Before her sat a woman bowed with years, her face seamed with sorrow and
hard work, and grimed with lack of care, a woman whose husband frequently
beat her for attending Sunday school. There were four men on the back
seat, hard workers, listening with eager eyes, assenting vigorously when
she spoke of the sorrow on the earth. They, too, had seen trouble. They
sat there patient, sad-eyed, wistful; what could she show them out of the
Book of God to bring a light of joy to their faces? There were little
children whose future looked so full of hard knocks and toil that it
seemed a wonder they were willing to grow up knowing what was before
them. The money that had smoothed her way thus far through life was not
for them. The comfortable home and food and raiment and light and luxury
that had made her life so full of ease were almost unknown to them. Had
she anything better to offer them than mere earthly comforts which
probably could never be theirs, no matter how hard they might strive?
But, after all, money and ease could in no way soothe the pain of the
heart, and she had come close enough already to these people to know they
had each one his own heart's pain and sorrow to bear. There was one man
who had lost five little children by death. That death had come in
consequence of dirt and ignorance made it no easier to bear. The dirt and
ignorance had not all been his fault. People who were wiser and had not
cared to help were to blame. What was the remedy for the world's sorrow,
the world's need?
Ruth knew in a general way that Jesus Christ was the Saviour of the
world, that His name should be the remedy for evil; but how to put it to
them in simple form, ah! that was it. It was Cameron's search for God,
and it seemed that all the world was on the same search. But now to-day
she had suddenly come on some of the footprints of the Man of Sorrow as
He toiled over the mountains of earth searching for lost humanity, and
her own heart echoed His love and sorrow for the world. She cried out in
her helplessness for something to give to these wistful people.
Somehow the prayer must have been answered, for the little congregation
hung upon her words, and one old man with deep creases in his forehead
and kindly wrinkles around his eyes spoke out in meeting and said:
"I like God. I like Him good. I like Him all e time wi' mee! All e time.
Ev'e where! Him live in my house!"
The tears sprang to her eyes with answering sympathy. Here in her little
mission she had found a brother soul, seeking after God. She had another
swift vision then of what the kinship of the whole world meant, and how
Christ could love everybody.
After Sunday school was out little Sanda came stealing up to her:
"Mine brudder die," she said sorrowfully.
"What? Tony? The pretty fat baby? Oh, I'm so sorry!" said Ruth putting
her arm tenderly around the little girl. "Where is your mother? I must go
and see her."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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