Readings

Simplicity

In his beautifully written boo, Wind, Sand, and Stars, Antoine de Saint Exupery points his readers to the simple and clean lines of an airplane’s fuselage and a ship’s keel, and reminds us that man’s engineering genius has been employed in achieving greater simplicity of line and form, “In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away”.

(Harold E. Kohn, Pathways to Understanding).

 

When Conditions Are Right

“One of the most valuable clues nature offers us concerning the successful handling of life is this: if you want the good things in your life to prosper, establish the conditions upon which they thrive. If you want to remove an evil from your life, upset the conditions upon which that evil has prospered.

Faith flourishes when immersed in things that cannot easily be shaken. It falters and dies when grounded in perishables. Some years ago the night sky erupted with an explosion of ‘falling stars’, and in a Negro settlement there were thoughts of impending doom and cries of terror. Several Negroes ran to a white-haired old saint of their race to ask him what they could do. They found the old gentleman on the porch of his rickety cabin with his chair tipped back against the wall, his eyes on the stars and his face alight with smiles. Before they could ask his advice, he ventured, ‘Ain’t dat a pretty sight? Jes see dem little-bitty stars shootin’ acrost de sky! But look at dem big ones; dey ain’t moved an inch’. His faith in the changeless kept him steady.

Fear thrives on inaction. It shrivels and fades when a person acts as if the best were sure to happen. Many a person who has been afraid of flying, when forced by circumstances to take an airplane trip, has come to prefer this mode of travel to any other. Had he never flown, he would have remained fearful. Action made the difference. Most who love diving from a high board were fearful of the first plunge. Action killed the germ of fear. Nearly every famed public speaker admits he was once panicked by the prospect of appearing before an audience. Doing the worth-while thing we fear is like boiling a germ-laden utensil. We create a condition under which fear-germs cannot thrive.

All the good in the world and all the evil depend alike upon the right conditions for their existence and prosperity”.

(Harold E. Kohn, Outdoor Adventures in Meditation).

Making Habit Your Friend

“Humans are apt to be ambushed by their habits as are any other creatures. Sir Walter Scott, when a boy, aspired to be at the head of his class in school. But another youngster held that coveted position, and no amount of study or contriving seemed to help the future author storm that scholastic stronghold. The oppositions held on stubbornly. Then one day young Walter discovered his opponent’s weakness. The bright young fellow had a habit  that might possibly bring about his downfall. Whenever the lad was called upon for answering questions, he always recited while fumbling with a certain button on his waistcoat. A demonic plot formed in little Walter’s fertile mind.

A few day later, Walter Scott appeared in class far more self-confident than usual. His head was light and giddy from breathing the air of imminent success. Within the day, he was sure, he would be the top scholar of his class. Time for recitation arrived. The boy at the head of the class was called upon. As the teacher announced the questions, the boy reached for his waistcoat button. But there was no magical fumbling ritual that day, and no easy spilling of the right answers. The friendly, confidence-inspiring button was gone, and with it his presence of mind! The scholar groped for ideas and words, but they were nowhere to be found. Walter, seeing his long-hoped-for opportunity, answered the questions, snatched first place in his class, and held it throughout the school year.

Later in life Sir Walter Scott, then a world-renowned writer, related the incident, adding, “I have often me him since we entered the world and never without feeling my conscience reproach me. I frequently resolved to make him some amends by rendering him a service, but no opportunity presented itself, and I fear I did not seek one with the same ardor with which I sought to supplant him at school. But this weak little habit of fumbling with the button was his undoing”.

(fragment, Harold E. Kohn)

Pain and Pleasure

I have eaten many meals at fine restaurants. If you asked me to name the best meal I have eaten, however, without hesitation I would mention a dinner of rainbow trout grilled over a wood fire beside a river in India.  The Brand family was vacationing with our friends the Webbs, twelve of us in all. It was a hot day, and John Webb and I fished in vain all morning and half the afternoon, wading upstream and downstream a mile in each direction to test various pools. Although the river was full of trout – we could see them clearly – in the still, unruffled water they could see us too, no matter how well we hid  or tried to disguise ourselves. By mid-afternoon my muscles ached with the effort of casting. I was bruised from falling on the rocks as I scrambled between pools. My face burned from the sun. Our children were fast loosing faith in us as providers of food; the younger ones were beginning to cry.

Then a cloud drifted over the sun and a breeze rippled the surface of the water. Fish after fish began to take our flies, and we reeled them in and flung them on the bank. When we caught a dozen or so, we spread the fresh trout on chicken wire over the revived embers of a fire started long before. That meal was pure ecstasy. It consisted entirely of plain grilled trout laid on slices of bread, their natural oils serving as butter, yet I honestly cannot remember a taste to match it. I have ordered trout many times since, but no one has been able to duplicate the recipe. Apparently the hunger, the bruises and sunburn and mosquito bites, the near-failure and timely triumph were essential ingredients of my pleasure

What I learned from trout fishing in the mountains of India has held true throughout my life. Nearly all my memories of acute happiness involve some element of pain or struggle; a massage after a long day in the garden, a scratching of an insect bite, a log fire after a hike in a snowstorm. Many include the element of fear or risk, such as my first time downhill skiing (I took up the sport at age 60) when by mistake I found myself flying down an expert run. The wind rushed past, my muscles tensed, my heart leapt, but when I made it to the bottom I felt for a moment like a champion.

Pain and pleasure come to us not as opposite but as twins, strangely joined. I love a hot bathe at the end of a tiring day, especially if I feel pain in my back. The water must be truly hot. I balance on the edges of the tub, suspended just above the water, and carefully lower myself, back side first. When I have the temperature just right, I can only go in an inch at a time. The first sensation of water on skin, my nerve endings interpret as pain. Gradually they accept the environment as safe, and then finally report it as a tingling pleasure. Sometimes I cannot be sure whether I am feeling pleasure or pain. One degree hotter would bring certain pain; one degree cooler would diminish the pleasure.

I once read the philosopher Lin Yutang’s summary of the ancient Chinese formula for happiness. As I went through the list of thirty supreme pleasures in life, I was startled to find pain and ecstasy inescapably mixed. “To be dry and thirsty in a hot and dusty land and to feel great drops of rain on my bare skin – ah, is this not happiness! To have an itch in a private part of my body and finally to escape from my friends and go to a hiding place where I can scratch – ah, is this not happiness!” Each of the supreme happinesses, without exception, included some element of pain.

(Paul Brand, Pain, the Gift Nobody Wants)

Conforming

One of the basic evils of our time is our gradual relinquishing of individuality. It can be found almost anywhere in modern society. We are becoming increasingly imitative, fearful of being “different”.

David Riesman, one of our generation’s profoundly analytical thinkers, has written a book entitled The Lonely Crowd, in which he makes close examination of present American character. This author says that before World War I the typical American lived as if he were given balance and stability by some inner gyroscope of motive, ambition, and conviction. But something has happened. The average American seeks now to “fit in”, “to find out what others expect of him and then to do it”. He is no longer guided from within, but from without. He conforms.

Not long ago one of our most widely circulated magazines published an article concerning the role of the wives of corporation executives. The writer showed profound concern because in many corporations whether or not a man gets a promotion depends a great deal upon whether his wife fits into “the pattern”. The wife of the prospective office-holder is eyed as carefully and as zealously as if she were a commodity the firm were buying. She must not be too intelligent. She must move easily in social circles, and she must be very adaptable. Above all, she must not be outstandingly good at anything, not conspicuous. She must not be herself at her worst, but neither can she be herself at her best. She must be what those of her husband’ circle expect her to be. She must conform.

Some sociologists declare that conformity to standards of their gang pulls young people into juvenile delinquency that ranges from looseness in sex morals to crimes punishable by death. Too many youngsters have antennae-type minds that are constantly feeling out the group to see what is expected and what pleases the majority.  Whatever it is, they will do it. They do not dare to be different.

(Harold E. Kohn, 1958)

Living with Limitations

What a queer world this would become if suddenly the limitations of size and time were removed from everything. Then ants would grow larger than cows, and violets and wild strawberries would tower higher than houses. I’ve thought of this while reflecting upon the vast variety of things that live and grow at our woodland retreat. Most living things are about the same size, well-nigh microscopic, at the time of their conception. But how different they are upon reaching maturity!

Although the germ cell that initiates a fox squirrel’s life is almost identically the size of the cell from which a whitetail deer develops, no mature squirrel at Hidden Brook or in North America or in the entire world ever attains the size of our Michigan deer. Why?

The seedlings of giant Pacific Coast sequoia trees were once no larger than our infant spruces now growing on the brook bank, but no Hidden Brook spruce will ever reach the 300-foot height or the 30-food diameter or the 4000-year age of one giant redwood in the  Caleveras Grove of California. Why?

Living things of every kind seem to have built-in limitations. Sometimes it is a limitation of size, a physiological optimum, so that no mouse, no matter how healthy or well fed, ever achieves the enormous proportions of an elephant. In other cases the limitation is a kind of life-tether, a time boundary, beyond which the creature cannot reach. Thus a well-fed brook trout will continue to grow as long as it lives, but it is an exceedingly rare trout that reaches the age of fifteen years.

Man, too, is a limited creature. Nature sets boundaries to what he can be and do. Man cannot greatly alter his height. A man eight feet tall is a freak, and a man of fifteen-foot stature has never been known. Modern medicine has extended our life expectancy, but it is still limited and always will be. Many a tortoise (perhaps the longest living animal) lives to be more than two hundred and fifty years of age, but seldom does a human being, and no man has achieved the age of an ancient cypress tree, The Big Tree of Tule, near Mexico City. Biologists estimate its age to be over five thousand years.

One of life’s most important discoveries is that of finding our possibilities, what we can do with ourselves and with the opportunities for good that are presented to us. Another significant insight all of us need is the revelation of our limitations. Said the Chinese philosopher, Lin Yutang, “Sometimes it is more important to know what one cannot do, than it is to know what one can do”.

When we have limitations and act as if we have none, we are like a person with fifty dollars in savings who spends like a lavish millionaire. We are soon bankrupt. The social climber who tries to be all things to all people so as to please them and gain favor with them is headed for insolvency of character. She can be but one person and still maintain integrity. When she ignores that limitation her character is ruined. She loses her real self amidst the pretentions.

Some play God by trying to reform the entire world as if the Creator, upon viewing His mismanaged universe, had in shame abdicated His throne, and they were appointed to succeed Him and remedy the botched-up job. With smug, critical, and confident mien they start with human beings God blundered in making. They are nosy, attempting to pry into all their neighbors’ affairs and making snap judgment upon all human activity. They are the neighborhood busy-bodies, the holier-than-thou critics. Goodness knows there is enough evil in the world that need righting, and everyone should assist in combating it. But these people who play God seldom will assume responsibility for righting wrong. They want merely to be all-knowing without paying the price of being redemptive and helping to change people and alter circumstances.

Others play God by assuming too much responsibility – unlimited responsibility – for the conditions of the world and everyone in it. They seem unable to see where their accountabilities end. They continue to treat their children as infants long after the youngsters should be responsible for themselves.  T hey are doting mothers and dads who make interfering, meddling parents-in-law because they insist upon managing a daughter’s or son’s home life after the child is married. They tell their grown children what kind of house to buy. They try to direct their investments. They boss the grandchildren. Spreading their misdirected and exaggerated feelings of responsibility still further, they join too many committees, attend too many benefit luncheons, get elected to positions in too many societies and clubs, and then they are not content to be a cooperating part of the organization. They must direct it. Their plan of action is the only one that can be adopted or certain disaster will confront the group. Such people are playing God, assuming the direction of virtually the whole universe. And since the universe is not built upon their wishes and will not be governed by their whims, they are constantly upset, irritated, and disappointed. Because they have faith in none other than their own design and plans, they are constantly anxious and worried since the universe is run on a scheme concerning which they were never consulted.

Whenever  we squander our time as if it were unlimited, we are playing the part of the Eternal.

Whenever we are bigoted in our opinions or maliciously assume that we know all a person’s motives and intentions and therefore have a right to judge him lightly, we are playing the part of the Omniscient.

Whenever we try to bring everyone under our control and assume direction of all activities in which we are engaged with others, and whenever we worry, fret, and fume about a multiplicity of events that stretch from our doorstep to Timbuctoo, as if the universe would go to smash if we were not constantly awake and at the helm, we are playing the part of the Omnipotent.

The world’s real servants are people with a balanced insight, people who know what they can do and what must be done, and they do it.

But just as important, they have a peace-bestowing humility, knowing what they cannot do. And what they cannot do they leave in the capable hand of One who can.

(Harold E. Kohn, 1958)

Ann Preston

Water From An Old Dry Well

“Ann, why don’t you ask your Heavenly Father to send water in that old dry well and save us boys so much hard work?”

Henry had leaned back in his chair between mouthfuls of the delicious pot pie which no one but Ann could make so crunchy, so full of meaty goodness, so satisfying. The words had been spoken half-jestingly, yet when Henry saw that Ann had stopped her serving and seemed to be taking him in earnest, he went on.

“I was down in the well looking at it today. It’s just as dry as the floor”.

“Huh!” an older brother grunted disgustedly, “It’ll not be anything else till fall rains set in. Not saying that isn’t better than no well at all, but just when we need it worst every year, it plays out”.

“Yeah”, spoke another languidly, “from June through September you can just count on not being able to count on it”.

The others managed weary smiles over this brave attempt at humor, and left the table, work-worn, dusty and perspiring from the drudgery of the day, only to labor on till well after dark.

Each night the men and boys were late completing the chores because of endless trips by horse and wagon to haul water in barrels for the household and stock from the nearest well, one half mile distant. Each morning they were delayed in beginning the farm work for the same reason.

When they had gone, there passed again through Ann’s mind the events of the supper hour. As the family had gathered around the table, she had been praising the Lord, as usual, and recounting the times He had so remarkably answered her prayers, not only in the past, but also that very day.

No one objected to Ann’s spiritual reminiscences nor to her outbursts of praise. They knew full well that Ann enjoyed a strangely intimate relationship with the Lord, they knew she talked almost constantly with her Father as she went about her work, and they knew Ann’s Heavenly Father talked to Ann, answering her prayers, both trivial and great, in His own mysterious ways.

Henry soon forgot his challenge, but Ann did not. That night when the work was all done, the lights out, the household asleep, Ann knelt in her room. She had taken Henry’s words as a test not only to her faith, but to the faithfulness of her Lord.

“Now, Father”, she reasoned, “You heard what Henry said tonight. If I get up in church and say, “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus, the boys won’t believe I am what I profess to be if You don’t send water in the well. They won’t believe You are what You profess to be, if You don’t send water in the well”.

On and on she prayed that water might be sent, and finally, rising from her knees she said, “Now, Father, if I am what I profess to be, and if Your Word is true, there will be water in the well in the morning”.

When Ann entered the kitchen very early the next day, Henry was preparing to go after water. Ann picked up the two buckets and, as though she had been in the habit of doing so, went to the well. In amusement, Henry watched from the kitchen window. Simple-minded soul was Ann. He felt sorry for his joking the night before. Ann hooked one pail to the windlass and began to lower it. It would hit the bottom with a hollow plunk. Hadn’t he told her the well was as empty and dry as a last year’s bean hull?

But, lo! even from his distance, Henry heard an unmistakable splash! Ann was laboring hard now to wind up the windlass again. Down went the second bucket, and slowly she wound it up. Presently she walked in the kitchen door and set down at Henry’s feet two pails brimful of clear, sparkling water. The boy stood dumbfounded.

“Well, what do you say now?” Ann asked with a little triumphant note in her voice.

Henry shifted from one foot to the other and stammered surprisingly, “Well, why didn’t you do that long ago, and have saved us all that work?”

Ann did not take offense at this. She knew Henry, boy-like, was only putting up a front to hide his astonishment. She knew, too, that no matter how unthankful his words seemed then, he would have occasion many a day following to be grateful to her and to her Heavenly Father for bringing the water out of the rock, so to speak.

(După Anna Talbot McPherson)

Peter Cartwright

Silhouetted against the flaming Tennessee sunset of June evening 1820 rode a lone figure on horseback. The square, two hundred pound frame of the rider betokened considerable physical vigor, of which the owner said, in substance, “God gave me a good constitution – one that will wear out a dozen threshing machines. He knew I would need it when He chose me to be one of His breaking plows”.

It was Saturday night, and the lone equestrian, Peter Cartwright, was en route to his home in Christian County in south-west Kentucky, having parted with a traveling companion at Knoxville, Tennessee, as they journeyed westward from the Methodist General Conference in Baltimore. He found himself in a rugged region of the country. Hills, knobs and spurs of the Cumberland mountains cast their shadows in the valleys and obliterated all trace of the path he must travel, except for the few feet in advance of his horse’s nodding head which were still visible in the fast- fading sunlight.

“How I would like to find the cabin of some Christian people”, he said to his horse and half to himself, “and spend the Sabbath with them. But it is hardly possible”. He sighted. And then, as if to explain to his steed, he went on, “There is no gospel preacher for miles around, and many of these poor people have never heard a gospel message in all their lives. All they know of the Sabbath is to hunt and visit, drink and dance”.

Thus, lonesome and pensive, Peter Cartwright, late in the dusk, drew up to a sign bearing the crudely painted information that the house up the lane “kept entertainment”. He approached the “tolerably decent” building and asked for lodging.

“Sure, you can stay”, the proprietor began. Then he hesitated. “I’m afraid, though, you’re not going to enjoy yourself much. That is, if you want to go to sleep right soon. You see, there’s a party meeting here tonight to have a little dance”.

Disappointment plainly clouded the traveler’s face. “How far is it to the next decent place?” he queried.

“Seven miles”.

“Seven miles …a long way in the dark over a strange path. If you’ll treat me civilly and feed my horse well, I believe I’ll just stay here”.

“You’ll be welcome, friend”, assured the mountaineer. “We’ll do our best by you, sure”.

Peter Cartwright dismounted, entered the cabin, and after a simple meal, quietly took his seat in one corner of the main room. Soon the people gathered, a large company.

“How I’d like to preach to them”, mused Mr. Cartwright to himself, feeling quite out of place and more of a stranger than he had felt traveling the road alone. I know what I’ll do, his thoughts resolved, I’ll stay here tomorrow, the Sabbath day, and ask for the privilege of preaching to them all.

He had hardly settled this point in his mind when a beautiful, sparkling young lady walked gracefully up to him and dropped a handsome curtsy right before his eyes.

“Sir”, she invited pleasantly, and with winning smiles, “would it please you to take this dance with me?”

For a moment the preacher was in doubt of his own thought or feelings, so utterly unexpected was the situation. Then, impulsively, he decided on a desperate experiment.

“Why, I believe I will, thank you”, he said as composedly as was possible, “that is, if you can put up with my clumsiness”.

He rose as gracefully as he could, and the two walked onto the floor. The whole company seemed pleased with the young lady because of this act of politeness, shown as it was to a stranger. The fiddler, a colored man, plucked the strings of his instrument to assure its perfect tune for this special dance.

“Hold a minute, my brother”, Mr. Cartwright addressed the fiddler. “For several years it has been my practice not to undertake any matter of importance without first asking the blessing of God upon it, and I now desire to ask the blessing of God upon this beautiful young lady and this whole company who have shown such an act of politeness to a total stranger. Let us all kneel down and pray”.

Down went the preacher on his knees and commence praying with all the power of soul and body he could command.

The young lady stood beside him in amazement for a moment. Then she fell on her knees. Others did the same, while some stood to their feet, some fled, and some sat still.

“Lord a mercy!” shrieked the fiddler as he ran off into the kitchen. “What de matter? What is dat mean?”

On and on prayed the preacher while sobs and cries for mercy rose in increasing crescendo all about him. The young lady who had invited him to dance lay prostrate on the floor by this time, calling desperately on the Lord to have pity on her poor lost soul.

At length Mr. Cartwright rose to his feet, gave timely exhortation to the penitent, and sang a hymn. Still, the moaning and crying continued. All night the preacher exhorted, sang, and prayed. By morning, fifteen of the company professed religion. All that day and the next night the meeting went on, until finally the number converted totaled more than thirty. A society was forthwith organized, thirty-two were taken into the church, and the host was appointed leader. A preacher was later sent to the group, and the revival spread until it touched all that region. Ironically, several of the young men converted at this dance became flaming evangels of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Mr. Cartwright never reflected upon this experience in later life without a sense of astonishment. He realized the miraculous power of the Lord in bringing his impulsive action to success.

“In some conditions of society, I should have failed”, he confessed later. “In others, I should have been mobbed; in still others, I should have been considered a lunatic. But I concluded that if I failed, it would be no disgrace, and if I succeeded, it would be a fulfillment of the commanded duty to be ‘instant in season and out of season’. At any rate, I reasoned I would have the satisfaction of taking the devil by surprise, as he has often served me”.

Taking the devil by surprise must have been a choice specialty with Peter Cartwright, judging from the frequency with which he resorted to this expediency in his adventuring for God. And is usually worked.

(După Anna Talbot Mcpherson)

Hudson Taylor

Young Hudson Taylor stepped out of his aunt’s pleasant home with the exhilaration of daring purpose in his stride. Ah! This was life! What could equal the thrill of venturing upon God? Of proving Him to be the One He promises to be?

Leaving behind him the cultured, residential area of Hull, England, the lad wended his way to the outskirts of town. Then, following a muddy trail past several vacant lots, he came upon the double row of cottages for which he was looking. They bordered a narrow canal, used by the surrounding inhabitants as a rubbish dump, which accounted for the name of “Drainside” being given to the unsightly neighborhood. The poor, little dwellings were all alike, boasting of only one door and two windows apiece, so that young Hudson could not have been sure which was the object of his quest except for the handprinted sign in one window.

“Room for rent”, is announced simply.

He went in, and scarcely stopping to survey his new quarters, paid the landlady for a month’s rent. Adjusting his few belongings to the stinted accommodations afforded him, he set about preparing his evening meal, a little  awkwardly perhaps, but with a low-whistled tune on his lips and a new warn light in his eye.

He knew he would miss the cheer of his aunt’s hospitable home, the satisfying goodness of her well-cooked meals, the comfort of her fellowship, but such things would not make a man of him. At least, the kind of man he intended to be. So now, he was voluntarily leaving it all behind, leaving it to steel himself to hardship, leaving it to prepare himself for the rigor of missionary work in China.

Having partaken of his simple meal, Hudson Taylor stood long at the window, its opening upon the odious canal ditch, the dingy row of shacks, the poverty rampant everywhere.

“Why should I live better than they?” he asked the silence that enveloped him, and realized he had raised a question to which there was no answer.

A few evenings later, this same youth, in the same dreary room, sat down with pencil and paper. His salary was adequate enough, for he served as assistant to a leading physician in Hull, a Doctor Hardy by name. But the figuring showed that young Hudson was comparing prices of foods, estimating how much he could save by eating rice and oatmeal instead of meat, milk and butter. The result of his study was gratifying. By denying self he could save more than two-thirds of his income. And why this frugality? So that, beyond his accustomed tithing, he would have more to give to the destitute and starving not only here at his door, but in all the poorer quarters of town where he had been regularly evangelizing.

Not long after this, young Taylor was arrested by another challenge. “When I get to China” he thought to himself, “I shall have no claim on anyone for anything. There will be no Doctor Hardy there giving me monthly wages. My only claim will be on God. How important it is then that I shall learn, before leaving my homeland, to move man, through God, by prayer alone”.

It was a great ambition, but how should he begin? The answer came almost immediately, suggested by Doctor Hardy as the two parted one evening.

“I say, Taylor”, the doctor admonished him pleasantly, “be sure to remind me when your salary comes due. There are absent-minded doctors, you know, as well as absent-minded professors”.

The young assistant smiled but made no promises.

“Here is my chance”, the youth concluded secretly, when the doctor had turned to go. “Instead of reminding him directly that payday has come, I will ask God to bring the fact to his attention. I will what can be done in answer to prayer. Thus shall my faith be encouraged for all my needs as missionary in the future.

In due time, the day drew near for another payment of salary. Young Taylor prayed much. The day came and went, however, without Doctor Hardy so much as mentioning the matter. More prayer ascended, and more time elapsed without the doctor remembering.

“Foolish man!” taunted the accuser of men’s souls, “You don’t need to pinch and sacrifice. And to pray that God will remind the doctor that your pay is due, is like tempting the Almighty. You have tongue and breath. Remind him yourself!”

It sounded reasonable. But it was not the money that distressed Hudson Taylor, and he told the tempter so. “See here”, he said, and in the saying added new fuel to the burning fire within, “my face is set for China. There I must trust God for every need. But if I have not the faith to prove Him here, how can I there? The test is on. Can I go to China, or can I not? Will my faith and power with God in prayer prove of sufficient strength or will my lack of it prohibit my entering upon this much-prized service?

That was the question. And Hudson Taylor continued to pray.

As another week drew to a close and no mention had yet been made of his salary, the prospective missionary faced not only his own dire paucity, but his obligation to his landlady, who was indeed as penniless as himself. The test grew severe, but he committed the thing to God, believing that in some way or other He would interpose on his behalf.

Saturday dawned, counted out its hours to a work-a-day world, then gave way to the shadows of twilight. The rent was due that night. When Doctor Hardy had finished writing his prescriptions, he threw himself back in his armchair and began to talk to Hudson about the things of God, as he was truly a Christian man.

Hudson entered into the conversation eagerly as he had done so many times before, and a precious time of fellowship ensued, the young assistant continuing all the while to watch a pan in which a decoction was boiling which required a good deal of attention.

Suddenly, without any obvious connection with the subject being discussed, the doctor inquired, “By the way, Taylor, is not your salary due again?”

Hudson’s spoon stopped its stirring for a split second. He swallowed once, convulsively, then again. But with his eye fixed on the pan and his back to the doctor, he managed to say quite calmly, “Why, yes, doctor, it is. In fact, I believe it has been overdue for some time”.

It was with some difficulty that he retained even a semblance of composure. “Praise God!” he breathed inwardly. “He has surely heard my prayer and caused my employer in this time of great extremity, to remember my salary, without a word from me!”

But the doctor was talking again. “Oh, I am so sorry you did not remind me. You know how busy I am. I wish I had thought of it a little sooner, for only this afternoon I sent all the money I had to the bank. Otherwise, I would pay you at once”.

Again the assistant’s spoon stopped stirring, and when, at that moment the pan boiled up, young Hudson concealed the shock that had so nearly floored him by rushing with the hot solution from the room.

In a few minutes, the doctor made his way through the garden to his dwelling house, and the lad left behind sought a little sanctum where he could pour out his heart to the Lord. As the evening wore on, calmness again possessed the heart so taken in a moment by crushing disappointment, and Hudson, contenting himself that surely Monday morning he should be able to pay his landlady, diligently studied the sermon he planned to preach in the various lodging houses on the morrow. When the clock struck ten, he put on his overcoat, and was turning down the gas, when lo! he heard the doctor’s step in the garden. This was strange, he thought, and stranger still, the doctor was laughing.

“Where’s my ledger, Taylor?” the physician asked, stepping in the door. “One of my richest patients has just paid his bill! Can you imagine that? At this time of night? An odd thing, an odd thing, indeed!” He chuckled again, shaking his head, nonplussed.

Hudson, too, laughed heartily. To think of a man rolling in wealth not being able to find rest of mind until he came after ten o’clock at night to pay a bill he could have met any day by check, seemed almost absurd. But so it was. Perhaps it was stranger still that the young man so in need of money did not associate the incident with himself until Doctor Hardy, about to leave the office, suddenly turned and handed him some of the bills just received.

“By the way, Taylor”, he said unexpectedly, “you might as well take this much. I can give you the balance next week”.

Hudson stood transfixed for many moments watching the doctor disappear into the night. Then, dropping to his knees he breathed rather spoke the joy of his heart.

“To think”, he whispered, when he regained some composure, “to think that I may go to China after all!”

To China Hudson Taylor most certainly went.

(După Anna Talbot McPherson)