her. She was so glad she had found me, but she refused to cut loose about International. She says the nations will never be brotherly until they see God in Christ. I wish I had time to tell you all she said. It was so interesting. I had never heard be fore all about God’s plan running down through the ages,
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