MORTIMER J. was rather clever at working problems, and he liked people to give him hard ones to solve, so that he might have an opportunity of showing his skill.
I once went to the house of his father and mother. Mortimer had just come home from school, and after tea he brought me his paper and asked me to give him a problem— “A good hard one,” he said.
So I gave him this one:
“If a brick weighs 4 lbs. and half a brick, how much does a brick and a half weigh?”
He immediately set to work, and I saw him biting away at the end of his pencil, as if that would help him!
After a few minutes he said, “I’ve done it; the answer is 12 lbs.”
“Right!” I replied. “But that was too easy; now let me give you a harder one.”
He passed me his paper, and I wrote,
“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
Mortimer took the paper, read the question, and looked at me.
“That’s out of the Bible,” he said. “Yes,” I replied; “but can you answer it?”
“Nobody can,” he said, “because there wouldn’t be any profit.”
Mortimer was right again. He knew that if anyone could have all the gold and all the diamonds that the world contains. he would be poor indeed if he lost his soul. Our souls are worth more than all the wealth of the world. And they will surely be lost forever, unless we flee to the Saviour for refuge. None but He can save. Trying to be good won’t keep us from being lost, for we have all of us done wrong things, —that is, we have sinned; and only the blood of Christ can wash our sins away. This is what is meant by being saved.
ML 09/03/1922