Part 21 (2/2)
But the silence was unbroken.
”I am here to answer questions, remember. Has no one anything to ask?
Has no one found any difficulty to be met, and he does not know just how to meet it? Has no one found something to be done, and he does not know just who is to do it? Speak, and tell everything. Now is the time.”
Silence again, and then a little boy said--
”I have found a feller that would like, I guess, to come to Sunday-School; but his toes is out o' his shoes.”
”Cannot he get another pair?” Mr. Richmond asked gravely.
”I guess not, sir.”
”Then it is a case for the 'Aid and Comfort' committee,” said Mr.
Richmond. ”Who is the head of your department? Who is chief of those who are looking up new scholars?”
”John Depeyster.”
”Very well. Tell John Depeyster all about your little boy and his toes, and John will go to the head of the relief committee--that is, Miss Forshew--and she will see about it. Very well, Everett; you have made a good beginning. Who is next?”
”I would like to know,” said Miss Forshew, in a small voice, ”where the relief committee are to get supplies from? If new shoes are to be bought, there must be funds.”
”That is the very thing the relief committee undertook, I thought,”
said Mr. Richmond. ”Must there be some scheme to relieve _them_ first?
Your business abilities can manage that, Miss Forshew, or I am mistaken in them. But, dear friends, we are not going to serve Christ with that which costs us nothing--are we?”
”Mr. Richmond,” said Ailie Swan, ”may temperance people drink cider?”
The laughter was universal now.
”Because,” said Ailie, unabashed, ”I was talking to a boy about drinking it; and he said cider was nothing.”
”I have seen _some_ cider which was more than negative in its effects,”
said Mr. Richmond. ”I think you were right Ailie. Cider is only the juice of apples, to be sure; but it gets so unlike itself once in a while, that it is quite safe to have nothing to do with it.”
”Mr. Richmond,” said another girl, ”what are you to do if people are rude?”
”The Bible says, 'A soft answer turneth away wrath,' Mary.”
”But suppose they will not listen to you?”
”Be patient. People did not always listen to the Master, you remember.”
”But would you try again?”
”If I had the least chance. We must not be afraid of 'taking the wind on our face,' as an old writer says. I would try again; and I would pray more for them. Did you try that, Mary?”
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