TWELVE years ago a little boy, only thirteen years old, stood bidding his mother good-by.
He was going a long journey with strangers across the ocean, to stay a good many years. He didn’t know how long it would be before he should see his dear father and mother again.
He had very black eyes and hair, and beautiful white teeth, and his skin was somewhat darker than yours when you’ve been playing bareheaded in the sun. For the rest, he was a little Armenian boy, born and reared in Turkey, and speaking the Armenian language. His father was a native preacher in Thyatira.
And now this boy was to take a long, long journey to America to be educated, so that he might come back to work for the Jesus whom he loved so much.
It was very hard to say good-by for so long a time, but at last it was over, and the boy went down to the great ship that was to carry him over the ocean, trying to choke back the tears that would rise when he thought of his home and father and mother and playmates, and the missionaries whom he loved so much. So he knelt down by his little bed in the ship, and begged the dear Heavenly Father to go with him. Then there came a sweet verse to him to cheer him: “Fear thou not, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest.”
He was very much bewildered when he landed in this country, at all the bustle and hurry, and the strange language.
He was put immediately into school, and went to work at the English language.
“Did you find it hard?” I asked him, not long since.
“Hard! I should think I did,” he answered. “Your language is so queer! See that horse tied to a tree. It is ‘fast.’ And yet if he is running at full speed you call him ‘fast.’ That window is locked. You say it is ‘fast,’ but so is the young man that smokes and drinks, and wears flashy neckties and carries a cane. It was a great puzzle to me at first. It has taken me all these twelve years to learn it.”