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HER NARROW LIFE

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 13, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 41.

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HER NARROW LIFE.

By Inez E. Barr Cornish

[By Inez E. Barr Cornish, in Union Signal.]
The wind upon the prairie in western Iowa is very businesslike in its methods. It is, indeed, so very thorough and practical in its chosen vocation of shaping and shifting snowbanks or throwing clouds of dust into the air, that all travelers, when possible, give it unquestioned right of way by seeking shelter from its rude blasts.
During one of its recent furies young Mrs. Nellie Brown, while awaiting her husband’s return to dinner, drew her chair near the comfortable heater, and, taking a paper from a stand near by, read with deep interest a sketch from the pen of a gifted writer, who pictured the grandeur of old ocean, as witnessed by her in a late visit to its shore. The paper dropped from Nellie’s hands. She leaned her head wearily against the chair-back, while tears sprang to her eyes. Her life seemed so narrow—this homely, every-day life!
“If I could but have money and leisure to travel and see some of the wonders of nature and art; to witness with my own eyes God’s handiwork in mountain, valley, and sea; to stand on the very ground where He stood in the Holy Land, I feel that I could then spend my life in profitable service for Him—work that counts for Christ.” Thus she thought, discontentedly.
“It is hard to be so poor,” she remarked, half audibly, smiling at the absurdity of the thought, “that one can scarce maintain herself a true Christian. I could not give a subscription to the missionary cause this winter unless I denied myself a new cloak, and it seems as if people snub me for looking shabby. This has made me angry and resentful.”
Nellie’s naturally cheerful countenance resembled an April day as her wounded pride found vent in tears, altho there was the suspicion of a sunny smile in the appearance of the usual dimples around her mouth, as a sense of the ludicrous got the better of her.
A loud knock at the door caused her to hastily wipe traces of emotion from her face. Responding to the rap, a young foreigner, a pedler, stood panting for breath as he put his heavy pack inside the door, and, seating himself on the nearest chair, said briefly: “Bad wind. Tired.”
“Yes,” assented Nellie pleasantly. “It must be hard traveling on foot to-day.” Then, noticing how wearied he was and that his dreamy brown eyes were sad, added, “It is just noon; will you have dinner with us?”
A look of surprise and gratitude fitted over his swarthy face as he replied, “Yes, thanks; very kind.”
“Where are you from?” asked Mr. Brown, who had entered shortly after the stranger.
“Damascus, in Syria,” was the prompt reply; “came when I was sixteen.”
Nellie was lifting vegetables from the stove.
“From the old world of the Bible,” she said with surprise, looking upon her guest with augmented interest. “Tell me about your home,” she continued. “I long so much to see those interesting places.”
The pedler raised his dark, intelligent eyes to the fair face of his hostess.
“I vill try, ma’am, tho I not much speak your language.” Then he told, in his quaint, broken way, of the fruits and scenes of Damascus; of Bethlehem and the manger—claimed by the monks of the convent located there, to be on the very spot where Christ was born. He then spoke of the political situation and the school system of that land, making comments favorable to our own country in contrast with it.
“What is your religious belief?” was asked, as he finished speaking.
“Greek Cat’olic,” was the reply. “We not believe like the Cat’olics here. No pope; and t’e priests marry.”
The meal ended, all returned to the sitting-room, when he asked: “Vat vill I pays you? Shall I pays you in towels or somet’ing?”
Nellie paused a moment. She was thinking of language so simple that this stranger in a strange land should readily comprehend it. Then she said quietly:—
“We do not want pay for your dinner. We believe in the same Jesus whose manger cradle you say you have seen. This makes you our brother. When you were tired and hungry we were glad to give you rest and food for His sake.”
The young man’s face actually turned pale with emotion. He seated himself on the couch as if overcome.
“Do you know,” he said brokenly, “I am here ten year, all alone. No one before this did said to me, ‘Jesus,’ or take my hand to said, ‘Broder.’ Lady, I t’ank you. T’is country to me vill seem so tiffrent now. Ven I sit by t’e roadside to rest, I vill t’ink, In t’is new world I am not alone, for one did said to me ‘Jesus’ and ‘broder.’”
The statement seemed almost incredible to Nellie. “Where,” she asked herself, “is Christian America’s proud boast now, with her multitude of churches and myriads of Christian workers, that a mere boy of sixteen years should seek her hospitality and wander through her streets and on her country roads for ten years with not a soul to extend the hand of fellowship, or comfort the homesick heart by pointing him to our common Saviour? Surely there is a wide field of missionary work at the very door of the most humble worker.”
Her guest moved toward the door, then turned with a hesitating yet deferential manner.
“Vill t’e lady tells me her church?”
Nellie spoke the name of her church, adding, “All Protestant churches do work for Christ.”
His answer was very earnest: “Ven I stops over Sunday in a town, I goes to your church, ’cause you did said ‘Jesus’ to me. Sometimes,” he added—and there were manly tears in his eyes—“I t’inks I dies for kind word—for some one to have interest in me.”
Nellie was awed at the intensity of his feelings. She thought of how she had longed to stand on holy ground; surely this was holy ground upon which she now stood, for it seemed that God had chosen her, weak and unworthy as she was, to be instrumental in leading this poor wanderer, this homesick soul, into a haven of rest.
The young people’s meeting of the next Sunday evening was spoken of by many as “so very interesting.” It was Nellie’s turn to lead, but her shabby cloak did not have any place in her thoughts as she commented earnestly on the text, “Let your light shine,” urging her young friends never to lose an opportunity to speak for Christ, or do a kind deed unto the least of them “in His name.”
Correctionville, Ia.