The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1907-04-27
What Lore Owes t. Love.
~~~~~~


What Lore Owes t. Love.
A missionary was preaching to the
Maori tribe of New Zealanders. he
had been telling them of the sufferings
of Christ-how he had poured forth
His soul unto death for them; and as
he concluded, the hills rang to the
thrilling question:
"It is nothing to you, all you VINO
pass by? Behold and see II there be
any sorrow like unto his SORROW.
Then stood forth a plumed and paint
ed chief, the Scared warrior of many
fights, and as his lips Quivered with
emotion he spoke:
"And did the Son Of the Highest suf-
fer this for us men? Then the chief
would like to offer Him some poor re-
turn for his great love. Would the
Son of God like to accept the chief's
hunting dog? Swift Of foot and keen
of scent, the tribe has not such an
other, and he has been to the chief as
q friend"
But the missionary told him that the
Son had no need of such gifts. Think
Ing he had mistaken the gift he resum-
ed: "Yet perhaps He would accept my
well-tried rifle. Unerring OF aim, the
chief cannot replace it, Again the
missionary shook his head.
+ For a moment the chief paused;
then, as new thought struck him, sud-
denly despoiling himself of his striped
blanket, he cried, with child-like earn
estness, "Perhaps He who had nowhere
to lay His head will yet accept the
chieftain's blanket The poor chief will
be cold without it, yet it is offered JOY
fully"
Touched by loves persistency, the
missionary tried to explain to him the
real nature of the Son of God; that 1t
was not mems gifts, but mems hearts
that he yearned for.
For a moment a cloud Of grief dark
ened the rough features of the old
chief; then, as the true nature Of the
Son of God slowly dawned upon him,
casting aside his blanket and rifle, he
clasped his hands, and looking up into
the blue sky, his face beaming with joy,
he exclaimed:
perhaps the Son Of the Blessed One
will deign to accept the poor old chief
himself !"-The Cottager and Artisan.
Christ Seeking the Lost.
Christ seeks each of us by the inner
voices and emotions in our hearts and
minds, by those strange whisperings
which sometimes we hear, by the sud-
denly upstarting convictions of duty
and truth which sometimes, without
manifest occasion, flash across our
hearts. These voices are Christ's voice,
for, in a far deeper sense than most
men believe, He is the true Light,
which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world"
He Is seeking us by our unrest, by
our yearnings after we know not what,
by our dim dissatisfaction, which in
sists upon making itself felt in the
midst of joys and delights, and which
IAC " VI IA 1dlAS " SdIIS1y 1uuCu dS IL
fails to interpret. There Is cry In
every heart, little as the bearer of the
heart translates it into its true mean
lng-a cry after God. And by all your
unrests, your disappointments, your
hopes fulfilled and blasted in fulfill
ment, your desires that perish unfruit-
ed-by all the mystic movements Of the
spirit that yearns for something be-
yond the material and the visible, Jesus
Christ is seeking His sheep.
He seeks us by the discipline Of life,
for l believe that Christ Is the active
providence of God, and that the hands
that were pierced on the cross do
move the wheels of the history of the
world and mould the destinies of indi-
v1dual spirits. Maclaren.