p. 9 | THE SONS OF JUDAH

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Nov 7, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 43.

THE SONS OF JUDAH.

THE young minister, making his first calls in his new parish, found himself one lovely May afternoon upon the corner of the Baker's tiny front piazza with old "Uncle Jimmy." He hardly knew how he came there. Of course he had not expected to find Dan Baker at home in the afternoon, but he had counted upon a call on his wife; and instead, here he was upon a corner of the piazza with Mrs. Baker's father-in-law, old, crippled Uncle Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy's shrewd, friendly blue eyes studied the young man's face.

"Don't be put out," he said, cheerfully. "Dan and Fanny will be all right, come Sunday. But there's a heap of things doing on a farm in May, and they haven't got time to talk religion week-days. You might take it out on me, if you don't mind. I've got all the time there is—sometimes, I most think, too much of it, and I'd take it real kind of ye."

It was irresistible, even had the minister wanted to resist. He led the old man on to talk of his early life, and the years before the rheumatism conquered him. Uncle Jimmy told of it all freely, his long years of toil, and then the defeated hopes and plans. There was no word of complaint, indeed, his tone was almost impersonal, but at the end of the story he looked up.

"I'd like to have you read to me before you go," he said. "There's a Bible on the table in the fore room."

The minister went into the "fore room" and returned with the big family Bible.

"Have you any particular passage in mind?" he asked.

"Yes," Uncle Jimmy answered, "I have. For years I've had a longing for some minister to read one of those long chapters in Chronicles, say about the sons of Judah and the sons of Levi, and all the rest of them. I wrestled with 'em myself a lot, but some of the names is certainly a mouthful. I've always wanted to hear somebody read 'em off slick."

"Certainly I will read them," the minister answered, surprised, "but isn't there some other passage that you would like besides—something closer to human life?"

The old man turned his wrinkled face to the young one.

"Well," he said, "I suppose it does sound queer, but there ain't anybody can tell what will help somebody else most. Now when I get downhearted, I read over the 'Sons of Judah' lists. I say to myself, 'Now here are all these people nobody knows anything about. They lived their lives and passed away. Mebbe some of them were prosperous—I suppose they were; but mebbe some were failures like me. But God remembers them all—every man of them. Folks forgot them thousands of years ago, but He didn't forget. He knew every one of them by name.'

"I tell you there are times when there's comfort in those lists. God ain't the changing kind—He says so. So I know that somewhere in His lists old Jimmy Baker's name is put away, safe and sure."

The young minister's firm hand closed over an old, twisted one.

"Thank you, my friend," he said.—Youth's Companion.