Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/301

 Brother in joy and pain, Bone of my bone was He, Now—intimacy closer still, He dwells Himself in me.

I need not journey far This dearest friend to see, Companionship is always mine, He makes His home with me.

(1239)

God in Human Instinct—See.

GOD IN INDIAN BELIEF

Of all the different kinds of people among whom I have lived the Indians of northern California carry the memory of their dead the longest, and, I had almost written, feel their loss the most. I have seen old women, bent with age, rocking their bodies to and fro with grief in some dry, grass-covered ditch, moaning as if their hearts were breaking, and upon inquiry have been told that they were mourning for a husband or children dead perhaps for years. But from amid the moans of Rachel sorrowing for her dead children the whisper of hope beyond the grave has always been present. For underneath the driftwood of their dim traditions and wild fables handed from father to son from time immemorial, around the camp-fires at night, with addition here, subtraction there, and darkness all around, I have always found among all the tribes that grand conception of a divine being who created all and who in the hereafter will reward the good and punish the bad. Everywhere my footsteps have wandered—on the Klamath and on the Trinity, from the Golden Gate to the Oregon line—I have encountered the Man-maker, who lives among the stars and loves his red children—, Overland.

(1240)

GOD IN MAN'S WORK

Dr. Henry Van Dyke enforces the lesson that God is in all the common tasks of life, after this fashion:

There was a man who wanted to find Christ, and he imagined he must leave his work. He was a carpenter, builder, perhaps, or a stone-mason. He imagined he could only be a Christian by going to the desert and living a hermit's life. He never found Christ there. He then thought he must never go outside the cloisters of the church, or walls of the temple. He did not find Christ there. There was something defective about that man's life. He was heedless of his children and his fellow men. He was seeking Christ for himself and not for others. The voice of the Savior came:

"You did not need to go to the desert to find me; lift the stone and thou shalt find me. Do your regular work as a stone-mason and as you do your work you shall find me in your daily labor. Cleave the wood and there am I. As you lift the timbers, sing out the song of praise." Christ is with you in your daily task.

(1241)

GOD IN MISSIONS

The captain of the Trident, the ship on which Morrison, the missionary, sailed, and who knew something of the impenetrable conservatism of the Chinese, said: "And so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect that you will make an impression upon the idolatry of the great Chinese Empire?" "No, sir," returned Mr. Morrison, severely, "I expect God will."

(1242)

God, Instinctive Sense of—See.

GOD IN THE CHILD MIND

I have in mind a four-year-old girl, favored in many things, but especially happy in that she spends her summers on an island in a beautiful lake, mountain-rimmed. She has always been privileged to walk with her father and mother in the fields and woods; to "go a-trudging," as she called it, has been her chief delight. "Where did the trees get their red and yellow leaves?" she asked. "Who made them red and yellow?" Her question answered, she ran to her mother with her chubby hands filled with her new treasures, saying, "See, mama! I have brought you some of God's beautiful leaves!"

"How came the island here?" she asked. "Who brought the rocks and the trees?" She was told how the island was lifted into its place; how the soil was formed, the trees planted, and the island made ready for the birds, for the trees, for the rabbits, for the squirrels, and for her—just as her father had built the house for her, in which she lived. As the time for her return to her home approached, she sat one evening watching the sunset and the early evening stars, and said, "Don't you hope that God will be at home when we get there, just as He has been here this summer?" So linked with her love of the beautiful in the world was