June 1930
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
298
\ ! Sieart to Sieart H&ith Our Young6Readers j B y F lo r en c e N y e Whiirwell —■ >â
Feed My Sheep
for his nephew and nieces. This was Harold’s and Elise s graduation day. Should he tell them or withhold the letter till the morrow ? The letter that told so vividly and ter ribly of the great storm, the frightful wind, and the trembling earth! The scared natives and their flight to their huts and the need of one to man a boat for the rescue of a child, and the going down of that boat contain ing his brother. The child, a little native, saved, but the shepherd lost in the saving. Gone was the hope of renew ing the old missionary partnership which both men had counted as their chiefest earthly joy. And besides that, how should he tell Harold and his sisters? His own grief was as nothing compared to this sad duty. He now discovered that he must walk as he thought and prayed. Up on the hill where the eucalyptus trees were blowing in the fresh wind that brought a breath of sea and ships, and the joys of wandering over earth, past the fragrant firs and cedars, where, over a year ago, he had talked with Elise and Pauline of spades, and stars, and stones. Where the meadow began on a slope of the upland, he threw himself down to rest. With his body quiescent, his mind travelled over land and sea to those shepherdless islands. He must go back! That was the only solution. But what of the children? Harold, who was to graduate, was planning another year’s specialization. Elise, too, had plans. “Oh, Lord, how shall I do? Under take for me,” he prayed. There was Armand, too, to be considered. The young Jewish lad, lately converted, needed him very greatly. Ever since he had met him on that hill-top above Jerusa lem his heart had claimed Armand. He smiled a little, even now, at some of the young European’s experiences since his arrival in the great Pacific Southwest. He had needed a valet, and had asked for one on occasion, had Armand! He had left his shoes outside his door for “Boots” to shine, and had been indignant, with the New Ritz Hotel, when that magnificent and otherwise im peccable hostelry had failed to respond by cleaning them. “You are not in London now, Armand,” Bill the Bril liant had told him rather brusquely, and Uncle Alan had had a long session with the Thin Red Line that ,evening. He impressed upon them their Christian duty to the young Jewish lad. “God has entrusted you with a delicate task,” he said. “Satan is especially busy when a Hebrew is converted. Take care that you do not emulate that arch enemy by ac cusing the brethren, even in trivial things. And besides that, did any of you ever stop to consider how young westerners must appear to Armand? If he were not so courteous he might himself mention that some of you are decidedly crude. Many times your expressions must ap pear rough to him, and your manners, too!” Donald Donaldson arose to remark that he had always supposed the command to Christians to be kind to stran-
"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? . . . Feed my sheep” (John 21 :16). ‘^¡Pg^OMMENCEMENT day! The scent of roses, /gfggfg with the dew upon them to bring out their fresh fragrance, assailed Uncle Alan as he sat writing on the porch in the early morning. He could see Pauline giving Little Sister a very LPP- rigorous tennis lesson in the court which was devoted to the use of Thin Red Line members at every hour of the day, excepting this early one, when they were breakfasting. Elise was inside at the piano singing appro priately enough: “The day’s at the morn, The morning’s at seven”-— The tall, thin man listened musingly as she finished with the well-worn lines:— “God’s in His heaven, “All’s right with the world.” At this couplet he shook his head, for while he agreed with the first part, he could not feel that all was right with the world by any means, nor that all ever would be right until the return of the righteous, risen Lord. His heart turned gladly to the contemplation of this Day which was to come—the great Commencement Day of the Universe, whfen the desire of all nations should appear with His own chosen ones about Him. It was well just now, to look ahead to this day of all days, for Uncle Alan held in his hand a letter which had sent him to his knees during the night hours just past, and had turned him to 1 Thess. 4:13-18 as soon as the day dawned. The letter was from those far-off Islands “some where in mid-ocean,” from which Uncle Alan had come several years before. He had left a life-work among the native people there, to whom he had become as a father and a brother and a shepherd—all in one. He had seen his own sister, the mother of Harold and Elise, Pauline and Little Sister, lay down her life there; and he himself had closed for their last sleep the sweet eyes that had gladdened his heart since babyhood. The father and hus band had remained to carry on. His letters, descriptive of the work, had been as manna to this missionary soul. The longing to be back in the work was intense. But after a while God had given him the Thin Red Line—the group of young people, in and out of college, “whose hearts God, had touched.” Their eager desire to be fish ers of men, to win others for their Saviour, had drawn first his interest and then his love and prayers, until now he seemed to all the young men and girls of “the Line,” to be their chief, as well as their friend and guide. ■All this had helped to console his “missionary heart.” And now the letter in his hand had put an end to the pos sibility of return. It contained heavy news for him, and
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