HAVING NOT SEEN | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 15, 1902

HAVING NOT SEEN.

I WAS standing at a counter in a Chicago grocery store, not long since, footsore, hurried, jaded by the city's uproar and confusion. The clerk was executing my order as quickly as he could, but I was inwardly fuming as the cable cars passed the door on their way toward my longed-for home. So I frowned when the floor-walker stepped up and said to the clerk, "Mr. Thompson, this gentleman wishes to speak with you; he is in something of a hurry."

Mr. Thompson looked up, and to my intense satisfaction merely nodded gravely as he would to any stranger, and went on tying up my package. The gentleman had smiled most cordially, but the smile was lost on the prepossessed clerk.

"You are busy, Mr. Thompson."

The last knot was half-tied, but Mr. Thompson held the string suspended and looked quickly into the speaker's face, evidently puzzled.

"What did you say, sir?"

"You are busy to-day. You do not know me, I see. I—"

Down went my coffee. Gone was the clerical gravity. The busy hand stopped to stretch out cordially across the counter.

"But I do know you! You are Mr. Ellis Morgan. I know your voice, sir! I am very glad indeed to meet you face to face. Yes, indeed, I know you—few men better. I shall be at liberty in one moment, sir."

They were telephone friends who had cordial relations "over the wire."

As the cable car hurried me home, my heart was warm within me, and something sweet was singing in my soul. It was this: "Whom—having not seen—whom having not seen, ye love."

Ah, yes! I know His voice. How often He has spoken to me over the heavenly wires, sending me messages from the throne.

Some good day I will stand before Him, and He will speak to me. Then shall I look up into His face and see the King in His beauty.—Anon.