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68 The Great OpporUmity
more than dollars. A little company of four, minus money, minus
’
influence, minus backing, minus everything that counts with men, but
plus God and the vision and the burning heart brought the Gospel to
Europe. Had they waited for the influential men to bring in the mil-
lions God would have set them aside and chosen other messengers.
"Immediately!" I like that word. There is a rush about it. Paul
and Silas and Timothy and Luke must have been Rush-ians. There
was not much parleying. A vision—God’s will is clear—and they went.
That was all.
I’ve heard about two blacksmiths, both of whom stuttered badly.
The one put the redhot iron on the anvil, and said: "N-n-n-now -s-s-s-
strike!" "W-w-w-where s-s-s-shall I s-s-s-strike?" asked the other.
"N-n-n-never m-m-m-mind, it’s c-c-c-cold now," was the reply.
That is often the trouble with our conferences and parleyings. We
stutter too much, we hesitate and talk, and then talk some more, and
stutter until the opportunity is past.
"A Long Time Coming"
S. D. Gordon tells a touching incident in one of his books. Into a
poor laboring man’s home the plague had come. The father and the
children had been carried out until at last there remained but two,
the mother and her baby boy of perhaps flve years. The little fellow
crept up to his mother one evening and said, "Mother, father’s dead,
and my brothers and sisters are dead, too. If you die, what’ll I do?"
The mother said, "If I die, Jesus will come for you." That was satis-
factory to the little fellow, as he had been taught about Jesus.
His question proved only too prophetic. The mother was soon gone.
Strange hands laid her away and in the sore stress of the times the
boy was forgotten. He tried to sleep in that lonely home, but could
not. Late at night he got up and found his way to the place where
they had put his mother. There he cried himself to sleep.
Early next morning a gentleman passed by and saw the little boy
on the grave. Suspecting some sad story he asked him, "My boy, wake
up, what are you doing there alone?" The boy awoke, rubbed his eyes
and said, "Father’s dead and brother’s dead and sister’s dead, and now
mother’s dead, too, and she said if she died Jesus would come for me,
and He hasn’t come yet, and I’m so tired waiting."
The man swallowed something in his throat and said, "Well, my boy,
I’ve come for you." And the little lad looked at him with his big
eyes and said, "I think you’ve been a long time coming."
The King’s business requires haste, and there ought to be an im-
mediateness about our work for Christ, or someone will be saying,
"You’ve been a long time coming."
Do you ask how Gospel messengers will be received in Russia? How
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