Standing up for God

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 26, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 13.

Standing up for God.

"You'll not forget your mother's words to you, Jimmy."

"No, I won't, Aunt Ruth."

"What were they, my boy?"

"Never to go to sleep without saying my prayers, and to read my Bible whenever I have a chance."

"Don't let her words slip away from you, Jimmy, and don't let folks make you feel ashamed of doing what is right. It's easy enough at home where you've always been encouraged, but you'll find it far different when you get amongst folks who don't think as you've been taught to think. And don't you let 'em laugh you out of doing your duty."

With the remembrance of his mother's last words and her newly made grave, Jim thought there was little danger of his failing to keep her words in mind. He was going away from everything he called home and friends, to work in a large factory town, and was fully resolved in his own mind to be steadfast in the performance of his Christian duties. He fully expected to meet with many who might ridicule him, but felt quite sure that he would take a manly stand against it and never yield a jot of his firmly fixed principles.

He found work in a noisy room full of whirling, humming machinery, which at first made him dizzy, in a great mill in which were hundreds of boys, the most of them older and a few younger than himself. They took but little notice of him during the hours of work or at the long table in the boarding-house where he took his meals, for everybody seemed too hungry to spend any time in talking.

But at night, when the tired workers sought their place of rest, Jim found himself in a large room which he was to share with a number of boys of various ages. Rough jokes and loud talk and laughter were going on all about him, led on by one who seemed older than any of the others, a young man whom they called Van. The boy from the country felt a little more in awe of him than of any one else.

And now he felt his courage melting away like snow before the sun of an August day. How could he kneel down and pray before this careless crowd? He could easily tell as he looked from one face to another and listened to coarse remarks, with here and there an oath, that not one of those about him could be in the least degree in sympathy with all he had been taught to hold most dear and sacred.

It was a very trying position for a boy to be placed in, but if poor Jim had come out of it with triumph, we may be sure he would have rejoiced over it all his life. It may be that his heavenly Master, looking down in tender kindness upon the weak ones of his fold, had seen that our boy needed to be shown how weak were his best resolves.

"How can I?" he said to himself in great perplexity. "If I kneel down now these boys will never let me alone about it. And any way" (how carefully the evil one watches at the door of our poor hearts to slip in his crafty suggestions!) "it's no time to pray in all this noise. It wouldn't do me a bit of good."

"Come, youngster," shouted Van, as he sat on the side of his bed, hoping they would soon be quiet and put out the light, "ain't you goin' to turn in?"

"Yes," said Jim hesitatingly.

"What you waitin' for?" Van eyed him curiously.

"Nothing." Jim undressed himself and lay down, feeling more wretched and lonely than he had even by the side of his mother's grave. When all was quiet, he got up and prayed, but lay down again feeling that he had placed a distance between himself and the Saviour whom he had failed in confessing before men.

When the next night came, he wished he had begun right the night before, for it seemed harder than it had seemed then. But he knelt down as before in the dark after being quite certain that all those about him were sleeping.

Sunday came and he found his way alone to a little church in which he listened to words which seemed to carry him back to the days when it had never been so hard to do right. He had almost begun to excuse himself, but as he now listened his cheek reddened with shame at the thought of his cowardice.

Taking his Bible in his pocket, he took a long walk in the afternoon, not stopping until the green grass was beneath his feet, grand old forest trees arching above his head, and no sound in his ears except the whispering of the soft wind and the song of the birds among the branches. Here he settled the matter for life with his own conscience. With tears of sincere repentance he laid his burden before the mercy-seat, exchanging it for the burden of earnest resolution manfully to fight the good fight of faith, and feeling sure he would never find it so heavy to carry as the other had been.

That night he drew near the tallow candle which lighted the room, and took out his Bible. There was a hush as keen eyes followed his movements, for the sight of any book among them was a novelty. Then a hum arose as one or two peeped over his shoulder.

"Hello, boys, here's a saint among us!"

"Hi! a preacher. Give us a text, parson."

"Can't you let a fellow read, boys?" said Jim, good-naturedly, as hands were held before his face and his book was rudely jerked. "This is a free country, you know."

Stockings were rolled up and flung into his face. Shoes followed, amid a hubbub which grew and increased, and his light was thrown over and put out just as he had caught sight of the dreaded Van coming towards him.

"Quit this fuss, all of you," said Van, angrily relighting the candle. "What you up to any way?"

"It's the parson's doin's. He's gettin' ready to preach. Make ready, boys."

"You're that sort of a chap, are you?" said Van, looking at the book. "And you've been getting up these nights to pray, ain't you?"

"Yes," said Jim, in a low voice.

"I wasn't asleep. I used to be where they did that kind o' thing, and p'raps I'd a' done better if I'd a' stuck to it. Why did you wait till we was all asleep, hey?"

Jim's only answer was in his reddening cheeks. Van sat down on a low bed near him and rested his chin on his hands.

"Seems to me," he went on, "you Christian folks makes believe you've got the best master there is a-goin', don't you?"

"Yes," said Jim; "and it's true."

"And that he's a-goin' to stand your friend all your life and never go back on you, and no matter what other folks does he'll stick like a burr; and no matter how mean you treat him, he's ready to shake hands and forget it all the moment you're ready to turn 'round and begin again, hey?"

Jim bowed his head.

"And that one o' these days he's a-goin' to take you to his own house and keep you there, and give you all you want, and never turn you out, and that he couldn't do all this till he'd died for you. You see I've heard 'em talk it all over. Is that the kind o' thing you believe in?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, then," Van gave a stamp with his foot to emphasize his words, and spoke slowly, "if anybody was a-goin' to do all that for me, I'd think I was the meanest, sneakedest, cowardliest cur that ever breathed the breath o' life if I wasn't ready to stand up true and honest for him, instid o' crawlin' 'round in the dark when I wanted to have a word with him. What you think o' that, now?"

If Jim's cheeks had tingled before, how they burned now in shame at the criticisms of the rough fellow from whom he had feared things so very different. He looked humbly up at Van.

"If you know so much about him, why don't you take him for your master?" he ventured to ask.

"Why," said Van, with a keen but a good-natured look at his questioner, "I'd rather not do it at all, you see, than do it and then be afraid to own him."

Poor Jim felt that his lesson was a very bitter one, as he crept into bed with the fear in his heart that the course he had taken would always stand in the way of any good which he might try to do to these boys.

"Look a-here, now, all of you," said Van, raising his voice, "you let this chap alone, or you'll settle it with me. Keep it up, Jim. A bad beginning makes a good endin', you know."

This gave Jim a little courage to mix with his firm resolve to wipe out as far as lay in his power the reproach which he had cast on his best friend. Quietly he stood his ground; in time he was able, as Van and others came to inquire more of what was in the Bible he loved, to lead others in the way of life.—New York Observer.