174
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
June, 1933
city o f Lagos to another city, and found them all down with malaria; I went down to another place, and they were all down with smallpox; I went where they had yellow fever, and spinal meningitis, and from one district to an other, but thank Gqd, He was as good as His Word. There would not be a missionary spared in any heathen land, with all the filthiness, all the stench, all the hell, all the horrors, if it were not for the fact that our loving Father who called them into service knew the situation ahead o f time and wrote concerning it and promised to deliver. They are alive and carrying on their task because God has promised that He would protect them.
an emaciated colored man that is; I have not seen such a bloodless individual for a long time,” and into the long grass he went—and I let him go! ’ Oh- that we might realize the reality of the Book and go out into the full sweep o f its glory, its literalness, and depend absolutely upon it in the difficult days through which we. are passing! “ Thou shalt tread upon the adder.” I have heard a cry ring out from one of the huts,
“ Mamma, mamma, the adder!” and the thing would wig gle across the mud floor. These are the constant perils of God’s own who have gone to preach the gospel o f the cross to the Christless millions. Bless God, He knows all about it. The everlasting arms are not only underneath, but around about and over them, and they are shut in by the care o f God. T he G od of the W ord In those days in the Sudan, I gained not only an under standing o f the Word o f God, but a new conception of the God o f the Word. May God bring us to the place where He will be a living, throbbing reality to us. Nothing else will do in the days that lie ahead. Oh, thank God, I can not only say it, but I believe it : He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His ow n ; And the joys we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known. Yes, it will be a sweet, blessed experience like that for you, too, if you will walk with Him. Shall I tell you how it’came into my life? I was again journeying for sixty miles. I arrived at our headquarters at three o ’clock in the morning. They gave me three o f those five-grain quinine capsules before I retired. I swallowed them and went to sleep. The next morning, Mrs. Playfair was missing from the breakfast table; a little later we saw she was fearfully ill. Our Dr. Stirrett had been called hurriedly to visit an other white woman, but we heard that the government doc tor was near, so we called him. He examined her and pro nounced it malignant malaria and left some medicine. But he had not been gone very long before-we knew that was not what was the matter. Her body began to be covered with blue spots, for another name for African meningitis is “ spotted fever.” W e called the doctor again, and he withdrew the fluid from her spine, and tested it, and shook his head. “ There is nothing that can be done,” he said. Less than twenty hours later, dear Mrs. Playfair had passed on to her reward, a victim o f spinal meningitis. We put her body in a rough box and buried her in a lonely grave where she waits the call o f the resurrected Christ. As she was dying, she was thinking o f her three little white babies that she was leaving behind. She kept saying, “ Oh, my little lambs; my little lambs.” We brought those little lambs home to Canada with us, and we have them in a home for missionaries’ children where we have twenty-two o f them. When the children are o f school age, they dare not risk the health o f the little ones over there, so they leave them when they go back for five, six, seven years. Oh, beloved, when you pray for the missionaries, do not forget to pray for their babies. As soon as Mrs. Playfair was dead, I went over the hills to tell the government doctor she was gone. He said, “ I expected it.” I said, “ Doctor, what shall I d o?” “ Why, what do you mean?” “ I have been sleeping in the room out o f which she came.” When I saw how sick she was, I had moved out o f the
“ Thou shalt tread upon the lion.” I thought it would be a wonderful thing to be able to come back and report that I had seen lions, but when I heard them roar, I was quite satisfied not to see them. But in my case, it was not a lion, but a leopard. I was making a sixty-mile trip by bicycle. I had gone quite a little distance when I came to a deep ravine where the river had cut a great gash in the road. I jumped off my bicycle to think how I could maneuver across the depths, and looked up right into the face o f a leopard! Now I had never seen a leopard except at a zoo,
and they are very comfortable w h e n s e e n through iron bars. I did not have a g u n ; a missionary seldom if ever carries a gun. The only thing I had was a w a t e r bottle filled with a quart o f fil tered water, and you cannot drown a leop ard in a quart o f water. I stood, hang ing on to the handle bars o f my bicycle; he looked at me, and I looked back at him ; he looked at me, and I kept looking at him — and I am sure we will know each other the next time. I was admiring his spots, and he was admiring
W ater C arriers in th e S udan .
my red hair, and I was wondering as well. You can wonder a lot when you are in a fix like that. You can think a lot. I was thinking o f some people who had said nasty things about me, and wishing they had a chance to apologize; and I was thinking of folk about whom I had said things, and wishing I had the chance to apologize. A lot o f questions were running through my mind, and I was wondering most o f all just when that leopard had had his dinner; and when he wanted another dinner; and how many dinners he liked to have every day; and which dinner it was that he wanted now ; and just which part o f his dinner he started on and which part o f the dinner he left over, and a lot o f things like that. Then suddenly there flashed through my mind the ninety-first psalm : “ Thou shalt tread upon the lion.” I said, “ O Lord, make it good for a leopard.” I hung on to my bicycle and waited for the Lord to answer the prayer. In a minute, a disgusted expression came over the leopard’s face. It Was as if he said; “ What
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs