The Book of Courage - John Thomson Faris (snow like ashes .TXT) 📗
- Author: John Thomson Faris
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Not far away, also in Scotland, Henry Drummond spent his boyhood. He, too, knew the pleasure of wandering afield. He liked to go to the rock on which stands grim Stirling Castle, and look away to the windings of the crooked Forth, the green Ochil Hills, and, farther away, Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, and Ben Ledi, the guardians of the beautiful Highland lochs. He was never weary of feasting his eyes on them. In later years he would go back to the scenes of his boyhood, climb to the Castle, and, looking out on the beautiful prospect, would say "Man, there's no place like this; no place like Scotland."
Bayard Taylor first made a name for himself by his ability to see the things that many people pass by, and to describe them sympathetically. But he, also, in boyhood days learned the lesson that paved the way for later achievements. He was not six years old when he used to wander to a fascinating swamp near his Pennsylvania home. If the child was missed from the house, the first thing that suggested itself was to climb upon a mound which overlooked the swamp. Once, from the roof of the house, he discovered unknown forests and fresh fields which he made up his mind to explore. Later, in company with a Quaker schoolmaster, he took long walks, and thus learned many things about the trees and plants. When he was twelve he began to write out the thoughts that came to him in this intimate study of nature.
In far-away Norway Ole Bull had a like experience. At an early age he began to be on familiar terms with the silent things about him. The quality of his later work was influenced by the grandeur of the scenery in which he lived. To him trees, rocks, waterfalls, mountains, all spoke a language which demanded expression through the strings of his violin; he turned everything into music. His biographer says:
"When, in early childhood, playing alone in the meadow, he saw a delicate bluebell moving in the breeze, he fancied he heard the bell ring, and the grass accompanying it with most exceptionally fine voices."
John Muir, who later wrote of the great Sequoias of California and the glaciers of Alaska, when a boy of ten found delight in scenes of which he wrote as follows:
"Oh, that glorious Wisconsin wilderness! Everything new and pure in the very prime of spring, when nature's pulses were beating highest and mysteriously keeping tune with our own! Young hearts, young leaves, flowers, animals, the winds and the streams and the sparkling lake, all wildly, gladly rejoicing together."
There is something missing in the life of one who cannot enter into the feelings of a boy like Muir or Taylor or Drummond. And when such a boy grows up, the gap in the life will be more conspicuous than ever.
Think of the poverty of the stranger to whom a traveler, feeling that he must give expression to his keen delight in the autumn foliage, said, "What wonderful coloring!" "Where?" came the reply. "Oh, the trees! Well, I'm not interested in trees. Talk to me about coal. I know coal."
V
COMPANIONSHIP WITH GOD
Some people insist that it is impractical moonshine to speak of making a companion of God, that folks who talk about such things are dreamers, far removed from touch with the cold reality of daily life.
Then how about the nephew of whom Dr. Alexander MacColl told at Northfield? He was surely a practical man. For four years he had been in the thick of the fighting in France. Yet at the close of one of his letters to his uncle he said: "I hope when the war is over that I may be able to spend a month somewhere among the hills. I often think that if more people in the world had lived among such hills as we have in Scotland there would have been no world war."
"When I came yesterday afternoon, and saw again the glory of these hills," was Dr. MacColl's comment, "I found myself sharing very deeply in that feeling of my good nephew, and wishing that more people in the world had known what it is to commune with God in the silences."
That fine young Scotchman would have known how to take a college student who, while having a country walk with a friend, was explaining the reason for his belief in God and his trust in Him. As he concluded his message he pointed to a large tree which they were passing, saying as he did so, "God is as real to me as that tree."
He had a right to say such a thing, for he not only believed, but he was conscious that God was with him, his Companion wherever he went. This being the case, prayer became for him the simplest and most natural thing in the world. God was by his side; then why should not he talk to God, by ejaculation as well as by more formal utterance? Yet his talks with God never became formal. They were always intimate and confidential—like the approaches of Principal John Cairns, the famous Scotch minister. His biographer tells of a time when he was at the manse of a country minister in whose church he was to preach next day. The minister's wife withdrew to get a cup of tea for the old man, leaving her little boy there. By and by she heard a strange, unaccustomed sound, as it seemed to her under such conditions. And as she listened and looked, she saw that the old man was kneeling with the boy. It had seemed to him the most natural thing in the world to speak to his Great Friend about his little friend.
Dr. Arthur Smith was like that with God, and his son Henry took after him. One January day in 1905 the father reached New York from China and sought his son. They went to a hotel room to bridge the time of absence by "a tremendous lot of back conversation," as the son wrote to the mother. But before they had any chance to talk of other matters the father said, "Come, boy, let's have a prayer." "Wasn't that just like him?" Henry asked his mother.
A minister who was spending his vacation in the northern woods was called in to see a dying lumberman. Before leaving the visitor prayed with the sick man, and suggested that he pray for himself. The objection was made that it was useless to pray—God understood a man's trials, and He knew what was wanted before a request was made. The minister asked him if he didn't know what his children needed before they asked him, if he didn't know they were disappointed or troubled; yet didn't he wish to have them talk over these things with him?
The man thought a moment. Then he said, "Do you think that would be prayer—just for me to lie here and tell God what He knows already—how it hurts, and all my disappointment, and my anxiety for the future of my children and my wife—and everything—just to tell Him?"
"I think it would," said the minister. "I think it would be prayer of a very real kind."
One who had learned that prayer is not a mere formal exercise, to be dreaded and postponed, has said:
"Pray often—in bits, with a persistency of habit that betrays a childlike eagerness and absorption. Rise up to question God as children do their earthly parents—at morning, noon and night and between times. Ask Him about everything. Be with Him more than with all other persons. Acquire the home habit with Him. Be a child in His hands. Do not fear lest He be too busy to listen, or too grown up to care or to understand. Just talk to Him, in broken sentences, half-formed with crude wishes; in foolish chatter, if need be. Make the Heavenly Father the center of your life, the source and judge of all your satisfactions. Be sure to let Him put you to bed, waken you in the morning, wait on you at table, order your day's doings, protect you from harm, soothe your disquiet, supply all your daily needs."
Such a prayer is good, not only when one is sick, but when one is well and busy with the affairs of daily life. A clergyman has told of a visit to London during which he called on a merchant whom he had met in America. At the business house he was told that he could not see the merchant, as it was steamer day, and orders had been given not to disturb him. But when the card was taken up, the merchant appeared, his face beaming with pleasure. After a moment's greeting the visitor offered to go away, but the merchant took him into his office, and said:
"I am very glad you have called. I would not have had you fail. I am very busy, but I always have a moment for my Lord. I have a little place for private prayer. You must come in with me, and we shall have a season of prayer together."
Busy, but not too busy for prayer, longing to see his friend, but eager to spend the ten minutes of the call in prayer with that other Friend who made the brief visit worth while!
In telling this incident, one writer on the subject of prayer has said:
"Several, perhaps many merchants in one of our large cities have fitted up for themselves dark, narrow, boxlike closets, whither, each by himself, they are wont to retire for a few minutes at times, during the pressure of the day's business, for the refreshment of soul, which they find they really need in communion with God. One of these men is reported to have said: 'On some days, if I had not that resort, I believe I should go mad, so great is the pressure.'"
Dr. Purves once told an incident of the distinguished scientist, Professor Joseph Henry, as given him by one of Dr. Henry's students. "I well remember the wonderful care with which he arranged all his principal experiments. Then often, when the testing moment came, that holy as well as great philosopher would raise his hand in adoring reverence and call upon me to uncover my head and worship in silence, 'because,' he said, 'God is here. I am about to ask God a question.'"
To Mary Slessor of Calabar, whom the Africans learned to love devotedly, prayer was as simple and easy as talking to a friend in the room. "Her religion was a religion of the heart," her biographer says. "Her communion with her Father was of the most natural, most childlike character. No rule or habit guided her. She just spoke to Him as a child to its father when she needed help and strength, or when her heart was filled with joy and gratitude, at any time, in any place. He was so real to her, so near, that her words were almost of the nature of conversation. There was no formality, no self-consciousness, no stereotyped diction, only the simplest language from a quiet and humble heart. It is told of her that once, when she was in Scotland, after a tiresome journey, she sat down at the tea table alone, and, lifting up her eyes, said, 'Thank you, Father—ye ken I'm tired,' in the most ordinary way as if she had been addressing her friend. On another occasion in the country, she lost her spectacles while coming from a meeting in the dark. She could not do without them, and she
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