Up in the mountains of North Carolina, lived a farmer who had a poor farm, with thin soil, where by hard work, he was barely able to make a living for himself, wife and son. The son, however, was a remarkably bright boy, and easily surpassed all the other boys in the district school. One day the father said to the mother, “Our son is a natural born scholar and if he is only a poor farmer’s son he shall have as good an education as a millionaire’s son.” The father and mother economized and raked and scraped and got enough together to send the boy off to college. The boy did well at college, and every little while sent a letter home telling how well he was doing in his classes. When these letters came the father and mother would read and reread them, and they filled their hearts with joy.
One day a letter came and after the father had read it, he said, “Mother, these letters are all right. They do cheer my old heart, but letters are not enough. My heart is lonely for the boy and I must see the boy himself. I cannot wait. I must see him.” But the mother was a canny woman and said, “You must wait, you cannot see him. He cannot afford to lose a day from his studies to come down here, and you cannot lose a day from the farm to go and see him. You must wait.”
The father said, “I must see him. I cannot stand it any longer. I must see my boy. I have a plan. I’ll load up the old farm wagon this afternoon and get up before sunrise tomorrow and drive to town and sell my load and make enough to pay expenses, and see my boy. I cannot stand it any longer, I must see him.” That afternoon the farmer loaded up the wagon, went to bed with the chickens, got up early in the morning before sunrise, hitched up the old team and started for the college town. It was a long tedious journey, but it did not seem long to the farmer for he was going to see his boy. As he drove along he would chuckle to himself, “I will soon see my boy. Won’t he be glad to see me? He thinks I am at home on the farm. Won’t he be surprised when I walk into his room? Won’t he be glad?”
Every hour of his dreary journey as he drew nearer the college town his heart grew lighter and happier, and at last as he drew near the town he said, “I am almost there. In a little while now I will see my boy. Won’t he be surprised? Won’t he be glad?” As he entered the town he tried to hurry the old team forward, but to no avail as the team was tired and could not go any faster. As he drove up the hill towards the college who should he see coming down the sidewalk but his boy with two gay young college companions. “There he comes! There he comes!” said the old man, “won’t he be surprised to see me? Won’t he be glad?” He whipped up the team, but it could not go any faster, they were tired out. He jumped off the wagon and ran up to his boy, who had not seen him. “My son,” he cried. His son was surprised, but was not glad. He was ashamed of his father in his plain old homespun clothes before his gay college companions. “There must be some mistake, sir,” he said. “I am not your son, you are not my father. I do not know you. There must be some mistake, sir.” He might as well have driven a dagger into his father’s heart. I am told that the father went home with a broken heart to die. Whether that part of the story is true I cannot say, but I can well believe it. If my son should treat me that way (thank God he never will) I think it would break my heart. What do you think of a son like that? I think he should be horsewhipped. The cowardly, ungrateful wretch. But stop before you condemn him. Some of you here tonight are more ungrateful than that son. Jesus Christ has done more for you than that father did for his son. Jesus Christ has done more for you than any father ever did for his son. Yet you are so cowardly and ungrateful that you won’t stand up and confess Him before the world, because you are afraid of what someone will say, and you are ashamed of Him. I have never told this story without its making my blood boil, although I suppose I have told it over one hundred times.
Let me tell you another story. Thank God it is entirely different.
Down in the mountains of Georgia lived a poor widow. She had a few acres of ground where she raised berries and one thing and another and made a little money keeping chickens and selling eggs. She also took in washing and did other humble work for a living, but God gave her a bright son. He too surpassed every one in the district school. The mother worked hard to get the money to send him to Emory College. The son worked hard to get himself through the college. He graduated with high honors and won a gold medal for special excellence in study.
When it came time for him to graduate he went up to the mountain home for his mother, and said, “Mother, you must come down and see me graduate.”
“No,” said his mother, “I have nothing fit to wear, and you would be ashamed of your poor old mother before all those grand people.”
“Ashamed of you,” he said, with eyes filled with filial love, “ashamed of you, Mother, never. I owe everything I am to you and you must come down. What is more I will not graduate unless you come.” Finally she yielded. He brought her to the town. When the graduating day came she went to the commencement exercises in her plain calico dress with her neat but faded shawl and simple mountain bonnet. He tried to take her down the middle aisle where the richest people of the town, friends of the graduating class, sat, but this she refused and insisted on sitting way off under the gallery. The son went up on the platform and delivered his graduating address. He was handed his diploma and received his gold medal. No sooner had he received the gold medal than he walked down from the platform and way to where his mother sat off under the gallery and pinned the gold medal on her faded shawl and said, “Mother, that belongs to you, you earned it.”
That is a son worth having. Which of those two sons are you like, the cowardly ungrateful wretch, ashamed of his poor old father or the noble boy who was proud of his poor mother to whom he owed all he was in the world? I have been told by a president of the college where this happened that when the boy pinned that gold medal on his mother’s shawl the whole audience burst into such prolonged applause that the exercises could not go on for five minutes.
You want to applaud too. Let me tell you a better way to applaud, imitate him. You owe all you are to Jesus Christ. Come, pin all your honors upon Him today. Come out and confess Him before the world.