February, 1841 Life Out of Death A Story By GRACE LIVINGSTON H ILL
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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
"heart was being touched by thè Bible tessons and who was greatly impressed by the reality of thé testimony of thè young, people she met at the Eteri Club. . “We all follow you,” she told her leader. “What you do, we do. I wish I could be so folks could follow me.” When this story was told, a solemnity fell on the group of Bible Women. What a responsibility was theirs as they thought of the total of hundreds of lives that they were influencing every week! There was a pause for prayer. One by one the requests were brought to the Lord and humble supplication made for His life in His servants to be the drawing power to Him. A few requests, and then definite prayer for the needs that had been voiced; a few more requests, and more intercession—this was the order of service which occupied most of the morning, with heart-warming results. Among Adults Other leaders were working among adults—at the county farm, in women’s classes, in hospitals. One worker told of a woman in a tuberculosis sana torium who had recently been won to the Lord. One Monday morning the Bible Women had prayed that she might be spared a serious operation. Prayer was answered—and now came the cli max to that answer. The husband had' just been saved, and soon now, as the young woman would be leaving the hos pital, the two would renew their home life together, this time in a Christian home. Another Bible class of forty or fifty women in a Southern California beach town had been singularly blessed of the Lord in récent months. Many people had gotten in the habit of sending pray er requests to these women, and God had honored their faith, until the news had reached the ears o f the city libra rian. The librarian, not a Christian, has now approached one of the women with the unusual request for permission to list the »class on the library bulletin board so that people with spiritual needs can know where to go for help. A member of a Bible Woman’s adult class, this time in Los Angeles, inter ested a society woman in reading the Bible. She advised her to buy a Sco field edition for the help the notes would give her. The woman’s gardener was next enlistefl to read, then relatives, until now there are ten people regularly reading and studying the Word of God as a result of that one conversation. Some of them have become ' so inter ested that they are asking where to find books that will tell them more about prophetic truths. So the circle of influence widens, and will ever go on widening as, week by week, the faithful Bible Women seek strength from the Lord of the harvest and then go out to work in the waiting harvest field at Biola’s very door.
a FTERWARD Philip Gardley re membered his brother Stephen ^ as he stood at the curb just a and how tall and straight and hand some he had looked! The memory wrenched Philip’s heart with a dull, never-ceasing pain. Stephen had always been such a wonderful brother, more like a father than a brother to Philip, who could not remember his father. * It happened just after the brothers had completed an important conference arranging for Philip to enter into' full partnership in the business which Stephen had built up into phenomenal prominence and success. Philip had fin ished a leisurely college education, top ping it off with a prolonged European trip. They came out of the house to gether to go down to the office, and Philip, seeing a girl across the street, called a greeting to her. He stepped out into the road the better to hear what she was saying, his Panama hat in hand, a gay smile on his lips, the honors of the partnership in the busi ness resting lightly upon his irrespon sible shoulders. Afterward nobody could describe how it happened. There was no car in sight either way as Philip stepped out into the street. An instant later a low-bod ied speedy sport car careened around the corner on two wheels and whirled madly toward him. Only Stephen, standing on the curb, saw the onrush- ing danger. He gave one lunge forward and pushed his brother out of the way, but was struck himself and crushed by the heavy car as it sped wildly on and vanished around the next ■corner, its low-crouched driver taking no time to- look back. The girl across the street screamed and covered her face with her hands. Philip, unaware of what had really hap pened, bruised and much shaken, highly indignant, gathered himself up to look toward that gallant figure of the broth er who had stood smiling just a mo ment before, and found him gpne! And * Copyright, 1935, by Grace Livingston H ill; published by J. B. Lippincott Company. The story as it- appears on these pages is a condensation of a longer narrative vhich is available in booklet form.
down in the road at his feet lay a mangled limp form with blood stream ing from the face. Could that be Stephen? ’ A crowd began to gather. The frightened mother rushed from the house and knelt in the road beside her son. Some one sent for the police and another sent for the ambulance. Patrol wagons and motorcycles started on a chase for' the automobile that had done the deed. But Stephen Gardley lay white and still upon the bed in the dim hospital room, a white, anguished moth er kneeling by his side. And Philip Gardley, the gay boyish smile dead up on his stark set face, stood at the foot of the bed gripping the iron railing of the, footboard, and watched his brother slowly dying in his stead. For hours they waited there. It seem ed like ages to the brother who had never in his life before had anything hard to bear. He had to reconstruct everything that must have happened, to know all that had passed in his brother’s mind in that one swift instant of comprehension and choice. It had to be one or the other of them, and Stephen had chosen to be the victim. It was like Stephen to do it, of course. But in the general reckoning of all things Philip recognized how much bet ter it would have been for every one if he had been the victim. Not better for himself! He shivered as he thought of himself lying there in paih with life slowly ebbing away. He had no con ception of any such possibility for him self. Yet Stephen had7 unhesitatingly chosen death for himself, that he, Philip, gay, irresponsible, selfish, might go on living. And he wasn’t worth it! He knew in his heart that practically every one, even his mother, would think so. The awfulness of it all would roll over him overwhelmingly, till he longed to drop out of sight, out of existence, to call on the rocks and the mountains to hide him from the world that had so loved Stephen. It seemed that he grew ages older while he stood there watch ing that white face, swathed in blood- marked, bandages, those closed eyes, watching his mother’s tortured grief, his own heart wrenched with the immi nence of dreadful loss. How was he go ing to live without his brother? All his life this brother had been safe guarding him, supplying him with what he needed, even fulfilling his every
minute before it happened.. What a pleasant smile had been on his face,
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