A number of sandwich-men were marching down Water Street in single file, each man encased between a pair of boards. Their step was dull and listless, their appearance hopeless and miserable. The story of defeat and failure was written on each countenance. Life at two shillings a day between advertisement boards was not inspiring, and weariness of soul and body was in each footfall.
Is Life Worth Living?
was the legend they wore on the front board; and on the back was the answer, Yes―if you take Salter’s wonderful cure.
“I wonder why Salter does not try the effect on these men?” thought Mr. Wardrop, looking with an eye of compassion upon the poor fellows. “They look as if they need something to make life worth living.”
He stood and watched them for a few minutes as they filed past. The words haunted him, and the question rose persistently in his mind. What was there in his own life that made it worth living? Was he living for any purpose? Was anyone the better because he was living? Was there any cure for the emptiness and dreariness of his own life? Not in drugs and nostrums; that was a trap to catch the unwary. No; his sore lay deeper down than that. Not in amusements and gaiety; he had had his fill of these, and they had left his life unsatisfied and empty.
He turned down a side street, hoping to get away from the sad reflections the sight of the men had conjured up, but even as he turned the corner another batch of sandwich men met him; and again in staring letters the same words stared him in the face,
Is Life Worth Living?
Again he looked on men, worsted in the struggle of life, glad to earn a miserable pittance to keep body and soul together for themselves and those dear to them.
But the man who headed this batch looked different from the rest. His shoes were thin and old, and his clothes were threadbare; but there was an air of decency and respectability about him that struck Mr. Wardrop—something in his gait that the others lacked, and a cheerfulness about his looks that appealed to the passer by.
Edwin Wardrop’s curiosity was aroused, and he drew near and spoke to this man. “You look different from your companions,” he said.
“Oh!” replied the man,
“I have taken the Cure, you see,”
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Wardrop. “You have taken the cure? I should not have thought you were able to spend any money on cures.”
The man looked at him steadily for a moment, and there was a light in his eyes as he answered, “I said I had taken the cure―I didn’t say it was Salter’s. No! they wouldn’t give us any of that stuff; we are all too poor to buy it; but the cure I have taken can be had for nothing. It is ‘without money and without price.’ It’s a cure that suits poor folks.”
“What was your complaint?” asked Wardrop with interest.
“Dead in trespasses and sins,” answered the man; “given over to the works of the flesh.”
“I don’t understand you,” answered Wardrop. “I can’t see what all this has to do with the cure?”
“Don’t you, sir? Well, it’s like this; I may be poorly clad, but if I’ve got on the robe of Christ’s righteousness I shan’t take much harm; my shoes may be old and worn, but if my feet are shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace, I can struggle along till He sends for me; and if I don’t know sometimes where my night’s lodging is to come from, my Master had not where to lay His head. And now He is preparing for me a place in the Father’s House of many mansions. So it’s all right for me, sir.”
“You’re quite a philosopher, my friend―a living example of the triumph of mind over matter―but you must be very hungry sometimes; and hunger is a sharp thorn, you know,” said Wardrop, looking at the man’s pale cheeks and thin features.
“I know a bit about that, sir; I’ve gone hungry many a day; but I don’t understand what you mean about the triumph of mind over matter. I’m only a simple, unlearned sort of chap, and perhaps I can’t put things into proper words; but, don’t you see, sir, the love of God shed abroad in the heart, and His peace ruling the mind, makes you sit easy to other things. The Master said we do not live by bread alone, and when He comes to dwell in a man’s soul―why, sir, isn’t it a continual feast? Talk about Salter’s cure making life worth living,
It’s having Jesus in the Heart
as makes life worth living. Isn’t He the Bread of Life? Hunger of the body is nothing to soul hunger. There’s many a man riding in his carriage today, with bread enough and to spare, has cause to envy me―a poor sandwich man―because Jesus is my all-sufficient Saviour. He satisfies me with His own presence. When I am sick, isn’t He the great physician? When I am sad and downhearted, isn’t He my Comforter? Someday these poor old feet of mine will walk the streets of New Jerusalem; and it will be fullness of life there, sir―life for evermore. They taught me all about it at Peter Street. If you was to go there, you’d learn how to get that hope for yourself, sir, if so be as you haven’t got it yet.”
The sandwich man’s face was full of joy and peace as Edwin Wardrop watched him patiently plodding along between his two boards. Content with having sown the seed, he left the result with God’s Holy Spirit.
Mary Kendrew.