Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-05-25
A Realized Hope.
BY MATTHEW WHITE. IR.

y
Warren Lansing sat in his room,
holding in his hand a telegram. He
was alone. The telegram was from
friend, saying that he should be un-
able to keep an appointment with
Lansing.
This simply knocks me out of an
evening, said the latter, as he lighted
a fresh cigar.
The furnishings of the room showed
that Lansing was man of refined
taste and that he had the means to in
dulge his fancy.
This is stupid, doing nothing, NUT
tered Lansing, when his cigar was
well nigh gone. I'll go out and wan
der down to the Bowery and take in
the queer things one can see there.
It's little world in itself.
And thus it happened that at about
a quarter to nine that evening, Lans-
ing, having left the Bowery and turn
ed into a side street, heard these
words:
II have long withstood His grace,
Long provoked Him to His face
The sound came through the open
door of mission, and the singing
was hearty and earnest.
The door closed suddenly, and only
the jingle of street car bells fell on
Lansing's outward ear. But he heard
them not. Those two lines from the
old familiar hymn transported him
back through all the intervening
years, to the village church, to his
own place beside his mother in the
pew, recalling to him how often he
had watched her as she sang those
very words. How sweet her voice had
sounded to him! How many years
now it had been sti11ed! And yet
Lansing heard in his mind the next
lines, coming back to him as if by a
miracle:
Would not hearken to His calls.
Grieved Him by thousand falls
He had walked on mechanically,
but now, as he was about TO cross the
next block, an irresistible impulse
possessed him to return and hear the
rest of that hymn. He had not been
to church any too often of late, but he
did not stop now to reflect on the odd
ity of his entering a mission hall.
The spirit of the past was upon him.
He walked quickly, fearful lest the
singing might be over before he ar
rived.
He pushed open the door. The
room was half filled and there were
more women than men. The hymn
was not yet ended. Lansing took
seat near the door and gave himself
completely up for the moment to the
wings of the melody which were bear
ing him back, back to the long ago.
he still sat there. Some one rose to
speak. He was young man. There
was no cant in his appearance or
tones, such as in some way Lansing
had grown to fancy must form ma jor
part of the make up of all evange1ists.
The predoninating quality about him
was earnestness. Added to this there
was straightforward fashion of ap-
pealing to his hearers better nature
that aroused interest in Lansing in
spite of himself. When the fellow
paused finally, after urging some one
to signify his desire to lead a better
life by rising, Lansing found himself
hoping that there would be a response.
Such downright good work ought to
have its reward, he felt.
And it had. A man few seats in
front of Lansing stood up. Then a
woman rose, and after her boy of
little more than sixteen. These were
prayed for and then another hymn
was sung, after which man rose on
the other side of the room and told a
bit of personal experience of visit
ing tour he had made.
Lansing listened with rapt atten-
ton. Was it possible such misery ex-
listed all about him in this city where
there we're so many agencies for its
relief? One case was that of the sick
ness of father and mother, with a
daughter not able to go to work be-
cause she must stay at home to attend
to their wants. Consequently their
sole source of income was cut off.
1 am sure, the speaker went on, if
only our charitably inclined men of
wealth could see these cases with their
own eyes, half the suffering in this
city would be done away with. But as
a general rule it is only the undeserv-
ing instances that are brought to their
notice. They give literally to boards,
to be sure, but those who stand most
in need of assistance rarely appeal to
boards. They must be discovered by
one who moves among them, or their
neighbors, and he, also, very rarely
has the means to relieve half the
misery he finds.
| The leader of the meeting glanced
at the clock and began to turn the
pages of a hymn book he held. He
evidently felt that the speaker was
wasting time uttering such sentiments
to mission audience. But he could
not read what was passing in the mind
of one of the auditors. Those few
words had sunk deep into the heart of