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T H E
K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
May 1924
eral of the old-timers are still there. Up to a few days ago a man of some 60 years was seen at the meetings as one who was interested in the Gospel. Many times as we had the opportunity, we have tried to lead him to Christ. Always there would come the reply, “ I will some day hut not now." Death came into the home, and one of his boys was taken out to the ' City of the Silent, hut still the same reply, “ Some day I will, but not now." A few days ago as we stepped from the machine one of the men came up and said, “ Did you hear about Bob” ? To the question we had to réply, “No, we hadn’t heard.” Then came the words that we felt were coming,, for he said, “ Bob dropped dead here the other day while at work.” Yes, ,he had gone without any time to make preparation for the long journey. They had tried hard to get in touch with us for funeral arrangements, but. had failed and thus he had been laid to rest without our having heard of it. Do you wonder that we ask you to pray for us? As so many make the mistake that this man did, we are reminded, of the verse we read somewhere, that goes some thing like this: À ship came sailing, sailing, Over a great wide sea, And-right in sight of the harbor, Down in the sea went she. MOUNTAIN SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK ■ Throughout several of our western states, where most-of the settlers are . “.homesteaders,” there is a great need in the rural districts, for Christian work, especially Sunday School work for the many children. Statistics show that in the State of Montana, alone, there are over one hundred thousand boys and girls and young folks of school age, without and religious help or instruction whatsoever. In this land of romance and possibilities, towering high are the mountain peaks of neglected, unevangelized sec tions of our beloved country, “ white already to harvest, but the labourers are few.” Are there not many Christians who when called to the Gospel colors, bhoose for themselves instead of waiting upon God that they may “ go where He wants them to go, and be what' He wants them to be.” Many are the unreached fields, virgin soil, nestled among our beautiful mountains, where there are multitudes of lost and dying souls, without any, Gospel whatsoever, sadly ne glected. “ How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed and how shall they believe in, him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear with out a preacher? (Rom. 10:14) Christ was “ moved with com passion when He saw the multitude going about as sheep without a Shepherd.” (Matt. 9?36). Surely any consecrated Christian would be moved with compassion if they could go up and down, in and out, of these beautiful mountains of Northwestern Montana, and see the people, especially children, without any kind of Christian teaching whatso ever. “ God leads in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform” and so in a most wonderful way He lead Mrs. Sanford and myself to these beautiful mountains, where we consider it a privilege to tell the story of Jesus and His love. In our work (which is general missionary work, opening Sunday Schools in the mountains and rural districts out of Libby, Montana), we find many homes without Ôhrist and with out hope. ■ These log cabin homes; ¡: nestled àwàÿ in the mountains, miles apart are those of homesteaders and lum berjacks without religious privileges and are only a sample of many in our Western states. We have now four dis tricts opened up where we are conducting Sunday Schools every Lord’s Day, (weather permitting), fully: organized, with adult and primary classes, The attendance is good and the interest keen. Indeed, they feel it a great priv And the“span and the broken timbers, Were strewn on a rock-strewn strand; And a cry went up from thè darkness, “Not far, not far from land.”
ilege to have these meetings each Lord’s Day and we feel that there is a work going on here that will tell in eternity. It is indeed a real inspiration to see these people come to our Sunday services— some, as far as twenty miles round trip— in their bob-sleds. As soon as winter is over the Lord willing we will open other sections where there is no Gospel at all. We ,held our Christmas exercises with a record attend ance and almost every family in the four districts, namely: McGinnis Meadows— Silver Butte—-Swamp Creek, and the Manicke section;' represented. We made this an all-day meeting, the first Christian Christmas tree and exercises ever held in this Fisher country thirty miles from nearest railroad. The accompanying picture talks for itself. Is it worth while? May God send laborers, to the many unreached and ne glected fields, “ white already to harvest.” I I ! — L. P. Sanford. A PERSISTENT ERROR We trust that those of our readers who are inclined to be critical regarding errors in the reading matter contained in these columns, will carefully read, and prayerfully ponder the following paragraph. Pity the poor proof-reader! The frequency of strikes; the coming-in of typesetting machines, with mere boys and girls to operate them, and the rapid disappearance of the old-time compositor; the spelling-reform movements, with their weakening of old standards, which have mainly brought about not simplicity, but a growing disregard of all standards— all these have led us upon evil days. Even when the final page proof has been read for casting, one cannot be suie that the text will ap pear from the foundry without errors. With type-setting machines the mere change of a comma necessitates the re setting of the line, and in making the change the careless and uninstructed operator is quite as likely as not to add another blunder of his own. One case of the sort is certain to hold its place in my memory. At the time of the printers’ strike in New York four years ago I took our printing for a month to a Western city. In reading the page proof of an article that had been set from a perfectly correct galley proof, I found that the compositor had changed the words “between the” to “ her tweem the.” It was sent back for revision, only to return as “ betwene the.” Again I sent it back, and this time it came as “ betwee uthe,” as though the poor “ n” despairing of ever finding its proper place in the world, had crawled over to the “ the,” turned up its heels, and died. Then I walked over to the printing-office and stood over the com positor until the change was .correctly made.— Century Magazine. “ So, you preach for money, do you?” sneered a deacon of a chapel to his minister, who had appealed for more money as his family was suffering through lack of nourishment, “ i thought you preached for the good of souls.” “We can’t eat souls,” replied the minister, “ and if we could, it would take a thousand such as yours to make a meal.”
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