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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
September, 1840
Junior King's Bus iness By MARTHA S. HOOKER Member o f Faculty, Bible Institute of Los Angeles
Teacher Zaccheus had said before they prayed last night that some of them were Christians “on the mouth only,” for that is how the black people explain it when some one is different in his heart from what his lips say he is. Last night had not been the first time the missionary and her faithful African helper had prayed after school. Often when classes closed for the day, they had kneeled together in the ipud schoolhouse asking the heavenly Father to bless the black boys and girls and make them love Jesus so much they would stop doing the things that grieved Him so. But last night they had asked Him especially har$ to do it soon. Would He do it today, Mayu wondered as she looked at her watch. “ One-thirty already!” she exclaimed, motioning for Teacher Zaccheus and handing him the bell. He gave it a long and hefty ring that broke up the games and sent the sturdy players scampering toward the steps. A few late-comers puffed up the path, slates in hand, just in time to be the tail end of the line that was disappear ing into the open doorway. Mayu and Teacher Zaccheus took their places on the platform to open the fifteen-minute chapel period with which every after noon began. “I’m here,” answered each one whose name was called from the big red book. Then there was memory work and aft erward Mayu started to talk about how very important it is for every one to make sure he is a true child of the heavenly Father, and not just go on his happy-go-lucky way, thinking he will go to heaven because he goes to church, or because his father and mother love the Lord Jesus. “May I say a word?” asked Teacher Zaccheus, interrupting and stepping to "Pupils of mine,” he began, “when I Was a boy, I, too, heard the words of God at a mission school. They were good words, so I came often, until one day I stood up, just as most of you have done, and said out loud, ‘I believe on Jesus.’ I didn’t wear charms any more, or go to the heathen dances, or sacrifice to the spirits. I worked s hard in -school and decided I would be a teacher of the words of God myself. That would the front of the platform. Mayu nodded permission.
CHRISTIANS ON THE MOUTH By E velyn W . W oodsworth *
M AYU, may we daub our new ball with juice from your rubber tree ?” s h o u t e d a breathless the mission school with a half-dozen laughing black chums at his heels. Tri umphantly he exhibited the tightly sewed bundle of rags which lacked only a coat of “rubber juice” to make it a capital African football. “If you run quickly,” answered Mayu, who seldom heard her real American name because it was too strange and difficult for the black boys and girls to say. “That’s a fine ball you’ve made, Nigo.” Off dashed the boys, with Nigo in. the lead. How different the boy looked since he had left his heathen home for the mission station! His greased brown legs were always clean now. He was con stantly washing his khaki shorts and white drill blouse. He took pride in keeping himself tidy—too much pride, Mayu thought as she recalled the stolen chalk which had been ground to pow der and mixed with water to clean the white tennis shoes he wore on Sundays, “If only he would let the Lord Jesus come in and make his heart white, too,” she sighed to herself, for well she knew that his one ambition was to fill himself with the white man’s wisdom so that he might grow up to earn shillings working
for some English government official. “He really isn’t much help to the other boys, or—” “Mayu!” It was a timid voice this time. The missionary looked around to see a woolly-haired girl peeking in the north door, her big brown eyes wide with an ticipation. “What is it, Balichene?” “The—the rope for jumping,” the child stammered, hanging her head and mak ing tracks with her bare toes on the dirt floor, for little African girls are taught to be ashamed in the presence of their elders. “Wabeja [thank you], Mayu,” she smiled bashfully at her teacher as she handed her the rope. Balichene was ir resistible when she smiled. In fact, she was such a lovable child that a sharp knife seemed to plunge deep into Mayu’s heart and leave a great hurt there whenever Balichene copied answers from Sundi’s slate—and sometimes she didn’t tell the truth, either. Mayu grieved about Balichene’s sins more than she did about Nigo’s, because Balichene’s mother and father were Christians, and Balichene herself said she was a Christian, too. For that mat ter, almost all the boys and girls and' young men who came to Mayu’s school were supposed to be Christians, and many of them had been baptized and given new names out of the Bible. Mayu watched from the schoolroom window while the girls began to jump rope and black Teacher Zaccheus lined up his boys for a relay. Sadly she'won dered how many of them loved the Lord Jesus enough not to cheat in the races.
barefoot boy as he bounded eagerly into
*Missionary of the Africa Inland Mission (Biola, 1931).
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