Boyville: A History of Fifteen Years' Work Among NewsboysGunckel, John E. (John Elstner)
History
Boyville: A History of Fifteen Years' Work Among Newsboys
Gunckel, John E. (John Elstner)
Newsboys
The church, at large, today, is like what Napoleon once said: “The army
that remains in its entrenchments is beaten.” The church remains mostly
in its own entrenchments of conventional practices and indifference
to the unsaved young men. There is but one remedy for this present
indifferent condition, and that is to be found in an awakening of
consciousness of personal responsibility for the salvation of the boy.
We need a new doctrine, not a new law, that will bring people back to
the Simple Life that demands some self-sacrifice.
If we follow these teachings what shall be our reward?
Do you remember what Pharaoh’s daughter said when, winning that strange
prize from the bulrushes, on the Nile; she called to the woman whose
child might have perished?
Pharaoh’s daughter said to the mother: “Take this child away, and nurse
it for me, and I will give thee thy wages,” and that message is given
as the crown of all motherhood on whom the divine mercy falls today.
There comes this same message: “Take this child and nurse it for me,
and I will pay the thy wages.”
The good that you have done you shall know, “not here, but hereafter.”
We should never forget that the best and truest lives are those who
strew all the years with the sweet aroma of loving and self-sacrificing
deeds. Did you ever go, in summer, to the great marshes of our
fresh-water lakes, and in the little bayous, where the muck and
grasses are so thick it is difficult to even row a boat? If not, it
will pay you to go. You find the white water lilies, dotted here and
there all over this forsaken waste. They take root and grow silently
amid the slime and mud in the quiet waters, until, in mid-summer,
they open their creamy beauty to the persuasion of the sunshine, the
glory and idealization of all flowers. So amid the lowest and poorest
of humanity, among its shadows and mists, we can sow, day by day, our
small seeds of gentle and generous deeds, not knowing when they take
root, or expecting to ever behold their unfolding into the blossoms on
the great river of time.
To have a perfect government we must have a perfect people, and that
cannot be accomplished unless we educate, unless we train, our boys in
the right direction. If we do our share in this generation it will be
easier for those who follow.
The more you mingle among newsboys the easier it is to learn how to
influence and guide them in the right path.
They will open out to you a world you have never found, a world full
of sunshine. If you are inclined to serve these boys, and are willing
to try to teach them how to live right, you will build for yourself a
crown of happiness in this world that all the wealth of a nation cannot
purchase.
[Illustration: PASTIME—THE FINISH.]
CHAPTER XXXX.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account