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In fact, he threw back his head and simply roared. “Let’s see your other clothes,” he demanded jovially. They were all the same: suitable for Australia’s warm est season. In assembling that ward robe, I had asked advice of nobody, and had thought the choices extremely good. The trouble was, I had a cocksur-a- ness about a number of things. This attitude of mine was a bit startling to the gentleman in charge of the Insti tute’s information desk on the night of my arrival there. Coming in after ten o’clock, I found the building closed for the night. Violently I banged at the door. “Who is it?” a dignified voice in quired. “It’s me!” I shouted. “Who?” “Me—Louie Talbot from Os-try-lia!" He let me in, despite my poor gram mar. My application had preceded me, and I was welcomed. That first night in Chicago, I slept in a little room on the second floor of the “153 Building”—the same floor on which D. L. Moody had once lived and worked. The room appealed to me; it was furnished simply, with a view to utility. The next morning, boasting an air of affluence, I withdrew the thirty gold sovereigns from the money belt my mother had given me, and deposit ed them with the Institute’s cashier, satisfied that I would have no finan cial worries for many months to come. Later, I moved to the fourth floor to join a group of boys from Australia
CHAPTER V. M Y FIRST impression of Ameri cans in the United States was that they had one peculiar sometimes there was nothing very fun ny, so far as I could see. For example, when our ship docked In New York after what had seemed an interminable voyage from Austra lia, people would give me a swift ap praising glance and then smile cov ertly, if they did not actually chuckle. It is true that there had been some mild amusement shown by fellow pas sengers on the ship—by those who had found difficulty in understanding my broad Australian brogue. But days at sea had made us friends, with muted awareness to one another’s eccentrici ties. All of us were excited as the efld of our journey drew near. From the moment New York ap peared—a thin, uneven line against the horizon—until I had set foot upon its soil, I ran from one end of the ship to another and from deck to deck, de termined to miss none of the breath taking sights. Mine was the wild joy of anticipation; certainly there was nothing amusing about that. On the ship, I had decided to cele brate my arrival in America by dress ing in my best clothes. It was March, but a touch of belated winter had come to the city. Sidewalks were slick with ice—cold against the thin soles of my good white oxfords. Little flurries of snow were swirling about and making me shiver. I wondered: Would they damage my suit? I had on my best
mannerism: They laughed, even when
When God Saved The Brewe/s Boy By LOUIS T. TALBOT, as told to MILDRED M. COOK
Copyright 1944, Mildred M. Cook.
who were rooming there. They were men who were subsequently used of God in a remarkable way. Charles F. Hummel gave nearly thirty years to valiant witnessing in the Sudan; Jack Fullerton followed the Lord to China; and James Mountain returned to a spiritually enriched pastorate in his home country. Another close friend of those early days was Joseph Flacks, a Jew who had become so truly “a new creature in Christ Jesus” that he was to us a brother beloved. We were a jolly crowd, white flannel trousers. They were tailored pencil-slim, in what was then the highest fashion in Australia (but well-dressed men in America were wearing voluminous peg-top trousers at the time!), I was so glad to be where I was that nothing else mattered. With a straw hat to shield me from the elements; I set out to arrange for transportation to the Middle-West—and to Jim. My brother had completed his work at the Moody Bible Institute and was study ing at Xenia Theological Seminary in St. Louis, but he had promised to come to Chicago when I arrived there When Jim saw me, even he laughed. IN EARLIER CHAPTERS: When fun- loving Louis Talbot, at twenty-one, left his home in Sydney, Australia, he was unaware of the full influence of several factors upon his life. These included evangelistic services that had drawn thousands to the Sydney Town Hall; the consistent testimony of converted gangsters; the discern ment of a faithful pastor; the guid ance of a praying mother and a mor ally upright (though not confessedly Christian) father. Irked by questions about his future, and impelled by af fection for , his older brother Jim—a student at the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago — in 1911 he sailed for America. There a new life begalL
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