125
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
April-May, 1933
oiver
B y PETER PLgJK IN Los Angeles, California
He takes the flower from me and gives it to one of the workers, and I see it begin to go through a strange process of change. From one worker to another it passes, instru ments are set in motion, chemicals poured, gases released; and presently I can no longer see a flower at all. After a while, the scientist returns. But instead of a flower, he car ries a number of tiny tubes, each containing some cloudy fluid or gas. “Where is the flower?” I ask. “If it was only an opti cal illusion, it was nevertheless beautiful to the sight and sweet to smell.” I take the little tubes to ex
[Dr. Plotkin is a Russian Jew. When he was a lad of ten, his family was massacred before his eyes, but he was rescued by Tolstoy. A rich Jew educated him, and he became a great painter. For many years, he was entangled in false and godless phil osophies, until he was liberated through the saving grace of God.— E ditor .]
I hold a flower in my hand. I look at it, and my eyes are refreshed and delighted with its form and color. I press my nose to the flower and smell its delicate fragrance. But suppose I take this flower to a great factory—a place of man-made things. I find in the factory a door over which there is a sign that r e a d s ‘‘Chemical Laboratory.” I go in. Everywhere I see the great machines of man’s in vention—all of the intricate paraphernalia of the'sci^ntist— test tubes, and bottles gleaming with the colored chemicals and imprisoned gases, scales and shining microscopes, and complicated instruments without number. All over the bare and colorless walls I see written the scientist’s cold formula of tru th : “Two and two are four-—two and two are four.” There is a great noise as the throng of workers moves here and there, swift and precise, like well-oiled automa tons, pouring the chemicals, adjusting the scales, feeding the burners. And now and then loud explosions shake the foundations of the great plant. The atmosphere of the place is dry, and gray, and monotonous. Walls and machines and workers are all of this same drab color. And the workers, with cold, expres sionless faces, move about mechanically or stand like the bottles on the shelves—short bottles, tall bottles, fat bot tles, slim bottles, blending into the scene like so many cogs and wheels in a vast machine. I turn with relief to the fresh flower that I hold in my hand—the one splash of lovely color in the surrounding ugliness—one spot of beauty in this chaotic desert of color less beings and colorless things, scarcely distinguishable one-from the other. A man, stiff and expressionless like the others, ap proaches me and says: “My name is Logic; I am also called Reason.” He stares with cold contempt at the little flower in my hand, that from time to time I have been pressing to my nose to keep from choking in the dry atmosphere of the
amine them, and from each a bitter and repulsive odor arises, filling the air about me with the smell of death. Suddenly, I dash the vile tubes to the floor, and rush ing out to escape the suffocating atmosphere, I cry out, with tears in my eyes: “They have stolen my flower and given’me nothing in return but vile and bitter gases. What do I care for their scientific analysis? I want the lovely flower in its freshness and beauty!”
So it is with the Bible. The Bible is that sublime and beautiful flower, re vealing to the questioning eyes of hu
manity the simple truths of God’s power and goodness and mercy. Pointing us to perfection, it is sufficient for our needs, and in it alone is found the assurance of peace and happiness and eternal life for every creature in God’s earth. This is my challenge to the statesmen and sages and law givers and philosophers of all the ages: What can you add to this Book to make it a better guide for humanity ? And what do you dare to take away from it? If you tear out a page, you must replace it with a better one. If it is not essential, what will you give instead? And if you cannot give a better hope and a better doctrine for the aching hearts of men, beware that you do not take this from them! Be careful, I say. Don’t touch my beautiful flower—this flower, this Book that even Time, who is called the great destroyer, cannot destroy, for Christ has said to u s : “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall endure for ever.” Safe Among the Lilies In the south of France, the lily of the val ley grows over wide areas. While it blooms, hunting ceases, for the fragrance of the lilies completely destroys the scent of the animals. Deer and gazelle roam the fields in perfect safety —a picture of the Christian who companies with the divine Lily of the Valley and is kept safe.
place. His voice is cracked and dry like the rattle of seeds in a withered pod, and from his hard, dry eyes the light of-«, hard,,dry soul is shining. “Heh, heh,” he laughsisarcastically. “What do you have there—amower ?” “Yes,” I answer. “No,” says the dry' and brittle voice. “It is not a flower' at all. It is' an optical illusion. If you really want to know what it is, wait here, and I will snow you by scientific analysis.” ; '1
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