The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-08-12

claimed friendship and sympathy, and
shall l say it? Yesl A Silent Prayer
on My Part! that the Truth might be
demonstrated. / was pleased to see
a change. The vain apprehensions of
the sufferer fled; Peace seemed re-
stored to its rightful place; and the
mind to its normality. Through fol
lowing conversation l learned such de-
tail as | could. He had strayed to
these parts trying to reach Indian
apolis, Ind.
~Friendless, p%enniless, physically and
mentally weak, a child of the South,
away from home in a deplorable con-
dition. He was sent to me by a friend
and brought to me by a stranger. For
what? To work! That creature work?
How could he? Weak, overwhelmed
with sorrow, bowed beneath the
weight of terrible circumstances,
Work! Why, the child needed friend
ship, mercy, kindness. He needed
consolation and he got it,! From
whom? From the Eighteenth street
er. From the citizens of the commu-
nifty in whose midst fate had cast him.
From the passerby. From the bust
ness man, all glorious with the in
stinct of the human heart. Men! Men
for humanity, Generous and Sympa-
thetic. And Curry, waif of the world,
slept-slept in my parlor-slept till
night.
Waking with a recurring thought
Of hig n1fghf nnA rnptrnhfpn again
to the gathering clouds of his appar-
ent restitution. For now his sorrows
were less apparently real. Yet he
could not restrain and again he wept.
The outburst was strong. The loud
prayer was in evidence. Over one hun
dred people gathered at our doors to
learn the what.
l consulted a friend. The friend adj
vised sending the sufferer to the hos
pital. This l doubted, knowing medi-
cine cannot reach the soul or heart.
1 observed to him that that would be
an easy way out of the situation, but
would it be the Christian way? Any
how, we decided to send him to the
hospital mid the loud protestations of
the unwilling patient. There! 'Tis
done, said I. The case has ended, l
thought, though l might make in
quiries over the phone at times to
learn his condition. And so l slept.
The sun arose the following morn
ing with its now accustomed sultri-
ness. The days traffic of business
has begun. The hurry-scurry Of 18th
street is rampant. Laborers moving
along to their tasks. The long orange
colored Vine Street car makes her
graceful curve on Eighteenth street,
laden with domestic attendants de-
stined to the aristocratic homes,
there to prepare the tday's first meal.
All is incidental to the daily life in
these parts. And the Old League En-
terprise is a part of this! The sons
of men are in and out its doors on
stantly. sTownsmen, strangers, and
what not. In this flow of humanity
m again the child of woe! What,
Curry Johnson? Is it you. 1t is. The
hospital has given back to the world
what the world gave to it. Again /
heard the wailing and l%amentation;
again God soothed and sustained. The
GRIP of the hurt is hard. The anguish,
the rending OF heart is awful. But
what must be the pain when ignor-
ance and poverty lend their gruelling
influences? These are the negatives
that engulf and envelop in darkness.
What to do with Curry was the all
fired question now. There was one
thing he wanted and that was to go
home. His distant Shreveport became
his mania and threatened to
him. The ~desolation of despair urged
again the tears to flow which copious-
ly gushed from their over-filled founts.
One thing was decided, Curry must
go home. How, was next When,
was purely problematical. Curry him
self said; "Show me to the people,
the people will help" This we de-
cided to do. A typewriter statement
was prepared which ran something
like this:
TLIc NnMNEPMc VOL