282
June 1929
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
“But what if these ‘folks’ have been looking to Him for years, thus giving me the right to look to them for in spiration and example! What if the thought keeps coming up in my mind, and will not down:—Is this the resultant Christian character after years of Christian service?” Uncle Alan sifted the sand through his thin brown fingers, and Elise, watching him, remembered how he had spent himself in serving his Master until there was little left of his spare frame except—as Little Sister remarked —his tallness. “Forgive me!” she said impulsively. “There is always you—your life and service and character!” He did not seem to hear. “I ’ll admit that I ’ve been re joicing a bit prematurely because you’ve come so splen didly through the many attacks made on young faith today. I had thought I had you well primed but I might have known my enemy better. He never leaves us long alone.” No sound for a moment but the ocean’s beat on the shining shingle! “What did they do to you down there?” he finally inquired. “They were very nice to me! I was your niece—and other things. But if you must know, it was their eternal criticism of everything and everybody! Every sermon--“ every worker—every evangelist—every preacher—all had to be placed under the microscope, so to speak, for their all-discerning eyes, and then dissected. I don’t mean just discussed in loving and helpful comment. That is what I have always enjoyed with you! No—it was a sort of determination to find something wrong with everyone— excepting their own selves, of course! And it savored of self-glorification to me, since they were always in the right—in their own eyes at least! And then they would come to me and say, ‘Oh, Elise! I long to see Lawrence out and out in the Christian life as you and Harold a re !’ ” Her uncle did not know Lawrence, it appeared. “Lawrence will be a senior this fall, you know, and they are so concerned that they are forever aiming re marks at him and saying things for his benefit, till I should almost think he’d throw things! And if he goes to church with them!—He’s sure to hear an avalanche of criticism about the sermon, at the dinner table the moment the blessing has been asked on the food. I wanted to quote this to them—but did not dare. ‘Take care of your pastor’s in fluence. Without it he and the church will fail. Do not advertise his faults but his virtues . . . .. If your family and friends are still unsaved and enemies of Christianity, you are reaping what you sowed by talking about your pas-: tor and churches. When you are “knocking” the pastor you are ruining the church. If you have a great or good preacher do not wait till he is gone to let people know it. Advertise him.’ Arthur L. Vess says this in the Wesleyan Methodist!” Uncle Alan was still silent. Elise’s enthusiastic use of large words “intrigued him,” as she herself would have said. “Now, Uncle, don’t you think it would be wiser to at least emphasize the points of the sermon that iyere a blessing?” “Elise, — ” “No! Wait until I ’ve finished.” His amusement van ished as he saw her earnestness. “Hear th is! Lawrence told Harold that when his father and mother and aunt and older sister got to heaven they’d find all the harps out of tune excepting theirs. Think of the fearfully irreverent attitude they’ve brought about in him. He has no concep-
:: H e a r t to H e a r t ::
B y F lo r en c e N y e W h it w e l l “And the city was pure gold . . . and the street of the city was pure gold.’’—Rev. 21:18, 21. t LISE is looking very serious these days.” “I know! I ’ve noticed it, Uncle Alan,” replied Pauline. “How long have you observed it?” with the familiar twinkle his nieces loved in his eyes. “Ever since she came home from that visit to the Haworths.” The young person in question appeared at that moment and Pauline slipped off to a rocky cove, overlooking the great blue summer sea by which they were camping. She liked the little pools of ocean water in the rocky hollows where sea anemones and molluscs opened and shut lazily. And most of all she liked to dream-out her young heart in day dreams as she watched the swing of the salty tides. Uncle Alan began building a sand castle. It was one of the many things he did well. Elise watched him as he put up astounding battlements, turrets and vaulted arches in the damp sand. “Why do you sigh?” he asked presently. “I was thinking of our happy childhood when you used to come home from the islands and tell us thrilling tales and build us, not only sand castles, but air castles— dream castles as well!” “Still I do not understand the sigh.” “It was because the remembering brought back to me how many illusions I then cherished and how disillusioned I have now become.” “My dear, you are only just out of your Sophomore year, and Sophs are the oldest, saddest! people in history.” Elise smiled ruefully. Uncle Alan festooned his high est tower with some very fancy seaweed and lay back ih the warm dry sand where Elise was sitting. His building was completed. “I think you had better pass by the etiquette which for bids you to discuss your host and hostess of recent date and tell me what illusions are shattered,” he said. “Some illusions are delusions, you know, and are better smashed.” “ ‘When half gods go, the gods arrive,’ ” murmured ’Elise! “Never mind that pagan quotation,” he laughed, show ing his concern only in his eyes. “Just what is the matter?” “Christian workers!” briefly. “Christian workers!” he repeated. Then, his quick mind flashing back along several remarks he had heard her make of late, he ejaculated: “A h ! Those people you met at the Haworths’ !” “Those—and others!” “My dear, if you are going to get your eyes on ‘folks’ and off Christ, you’ll soon be in deep water. ‘Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher o f our faith,’ you know!”
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