"He knelt. I prayed. He wept."
This was the cryptic way the missionary came to the climax of his story. Again the Southern Cross shot into view as we turned a curve in the river.
"The fountain broke. A boy's heart was won! I didn't have to fire him. I won him!"
"That lad came to me two years later as he started out from our school in Batavia, and said, 'Mr. Worthington, that moment when you called me into your office was the crucial moment of my life. If you had been unkind to me then; if you had punished me, even as much as I deserved it; if you had not been Christ-like, I should have killed you. I had my knife ready. There was a demon in me! Your kindness, your praying for me, broke something inside of me. I guess it was my heart. I cried. I prayed. That morning saved my soul!'"
"That was a marvelous experience, Mr. Missionary! It was a marvelous way to meet the situation," I said in a low tone, looking up at the white outline of the Southern Cross, and remembering two thieves.
"It was Christ's way!" said the missionary.
But perhaps the outstanding Flash-light of national Friendship is that of America for the Philippines. I shall never forget the day we started southward from winter-bound China for sun-warmed Manila.
As the great ship swung about in the muddy waters of the Yangsti and turned southward, the bitter winds of winter were blowing across her deserted decks. But in two days one felt not only a breath of warm tropical winds on his face but he also felt a breath of warmer friendship blowing into his soul as he thought of the Philippines and America.
The first breath of warm winds from southern tropical seas gently kissed one's cheeks that afternoon. It was a soothing breath of romance, freighted with the scent of tropical trees. It was much of a contrast with the bitter winter winds that had blown the day before at Shanghai. There the snow was flying, and woolen suits were greatly needed.
But to-night men and women alike walk the decks of this Manila-bound ship. They are all in white. One stands at the bow of the ship, glad to catch the salt spray on tanned cheeks, glad to feel the sea-touched winds playing with his hair, glad to see fair women of the Orient tanned with summer suns; for it is summer in the Philippines, while winter reigns in China and the rest of the Oriental lands further north.