THE KING’S BUSINESS
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said, “Goodbye, my dear sweet babies, mother will miss you, but it won’t be long until we will be together again; only a little while goodbye.” And then we knelt in prayer, and the min ister thanked God for a religion that could comfort a poor mother in an hour like that. As I look back on that scene my heart still whispers, “Thank God for this divine religion so full of comfort for poor, broken,, bleeding human hearts everywhere. “Why do you believe the gospel you preach will elevate and save this com munity and this whole surrounding country?” said an unbeliever to the minister at the close of a gospel meet ing. The minister said, “Man, look around you and see what the gospel has done in this community in these short years. Not one murder nor one arrest for the violation of the revenue laws in all that time. Look at this little building where a quiet, orderly congregation gathers for worship. There is a Bible now in every home, and scores have learned to read God’s word who didn’t even know their let ters three years ago. See how the people wash their hands and faces, how they sweep their homes and have white-washed their yard fences. You know how many men and women have been converted and wholly changed, and how many girls have been mar ried to the men who were the authors of their disgrace and ruin. Look around you, sir, for the answer to your question.” The unbeliever said nothing, and rapdly walked away. The longer I live the more I believe in the power of the gospel. I have seen it tried. As I traveled along late one even ing I heard the voice of a little boy calling to me, and saying, “Mister, ain’t you a preacher?” I told him I was, and he said, “Come up to our
and are you prepared to go?” She lifted her trembling hand toward heaven and in a faint expiring voice that I could scarcely hear she whis pered, “The blood' of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” And then she peacefully closed her eyes and was gone. In her last mo ments she had repeated the text of the sermon she had heard a week before. This was probably all the Scripture she knew, as she had no Bible in her home, and had never learned her let ters. But who can say that this one text was not sufficient to guide her immortal spirit, home to God ? Some how I feel that some sweet day 1 will meet that little girl in our Fath er’s house on high. One night after I had preached on the manliness of Jesus and His power to. make real manhood, a little boy came forward and said, “I want to be a Christian.” The minister said, “Why do you desire to become a Christian?1’ The boy promptly an swered, “Because I want to be a man.” The boy became a Christian, and a brighter, nobler, manlier boy than he I have never known. He is now in school, and hopes some day to preach the gospel. I confidently be lieve that he will some day speak God’s message to men when I am worn out and in the dust. There are thousands of other boys like that boy in this great Mission Field, who are longing for better things, and who in their hearts are saying, “I want to be a Christian. I want to be a man.” I spent a night in an humble home far out in the field where four chil dren died of smallpox during the night. When I alone and unaided had laid the little ones out as best I could, the mother of the children came in. As she looked on all her children cold and still in death, she
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