Nogales international., 1929-11-12
Eleventh Instalment

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Dear Wife, he wrote her
mother.-The Lord giveth and
taketh away. 1 have lost you
and my darling daughter and my
loneliness, but I still can say,
"Thy will be DONE"
| think you should know, how
ever, how things are here. Other
wise | should not write you. But
/ am afraid that the daughter
that was once ours might tire of
the huskS of sin and wish to come
home repentant.
Bitterness filled my soul when
/ learned that she was leading a
life of riotous mockery, and when
| saw the picture of her smiling
in wanton attire at the side of
that smirking French general, l
had it in my heart to curse her.
l wrote in my haste. l repented
my hardness of heart and bowed
my head in humble shame when
/ read your angry reply. l had
lost your love and your admira-
ton, but that was deserved pun
ishment for the idolatry that had
grown up in my heart to-you-
wards; and for the mistakes /
must have made in not giving Our
erring daughter a better care.
But now it has pleased the
Lord to pour out the walls of his
wrath on my gray hairs. The
old mortgage on the church fell
due long ago, but foreclosure had
been postponed from time to
time. We gave benefit to pay
it off, but everybody was too
poor to respond, and it did not pay
expenses.
The manager or the motion-pic-
ture house here offered to share
the profits on the showing of
picture in which, as he had the
mpudence to tell me, my daughter
played a part. But while it
would have drawn money for
curiosity that would not have re-
.ponded to a Christian appeal, l
felt that it would be compound
llg with evil, and 1 put Satan be-
ind me and ordered the fellow
put of the house.
x x
The church is to be closed.
What I shall do next or how
Ilke care of the little children
hat still cling to our home, the
Lord has not yet told me in
answer to my prayers. ! still
have faith that in His good time
he will provide way or call His
servant home, and l hope you
will not take this letter as plea
for pity.
My cup is full and running
over, but my chief dread is that
unl1appiness and want may be
your portion as we'll as mine,
and that l shall fail you utterly
after providing so scantily for
you all your days. / can only
pray that my fears are the result
OF loneliness and age and weari-
ness.
And now may the Lord shield
you with his ever-present mercy,
or at least give US the strength to
understand that in all things he
knoweth best.
Your loving
HUSBAND.
AS the read this letter and saw
pack of the lines the heavy brows
Of her old father, saw the bald spot
she had stared at from the choir
oft, saw all the sweet wrong-head-
edness of the veteran saint, Mems
1eart hurt intolerably.
Her mother sobbed: What on
earth can l write the poor dar-
ing?"
Mem replied: "The answer is
easy. I'm going to send him all
The money I've got"
Her mother cried out against
one of her loves to pay an
other. 1t seemed a cruel shame to
take the first bit of cake from her
daughter and sell it to buy bread
for her husband.
you'll need it yourself. You
may not have another job soon.
You need new clothes and rest"
"Rest and the clothes can wait.
Her mother kept a miserable 81
Ience for a long while before she
could say: Your father will never
accept money that you have earned
from the pictures. He'd rather
die"
This gave Mem only brief
pause. She answered simply:
Doctor Bretherick got me into
this business by making up the pack
Of lies that brought me out here.
Now he can make up a few more
and save poor daddy from desper-
alton"
She sat down at once and wrote
the doctor a letter, telling him
what he must know already of her
fathers help1essness. She inclosed
a money order for two hundred and
fifty dollars. She wrote check at
first, but she was afraid to have it
put through the bank at Calverly
lest her father hear of it. She in
structed the doctor to make up an
other Of his scenarios about a re-
pentant member of the congrega-
tion wishing to restore some stolen
anything that his imagin-
alton could invent.
Then she set the wheels in motion
to secure an immediate engagement
with the next to the greatest COM
edian on the screen, Ned Ling, a
reader of important books; a debater