“Dominie,” said a good elder who had just introduced himself to me one day, “I have come in on behalf of our church at —— to see if you would not come out and give us a missionary talk. We ought to have sent in a collection to the Foreign Board months ago, but we neglected it, and now we have been talking it over and have made up our minds to do something handsome if you will come out there and give us a talk.”
“Well,” said I, “I shall be very glad to come and tell you something of our work just as soon as I can edge a day in between other engagements. But if you have made up your minds to do something handsome for the Board, why not do it at once and relieve their present pressing need, and I will come as soon as I can and give you the talk all the same.”
“O, no,” said he. “We can’t do that. We have made up our minds that we must give liberally, but we can start it easier if you come there and give us the talk first. You need not fear. We will give a good sum. That is settled, and it is mostly pledged. But you must come and talk to us first.”
I smiled and said to myself, “There is my horse in its third stage of training. That church is bending down its ear and entreating me to twist it, for it has made up its mind to go, only it requires to be wound up first.”
“Dominie,” said one of our earnest ministers to me one Wednesday, “we raised $1,000 for the Board last Sunday morning. It is more than usual, and we are all happy over it. Now we want you to come over the first Sunday of next month and give us a missionary address.”
“Good,” said I, “that church has got one stage further than my horse ever did in his training, for they start and do the work first and bend down the ear to be twisted afterwards.” Did it not give me an earnest joy to go and tell that church what the Lord’s war in India was, and how much they had helped it?
A Sunday-school superintendent came to me one day with smiling countenance, saying, “Our Sunday-school has raised $175 during the past year for missions, and we have determined to give it to the work in India. The year closed three months ago, and it is all in the hands of the treasurer, but we want you to come and give us a speech, and then it will be formally voted and sent at once to the Board. We have been waiting all this time because they told us at the rooms that you were engaged up till now. When can you come? The money is lying idle and we are waiting, and we know the Board needs the funds. So come as soon as you can.”
“Ah,” said I, “everything is ready, and the family are in the carriage, but they have to sit there half an hour because the horse boy is busy elsewhere, and the horse is holding down his ear all this time waiting for that particular horse boy to come and twist it.”
I was both pained and irresistibly amused by an incident that occurred not two hundred miles from New York, when the horse was in the first stage of training, and stoutly resisted allowing its ear to be touched.
The missionary was announced to speak in the church on a given Sunday, when the annual collection would be taken up. A good member of the church—the pastor says a sincere Christian—was very much put out about it; had heard enough of these old missionaries, and was not going to hear any more; did not believe in foreign missions—we had heathen enough at home.