THE KING’S BUSINESS
t>y remarkable way, he answered that the patches represented the sins of his neigh bors. He then pointed to each patch, and gave the story of the sin of some one in the village, then whent on to another, un til he had related the sins of all in the village. On the back of his coat there was a small patch, no bigger than a three-penny piece. On being asked what it was, he said, “That’s my ain sin, and I canna see it!” W hen I was a little child my father was a young lawyer in a western city,' strug gling to make the ends meet. I used to wonder why he was so constantly at his office—every morning, noon, night, not even taking a Saturday holiday, as the school children did. And dimly I remember how I used ta speculate about it and say to my little self, “If I were father I would not be tied down so to an office; I would go shooting the wild pigeons,” which in those days in the spring and fall used to fly in countless companies through the sky. I could not understand the problem of sub sistence, the unrelaxing toil which must al ways minister to professional success, as father did. I was only a little child. If then I could have understood what father did, I had not been a little child. So do not think that you can comprehend God; if you could you would be God, and that you can never be.— W. Hoyt. I n the mining camps of the Rocky Moun tains more than one home missionary has largely lost his influence by giving way to the prospecting fever. The eager desire “to strike it rich” is not compatible with an eager desire for souls. The grandest home missionary superintendent that ever trod the Rocky Mountains (Rev. J. W. Pickett, killed in November, 1879, by the overturn ing of a stage coach near Leadville, Colo rado), was once walking along between two mining camps and mission fields in the Black Hills. He picked up a piece of rock that looked as though it might contain rich mineral. He began to build air castles and to speculate on the probability of finding a
helped himself. For Christian service is twice blessed; any deed of love you render will not only benefit him you seek to aid, but it will prove a blessing to yourself. You will not be thinking of recompense, but Jesus will see to it that if you give even a cup of cold water in His name to a thirsty soul, it shall not be left without re ward.— C. A. Salmond. S aid a Brooklyn preacher: “I want to tell you a little story. You know so many of you fear selfishly—are afraid for your own safety, like this little child. He was in the garden, with his mother, when a bee stung his mother on the palm of her hand. The child huddled close to the mother and cried, for fear the bee would sting him, too. ‘Look,’ said the mother, ‘the sting of the bee is in the palm of my hand. He cannot sting you also.’ And so Jesus has suffered the sting of death for us—and we cannot suffer it. We see hiirt crowned with glory and honor, sitting on the right hand of God. He died for us, He has done His work.” A way up the mountain side there is a little spring; it seems so small that an ox might drink it up at a draught. By and by it becomes a rivulet; other rivulets run into it. Before long it is a large brook, and then it becomes a broad river sweep ing onward to the sea. On its banks are cities, towns and villages, where many thousands live. Vegetation flourishes on every side and commerce is carried down its stately bosom to distant lands. So if you turn one to Christ, that one may turn a hundred; the hundred may turn a thou sand; and so the stream, small at first, goes on broadening and deepening as it rolls toward eternity.— D. L. Moody. I n a certain village in Scotland there lived a Iftlf-witted man whose coat pre sented a most curious appearance. •All down the front it was covered with patches of various sizes, but mostly large. When asked why the coat was patched in such a
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs