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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
December, 1939
Air raids, blackouts, food and gasoline rationing — all are sadly familiar in Europe today. But that these things hold no terrors for the child of God who is at rest in the will of God is the triumphant testimony of one who is experiencing— "Peace”—In Wartime "Tetters Written from a London Suburb
bursary [scholarship] to take her through, but now the college' has given up as the students are in war work. To her it is perhaps the biggest disappoint ment of her life. She had looked for ward to her course most eagerly, and longed to know her Bible well, that she might serve in visiting, club work, and Sunday-school, etc.; but we know God has something better, and maybe the direct casting of herself on Him will be an enrichment beyond any other . ... Camouflaged Fear It is a heartache indeed to see the squads and squads of our young lads, so bright and full of life, marching in khaki and knowing they’ll have to face the fire and gas. Oh, war is awful! How much it , will mean to this blood- soaked earth for the Prince of Peace to come and reign! Do pray for those who have spiritual care of the lads that they may have the light themselves, and thus be able to give it. The lads have such a fear, and they cover it with laughs and songs, but underneath they say they know when they go they will not come back,, and they want “some stiffening.” Do pray that “stif fening” may come through a real work of God and not through drink and other forms of sin. Like Packing Up
on Saturday, which makes trips to the Mission office even from here impossible except for twice a week, we felt God would have us serve Him right here quietly. This summer we had gone to Kes wick, then to a cousin, then to a mis sionary rest home, and we came back here only two days ago, having been away two months. The region where we were last is counted one of the saf est areas, and but for every one’s car rying gas masks, and the barrage bal loons overhead, and numbers of sol diers, you would not know there was war. It is very different here. I cannot de scribe it. We left one world'in July and have come back to quite another here this month. I think the silence strikes us most. We are not on a thor oughfare, but it is normally quite a busy road. Now hardly a thing or per son passes, and at night it is pitch black. You look down the street, and it seems to be one black row of houses as if all were empty, and there is not a sound or passer-by. Our windows, like those of others, are latticed -with strips of glue paper across the panes of glass so that if bombs drop near, the glass will not splinter. Young People’s Plans Altered i Of our children, I might explain that E--------is with her college right in the country. They are in a country man sion. The owners have one wing and they the other. "They” is the warden, three sisters and two staff members, thirty students, and twenty children of one to four years old. They are cramped for space. It is a makeshift. E—---- is sleeping in an .old hayloft with five others. She told us when we called there on Tuesday on- our way from B------- - to here that they call it the “Black Hole of Calcutta” because it is so dark and stuffy. She has no spiritual help. She feels the isolation, and when winter comes it will be worse. We would be glad for prayer for her that God may not only keep her bright and true' for Him, but also may make her a real power to others and a soul- winner. Our daughter M--------, like so many other young people, has suddenly had her future cut short. She had entered for a two-years’ Bible study course in a Bible school here. We had had a
[In personal letters to a missionary friend who is on furlough in America, the wife of an English deputation secre tary for a faith mission has given inti mate glimpses into conditions in Europe —both as they relate to individual be lievers and to Christian work. With the missionary's permission, excerpts from two letters are shared here with K ing ’ s B usiness readers, for they give a new understan d ing of the peace of God that is possible in the midst of harrowing hours, and present a n e w challenge for intercessory prayer on be half of evangelical witnessing through out a war-stricken world. It has been deemed best to omit names and localities in publishing these letters, but the original communications of course bore the full names of persons and cities .— E ditor .] London, September 14. My d e a r -------- Your letter came this morning and it brought such a sense of fellowship and the joy of being upheld by prayer, that we do thank God for i t . . . I shall never forget that S u n d a y morning when war was declared. I was in prayer with a friend just the minutes before the fateful hour of 11:30 o’clock. As we waited, God deepened the con viction in me that it was war that would come, and I felt I could not gauge'the meaning of that word in its awfulness of lust, cruelty, bloodshed, and suffer ing; and yet, with all that, such a sense of God’s deep, deep peace swept over me! It seemed as if He had baptized me into His peace. I look back to the wonder of that experience when war was loosed in the world, but God drew His children in a peace with- Him that lifted above the strife and turmoil. Again and again I have needed to turn to that, for there is everything to make the natural heart fear and fret, yet God’s peace is independent of all cir cumstances. God just means us to stay right here [in a London suburb], we feel. We had an offer with my sister away in the Highlands, and again an offer to an other dear friend’k in the South in a reception area, i. e., where those from evacuated places are sent. At first we were inclined for the latter, but with the very strict petrol ration ■ coming in
The Lord’s coming seems so near!: I truly can see nothing else ahead. I feel just as I did when I was at school. We were abroad and went for ten months, only coming home in the summer, and those last days were a sorting and packing up to go home for the holi days. These days now seem just a packing up to go Home. One feels a sense of detachment that just cannot be explained. I t is a turning from the “earthly tent” God has lent us for the time down here, to our “building of God eternal in the heavens,” and He is com ing Himself to take -us there—maybe there is a valley ahead — “waters” — “rivers”—God knows just what each one of us will need for that final refining that is to fit us for such glory, for an eternity with Him. But He is ahead— He our God and our Goal up there— our Strength, our Stay-^-our All down here. Yours with much love and prayer, [Continued on page 464] • PLAN TO ATTEND TORREY MEMORIAL BIBLE CONFERENCE, JANUARY 21 to 2 8 ,1 9 4 0 •
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