A missionary in Japan approached the Japanese doctor in charge of a hospital and asked permission to preach the Gospel here. Rather surprised at the doctor’s ready assent, the missionary asked him if he were a Christian. He said that he was not, but he told the following incident:
Twenty years ago he was walking on one of the streets, and in front of him a schoolboy was striding along, swinging his stick and whistling as he went. Suddenly the stick flew out of his hand and through a window. The boy stopped, horrified, and the Japanese stopped too, to see what he would do. To his surprise the boy ran up the steps of the house, rang, the bell, and was shown in. The Japanese was so interested that he waited. When the boy reappeared, he stopped him and said,
“I saw what happened—no one else was about. Why did you not run away?” The boy’s reply was one which he remembered.
“Well, sir, you see, I’m a Christian.”
That was one reason he opened his hoital to the preaching of the Gospel, but not the only one.
Just before he left he went to a little shoeblack to have his shoes polished. He was struck with the enthusiasm with which the boy did his work.
“You are taking a lot of trouble for me, my boy,” he said. The boy looked up, red with exertion, and said,
“I’m doing it for the Lord Jesus, sir!”
Because of the testimony of two boys twenty years before, the patients of that hospital in Japan had the Gospel preached to them.
“Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus.”
ML 11/09/1941