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T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
July 1931
That lad is no Tennessee boy,” added the Steady Young Man. “Whoever and whatever he is, he needs a Saviour—■ we all do !” ejaculated Aunt Mary. You get worse and worse,” said Marguerite irritably, after they had gone to their rooms. “That Thin Red Line of yours! That’s their line, but it doesn’t go with young aviators—or even mountain boys.” Did it not? At that very hour the sleek head of the young aviator was bent in thought as he stood looking down at the beauty of the desert night. It seemed suddenly infused by a spiritual presence that bore witness to a great Personality. Some lines he had once known came back to him: Back of the canvas that throbs, the painter is hinted and hidden; Into the statue that breathes, the soul of the sculptor is bidden; Under the joy that is felt, lie the infinite issues of feeling: Crowning the glory reveal’d, is the glory that crowns the re vealing. “Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboll’d is greater; Yast the create and behold, but vaster the inward Creator; Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving; Back of the hand that receives, thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving. Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing; The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing; And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights where those shine, Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is divine.” “And if that doesn’t explain the beauty, what does ?” queried the young aviator as he turned from the moonlit mountain top to go to rest. At the same time, Zack was stumbling along trying to think and to avoid running into the prickly cactus plants. “That thing just seems to haunt me,” he said half aloud. “It is always coming up one way*and another. First of all old Esau says, while we’re practicing, ‘Let’s work in a “spiritual.” They always take.’ And when I object, all of the boys turn on me and tell me I don’t know what I am talking about. Then we sing, ‘These bones are goin’ to rise again,’ and the crowd goes wild about it. And when Abel says, ‘I told you so,’ and I say, ‘It was just the har mony they liked,’ why old Esau has to lay his hand on my shoulder, so kindly that I gulp down a lump in my throat, and he says, ‘Lad, it’s a heart-broken world! All those men and women and young folks at those rich tables in there are just critters like ourselves. All of us is more or less like lost kids. We’re in a hard fix, and we know it if we’ve any sense at all. No, we’re not preachin’. But any one with any heart at all would take a lost young one by the hand and help him to get found, wouldn’t they? Sure! You would; your heart isn’t hard, boy! Now, while they’re not lookin’ for it, and are all opened up with our fun, and ignorance, and doin’s, why shouldn’t we just shoot a little old-time religion their way ? Won’t hurt us, they like it, and it may help ’em.’” Zack leaned moodily against a friendly boulder. The universe was in league against him. That was evident. Even the Mountain Boys approved of religion! He had thought he would be safe among such people. And they claimed that the need for a Saviour was a great underly ing fact that couldn’t be denied. Where was a young man to turn when he’d done his best and couldn’t shake a
thing? But the moonlight, and the quiet desert air, with its occasional distant coyote call, gave back no answer to Zack’s question. * * * It was several days later that Althea was called to the telephone by Aunt Margot. “So you’re home, dear!” she said. “And you left Con stance with those poor afflicted Gorhams in New York! No word of their boy Rodney yet? I ’m so sorry. But I ’m glad you and your mother are back here, and that your father’s better. The people down on Violet Vale Drive have just come back from Desert Dream, and Aunt Mary has a theory she wishes to tell you. Pansy and Mar guerite laugh at it. But—come over!” While Althea raced her little car to Aunt Margot’s as fast as it would go, she wondered, and prayed even as she wondered, if there was any hope of finding her lost cousin, Rodney. Another thought would also obtrude itself—that, in all the weeks since they had returned from Europe, they had not had a line from the solitary Beatrice. ( To be concluded) The Book O u r f a t h e r s read the Book when the blinds were drawn in the house, and they read it through tears. The tears hindered the physical vision, but they vivi fied the visions of the soul. Our fathers took that Book as their help when trade was bad, and the battle of bread waxed hot, and all around them was a dark, discouraging wilderness. But they heard the Bible say, concerning itself, what it represents God as saying, “Have I been a wilderness unto you?” and they said, “No, it has been a fruitful garden, and well watered; it has been everything we needed.” Surely it is too late in the day for us to whittle down the infinite authority of this blessed Book! igllkDiNSDALE T. Y oung . THE RETURN OF THE TIDE (Continued from page 314) with the father that she was not the one for the job of minding him. That evening Marian recounted the story at the sup per table to the great amusement of the Goodwin family. They roared with laughter, as she finished her recital with a rueful little, “But even he turned me down.” Two days more of fruitless searching—even Joyce was beginning to be discouraged, as they talked it over one evening. “I must do something,” Marian said desperately. “I have hunted all over this town, and I cannot find a thing. I have walked until I am tired. I have been stared at by rude men and hard-faced women and painted, gum-chew ing girls, and then been told that my precious services were not needed. Of course they were not all like that. There were one or two nice places that I might have had if I had known how to do anything. And there was that restaurant man who was determined that I should stay and be cashier, or waitress, or almost anything. But I did not like the place, I did not like the job, and most of all I did not like the man. I felt I could not trust him. That was the only place that really wanted me.” But as they knelt and prayed that night, there came a quiet assurance that a door —some door—was going to open, and soon. (To be continued .)
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