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301
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
June 1930
it rest on other grounds? What will you say when men come and question your faith in Christ and His Word?” There was a young man sitting down on the floor who had been blind from his early childhood, with the marks of the disease that had made him blind all over his face. He raised his head and said: “I will tell you what I would say. I would answer him in the words of the nineteenth and twentieth verses in the fourth chapter of Acts: “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard.” I said, “Do you know all your Bible as-well as that?” “Well,” said the blind man, “I know my Bible pretty well.” I asked, “Can you tell me what is in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke?” “Certainly,” he said, “that’s the chapter that has the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son.” “Do you know in what chapter of Matthew is the feed ing of the five thousand ?” “Certainly,” he replied; “it’s in the fourteenth.” I thought it was the twelfth, but I turned to the four teenth and found that the blind man had located it cor rectly. He had learned all he knew about Christ’s life from his friends, who sat on the floor of the little room in which he lived, and read to him, translating out of an old Chinese Bible the whole life of Christ. I asked him what he liked best of all. “Oh,” he replied, “I like the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, that tells the story of the blind man to whom Christ restored sight.” I asked him what he looked forward to most. “Well,” he said, “I look forward most to Christ’s meeting me at the gates of that Beulah Land. I wouldn’t dare to go up to-see the Father alone, a blind man from Korea, but I shall wait at the gate until Christ comes and takes my hand and leads me up to His Father and mine.” I don’t know when I was so rebuked as to my own knowledge of the Bible as by that poor, blind Korean, who had been less than three years a disciples of Christ. —"The Oriental Missionary Standard .” The Old-Fashioned M inister The old-fashioned type of minister is fast passing. The olden type was that of a man with a message. He was a preacher, a spokesman, an ambassador. He urged men to repentance for sin, to belief in the mediatorial work of Christ, to holiness of life. He was a witness. His mes sage was the Word of God, his plea the mercy of God in Christ, his warning the wrath of God against sin. A state ment from the Word was the end of all controversy. Un der such a ministry men both trembled and believed. Now, however, the minister is not so much a witness as a worker, not so much a preacher as a plodder, not so much a minister as a manager. His great function has come to be administration rather than ambassadorship. He is an agent more than an authority. His aim is as of yore, but his art along another line. Methods are his study in place of the Word, machinery instead of the means which God has ordained; the Word, the sacraments, and prayer. He has gone into chivalry with other men rather than into a contest with sin. S o u th e r n Presbyterian.
“Well, Alan ! You insisted on squandering your youth on those heathen, and acquiring an obscure oriental dis ease, so now it’s my duty to tell you that you may as well spend yourself as sparingly as possible in the good old U. S. A. for whatever time the Almighty may allow you.” He had endeavored to say it crossly, this old friend! But the misty eye and the gripping hand on his shoulder belied the tone. Yes! This was God’s solution of the problem. He did not realize that John Dowling had concluded with a glowing exhortation to the young people before him to follow on. He did not hear how he gloried in the cross of Christ. All around him the young graduates were a-tingle with the thrill of it—a new thrill to many of them. His heart had travelled far away to the Islands, set in a sea of sapphire, and to the simple people waiting there. * * The Thin Red Line stood on a pier looking up into the faces of Harold and John Dowling. They were all there to wave good-bye to these two as they steamed out into the blue immensity of water and sky. They were the first two to be launched, reflected Uncle Alan, as he stood gravely watching the removal of that last link with land, the gangplank. The band had been playing a plaintive Island song, but as it paused John Dowling raised a hand and together they all began the farewell song so dear to Christian hearts— “God be with you ’till we meet again”— How the clatter of the world and even the rattle of de parture seemed to die away! The very dock hands ap peared to be hushing their noisy activities, and the con fetti throwers and the people who were sending long streaming ribbons of colored paper from boat to land and from land back to boat again, paused in their labors to listen. The Thin Red Line sang bravely, though on Elise’s cheek a tear would glisten as she looked up into the face of her comrade brother and remembered why, and where he was going! How the words followed the ship as it steamed away and seemed to linger with a caress from God’s own heaven above it as it went. And the two men on board, looking back to shore, took heart and thanked their Father in heaven that He had given them the fellowship and the prayers of that loyal group of girls and men, the Thin Red Line. tg. a s What a B lind Korean Saw B y R obert E. S peer L AST year we had a meeting with some Korean Chris tians who had known the Gospel but a few years. I said to them: “Now, you know that not everybody in America believes in this Gospel. The majority of the peo ple in our country are not followers of Jesus, and as to this Bible, there are a great many who do not believe in i t ; and some day they will come here and they will tell you these things. Is your faith in Christ and this Bible de pendent on your belief that a great nation, mightier and wiser than you, believes in Christ and the Bible? Or does “Keep His bow of promise o’er you! God be with you ’till we meet again.”
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