I heard a little while ago of a member of one of our churches
in Pennsylvania whose son graduated from a theological seminary
and sent word home to his father that he had decided to be a
missionary, and asking him for his approval; and the father
sat down in a towering rage and wrote back to him something
like this: “This is absolutely the saddest message I have ever
received from you. I could have wished that you had died in
infancy, as your brother did, rather than that things should
come to such a pass as this. You never will get my consent
to do such a rash and foolish thing. I will cut you entirely
off from any share in my inheritance, unless you give up this
idea forever; and I do not care to see your face again until
you have given it up.” Imagine that kind of an answer from a
professing Christian! In spite of it, the man is in Japan as a
missionary to-day. Would it not be far more Christlike to take
the attitude that my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Paton did over at
Pittsburg three years ago, when their only child, a beautiful,
clever, tender girl, came to them one day and said she wanted to
be a missionary out in Africa? And they were so much in sympathy
with Christ that they said, “We shall be very glad to have you
go.” Then, as they thought and prayed over it for a few days,
they decided that they could not let anybody else support their
daughter, and so they sent word to the mission board that they
wanted to have the privilege for the rest of their lives of
paying their daughter’s salary while she worked over yonder in
Africa. And when one and another of their friends came to them,
protesting against this madness in sending their only child away
off to bury her life in the heart of Africa, their simple answer
to these critics was in words like these, “Our Lord has given
His best to us, and our best is not too good for Him.”--J.
CAMPBELL WHITE, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
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