The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1909-03-11
A Lover of God.

No matter what the calendar said,
the month ended uniformly on a Sat
urday night at Saints Rest. This
was because the mine operators
counted on two or three days idle
ness after payday, and thought it
well that Sunday should be among
them.
They had experimental once or
twice, paying all the men in new one-
dollar bills. There we're about two
hundred men, and the average was
fifty dollars to a man. Before the
bank closed on Monday afternoon
the numerous saloons had deposited
more than six hundred of those new
bills. But the monthly 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 deeper glass, till the Sal
walton 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 1t to
his mother, and with the rest paid
his way to the new Saints Rest mine
in East Tennessee; for he was deter
mined to make one last effort to re-
form. 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,
N Iln w q q a
had. Some one had told her that the
name Theophilus, which she found in
her Testament, meant Lover of
God" She had given her boy that
name-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 a day as the best
of them. And he was true to his
name till he got to earning money
and drinking. After that came Bit
ter years, but years of hope, for she
never could bring herself to believe
that some day he would not be what
she had named him.
Once a month from the Saints
Rest mine came the surplus of his
wage, and 1t left no margin for bad
and written with increasing strength
of will. From the day of his arrival,
Theophilus had taken his stand as q
sober man and a Christian, and that
made 1t not so hard At Scranton
they all knew his past, but here it
was as II he had always been sober.
The superintendent encouraged him;
the mine "boss" befriended him; the
best men were his associates. 1t was
not always easy to go by the saloons,
but it was not impossible, and he did
1t.
Two years went by, and the time
was in sight when Theophilus would
return home. Payday 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, Theophiius
had been killed in a drunken fight.
20 God," cried the agonized moth
er, lis this the answer to my pray
ers?"
Theophilus was shot on Saturday
night and buried on Sunday after
noon. While the minister preached
above his grave, group Of drunken
miners near by quarreled over a keg
of beer, until they came to fight,
and the defeated portion of the coHi-
pany took refuge from pursuit in the
assembly, and so augmented the fu-
neral company. And one bullet
struck the tree which stood at the
minister's back. If the conditions
were not favorable to pulpit oratory,
they gave added point to the temper
ance sermon. And back in Scranton
a mother wept, and said, 20 God, l
could give him up willingly almost
gladly, IL he had not fallen!"
But in the quiet of the Sabbath
evening, as she prayed, there came
a 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.
1t was Wednesday before she knew
the whole story. The minister wrote
1t out and sent 1t to her, and the su-
perintendent Of the mine added a let
ter confirming 1t. Theophilus had
collected his months wages, nearly
seventy dollars, and had the money in
his pocket. He was returning to his
boarding-place when fight occurred.
and he attempted 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 intended that 1t should precede
him by few hours, and assure his
mother that he was on his way. Just
what II contained, only the mother
knew: but 1t brought her comfort,
and she knew that her boy had died.
as during the years of trial he had
lived. lover of God.-Youth's Com
panion.
IN fha Crcee