PART 2
My position in business now became with each day more difficult. My employer became more rigid and hard, as he saw the change in me. He was a thorough man of the world, and thought that godliness was only a cloak for covetousness and hypocrisy, and therefore he looked on me and my actions with suspicion. But all this only caused me to cleave closer to the Lord.
At home everything seemed to go wrong; father did not get better, debts accumulated and in addition, house rent was due in a few days; there seemed to be no way out of it all.”
The old man paused for a while in his narrative. Tears were chasing each other down his wrinkled face as all these things pressed themselves upon his mind, yet the expression of his face showed that those days of sorrow did not pass over him without the desired effect, but that he owned in all of these things the hand of Him who is the “Father of mercies, and God of all comfort.”
Silent and expectant, Charles sat waiting for his grandfather to continue.
“One afternoon, shortly after this, my employer told me to leave the office a little earlier, in order to pay some bills which were due. Several of the creditors lived quite a way off, so that not till after two hours’ walking did I find myself at the house of the last one—Mr. W—. I was shown into a room, and since I had to wait quite a while, I drew from my pocket the money I was to pay, to count it over, and found to my astonishment that I had a greenback of $100 too much. I counted the money repeatedly, with the same result—I had one hundred dollars too much. I hurriedly hid the bill in my pocket, just as Mr. W—stepped into the room. He approached me with these words:
‘You look very pale my young friend. Are you sick?’
I am tired from rapid walking, and I feel a little sick, indeed said I, and so I was.
‘I thought so,’ was the reply.
We then transacted our business. I received my receipt and left the house. Arriving at home, I found things as I had feared. Our landlord had come and threatened to sell some of our furniture, if the rent was not paid promptly. My poor father lay in bed. My sorrowing mother sat weeping at the table.
‘Can nothing be done?’ said she as I entered the room. ‘It is too bad that for the small sum of ninety or one hundred dollars we should lose this furniture. Is there no outlet to be found?’
ML 11/20/1938