425
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
September 1930
| EhCeart to SJeart clo)ith Our 'YoungReaders ! By Florence Nye Whilwell —»a
Blue (Continued from last month) “ The blueness of a mound cleanseth away evil” (Prov. 30:30).
head, my patient, to let in light?’ I asked. ‘ I needed a fall, my doctor, to show me what a fool a man is who says in his heart there is no God.’ And then he told me that it was just the simple Bible story and the loving faith of your noble young cousin, that had won him. Not long arguments nor brilliant dialogues! Perhaps, too, some one prayed.” Eleanor had walked moodily away. Her world was upside down. She could no longer patronize Constance in the old comfortable way, and it was disturbing to find so many people praising her for the very thing that she had deplored. Added to this, there was that brilliant young man—every one said he was brilliant—actually going out to a wild country, and rejoicing to go because he be lieved as Connie did. Was there, after all, something in it ? She had looked down into the blue waters below and said to herself that she felt “ bluer” than the water. A recollection of all this flashed across her mind and sobered her as she heard Bill ask, “ What do you mean by a ‘real American,’ Franz? I’d like to hear a European’s concep tion of what a genuine output of Uncle Sam ought to be.” It was usually worth while to listen to Franz Josef, for he had lived, and thought, and therefore, experienced a great deal in his short life. “ A real American is one who is genuinely democratic, in my thought!” he began. To Constance, his quaint for eign accent and unusual phrasing lent an added charm to all he said. “ But I could never find any Americans who were what I expected,” Franz Josef continued. “ All those who came over here—at least all whom I met in my restricted life— did not seem to have that brotherly love, or that feeling that all men should be brothers. And so I went to the Communists and was studying them. Then I met you, Constance, and as we became friends, I noticed that you were animated by something within that made you long to help every one, and to be of use to all, and to make peo ple about you happier. I wondered what it could be. One day you talked to me of Christ. My earliest idea of Him had been a statue. I had seen the statue ground to powder—destroyed! With it went what little association with Him I had ever had. But you see,” and Franz Josef sat up in his earnestness, “ when some one makes Him a living reality right before one’s eyes, it is then that one longs to know Him.” Eleanor twisted uneasily on her cushions. All this was emphatically not what she herself had been doing. “ O f course my faimly have not known much about my thoughts—what was going on inside of me,” Franz Josef continued. “ As long as my manners, my conduct, satis-
T was because you were the first real American I had ever met,” the princeling was saying to Con stance. “ That was why I liked you and won- 'dered what made you so— so real!” he added, with an expressive gesture of his free hand. The princeling’s arm was still in a sling and his sprained back was firmly strapped with adhesive tape. But he was allowed to lie in a deck chair and look down on the blue lake and off at the snowy reaches of the Alps. “ Are you trying to tell us that what Connie believes makes her a ‘real Christian’ ?” asked Eleanor in a skeptical tone from the couch hammock. They had come to know1one another very well—Con stance and the princeling, Eleanor and Bill the Brilliant. Constance marvelled that her humble little self had been so mightily used. Bill the Brilliant had been able to remain with them for a time; that was another marvel! He was waiting for word to join his party in Paris, from which city they were to proceed to Cairo, and thence to that strange in terior where an eager group awaited them. But in the meanwhile this capable young man had somehow assumed control of the situation. He had talked with Eleanor and her mother, and persuaded them that Constance had a work to do here. He had told Eleanor very frankly that her attitude was extremely selfish, so that for several hours afterwards that worldly-wise and sophisticated young per son had actually been pensive, not to say repentant. Bill’s manner was convincing. Her inner conception of herself was sadly shaken. The clever little Swiss, physician, who tended the princeling, had contributed to Eleanor’s lowness of mind. “ In times of stress it is young women like your cousin, Miss Eleanor, who are wanted. Why? Because they have what everyone needs at such a time. I am an old-fashioned doctor who has lived in these mountains all my life and am still simple enough to believe in God’s Book, as He wrote it. But that young princeling, over there,” and he had pointed to the summer house where the youth lay in his deck chair,, “ he is a modern. And yet in his hour of need he knew where to turn. Was it to one of you gay thought less ones? No! Like a child to its mother he sent for one who could lead him to the Source of life. He obeyed his deepest instincts in sending. And he found the Source, mark you ! Oh yes, he found it ! And I knew from that hour when he slept that all would be well. Some days later as I looked at his wounded head, I was reminded of a verse, and I gave it to him: ‘The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil.’ And when I told him arid saw his smile, I had courage to continue. ‘Did you break your
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