‘Yes, father,’ I said, ‘but can’t you help me out?’
As I looked he was gone. Soon I saw another form approaching, and another man bent over me, this time with closed eyes and folded arms. He seemed to be looking to some far-off place.
‘My son,’ Buddha said, ‘just close your eyes and fold your arms, and forget all about yourself. Get into a state of rest. Don’t think about anything that can disturb. Get so still that nothing can move you. Then, my child, you will be in such delicious rest as I am.’
‘Yes, father,’ I answered, ‘I will when I am above ground. Can’t you help me out?’ But Buddha, too, was gone.
I was just beginning to sink into despair when I saw another figure above me, different from the others. There were marks of suffering on His face. I cried out to Him:
‘O, Father! can you help me?’
‘My child,’ He said, ‘what is the matter?’
Before I could answer Him, He was down in the mire by my side. He folded His arms about me and lifted me up; then He fed me and rested me. When I was well He did not say: Now, don’t do that again, but He said: ‘We will walk on together now’; and we have been walking together until this day.”
This was a poor Chinaman’s way of telling of the compassionate love and help of the Lord Jesus.
I was reading, some time ago, of a young man who had just come out of a saloon, and had mounted his horse. As a certain deacon passed on his way to church, he followed and said,