Quiet Talks on ServiceGordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Religion
Quiet Talks on Service
Gordon, S. D. (Samuel Dickey)
Christian life
Exchange your gold into men. Buy up some of the kind of coin they use in
the homeland, so that you may have some wealth when you get there. Suppose
you should be over on the continent of Europe, shopping in Berlin. You buy
some goods in a store and lay down upon the counter a twenty-dollar gold
piece in payment. The salesman would say, "What sort of money is this?"
and you would likely say, "That is good American gold, sir." And he would
probably reply, "I have no doubt that is true, and that it is good money.
But it is not the sort we receive here. You will have to go to the bankers
and get it changed into German marks and then I'll be pleased to complete
this sale." And so you would be obliged to do if you had not thought to
provide yourself with German money.
There are some people that will have an experience like that after a
while, I'm thinking. Some one thinks that that is not a very likely
illustration. A man going to Europe would provide himself with proper
money to use. Maybe it is not a very good illustration for _Europe_. But
how about some other strange lands to which folks go? There seem to be
several people who expect to go to a strange country, and yet do not
provide any of its recognized coinage before going.
Here is a man who gets through his life down on the earth, and goes out
into the other life. Judging by the whole tenor of his life he will
attempt to take some of his belongings with him. Indeed so much are these
belongings a part of his very life that they seem inseparable from him.
Here he comes up to the gateway of the upper world. He is lugging along a
farm or two, some town lots, and houses, and a lot of beautifully engraved
paper, bank stock and railroad bonds and other bonds. They are absorbing
him completely as he puffs slowly along.
And as he gets up to the gateway, the gateman will say, "What's all that
stuff?" "_Stuff!_" he will say, astonished; "this is the most precious
wealth of earth, sir. I have spent my whole life, the cream of my strength
in accumulating this." "Oh, well," the reply will be, "I have no doubt
that is so. I am not disputing your word at all. But that sort of thing
does not pass current up in this land. That has to be exchanged at the
bankers' offices for the sort of coinage we use here."
The man looks a little relieved at this last remark. The other talk has
sounded strange, and given him a queer misgiving in his heart, as he
listened. But "banker" and "exchange"--that sounds familiar. The ground
feels a bit steadier. He picks up new spirit. "Where are the bankers'
offices, please?" he asks eagerly. "They are all down on the earth," comes
the quiet answer. "You must do your exchanging before you get as far up as
this. That stuff is all dead loss now. You can't take it back to the
bankers' now, and it is of no value here. Just leave it over on that dump
heap there outside the gate, and come in yourself." And the man comes in
with a strangely stripped and bare feeling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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