The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1907-12-21
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A Lover Of God.

No matter what the calendar said,
the month ended uniformly on Sat
urday night at Saints Rest. This was
because the mine operators counted
on two or three days. idleness after
pay day, and thought it well that Sun
day should be among them.
They had experimental once or twice,
paying all the men in new one-dollar
bills. There were about two hundred
men, and the average was fifty dol
lars to man. Before the bank closed
on Monday afternoon the numerous sa-
looms had deposited more than six hun
dred Of those new bills. But the month
ly wage of Theophilus Lloyd was not
among them.
Yet, when he had lived near Scran-
ton, there was not wilder man in
the mines than he, nor one who drained
a deeper glass, till the Salvation Army
got hold Of him, and helped him on
his feet. But he fell again and again,
for his companions in evil were many,
and the habit was strong upon him.
And so one day he came home with a
months pay In his pocket, gave half
Of it to his mother, and with the rest
paid his way to the new Saints Rest
mine in East Tennessee; for he was
determined to make one last effort to
reform. And before he went he gave
his testimony in the Army meeting that
he was leaving home sober and in the
fear Of God, and he asked the prayers
of all his friends that he might be
faithful to the end.
His mother encouraged his going, yet
wept in his arms. He was all she had.
Some one had told her thah the name,
TheOphilus, which she found in her
Testament, meant Lover Of God" She
had given her boy that pame-her only
boy, born after his fathers death.
Somehow she lived through the years
Of his childhood, and till he was big
and strong, and could dig as many
tons Of coal day as the best Of them.
And he was true to his name till he got
to earning money and drinking After
that came bitter years, but years of
hope, for she meyer could bring her
self to believe that some day he would
not be what she had named him.
Once month from the Saints Rest
mine came the surplus of his wage,
and it left no margin for bad habits.
The letters were full of hope, and writ
ten with increasing strength Of will.
From the day of his arrival Theophilus
had taken his stand as a sober man and
Christian, and that made it not so
hard. At Scranton they all knew his
past, but here it was as if he had al
ways been sober. The superintendent
encouraged him; the mine sboss' be-
friended him; the best men were his
associates. 1t was not always easy to
go by the saloons, but it was not i'm
possible, and he did it.
Two years went by, and the time was
In sight when Theophilus would re-
turn home. Pay day was to come next
Saturday. He would collect his last
months pay and return to his mother.
Then out Of clear sky came the
message to his mother, Theophilus had
been killed in drunken fight.
20 God!" cried the agonized mother,
sis this the answer to my prayers?"
Theophilus was shot on Saturday
night and buried on Sunday afternoon.
While the minister preached above his
grave, a group of drunken miners near
by quarreled over keg of beer, until
they came to a fight, and the defeated
portion of the company took refuge
from pursuit in the assembly, and so
augmented the funeral company And
one bullet struck the tree which stood
at the minister's back. If the conditions
were not favorable to pulpit oratory,
hey gave added point to the temperance
sermon. And back in Scranton moth
er wept and said, 20 God, 1 could give
him up willingly, almost gladly, IL he
had not fallen! -
But in the quiet Of the Sabbath even
Ing, as she prayed, there came strange
peace, and a conviction which brought
comfort. Her boy had not fallen. She
would not believe it. He had remained
true these two years; she would not
believe that he had failed at the last
moment.
It was Wednesday before She knew
the whole story. The minister wrote
1t out and sent it to her, and the SUI
perintendent Of the mine added letter
confirming It. Theophilus had collected
his months wages, nearly seventy dol
lars, and had the money In his pocket.
He was returning to his boarding place
when fight occurred, and he attempt
ed to make peace, and was shot. He
played the part Of brave man to the
end, and left a clean record behind
him.
The superintendent sent the money,
and the minister forwarded a letter,
sealed and ready for the mail, which
they found in his pocket. He had In
tended that It should precede him by
few hours, and assure his mother that
ho vuao IN fho wav inst what n con-.