Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/70

 He did not care for them himself, and had given them to this boy, who was deeply impressed. In the course of time the boy graduated from school and went to Oita to attend the Normal, and he did so with the resolution already formed to look up the man who advertised in the papers and learn from him more about the Christian religion.

"When I heard that, I looked up the card index, and found among the 4 'dead' cards one for Okabe Katsumi. It was number 444, and he had applied for tracts in the spring of 1912, but in August he wrote that he had found something in our tracts that he did not like, and so had made up his mind to have nothing more to do with Christianity. So his card was marked in red ink, 'Closed August 12, 1913,' and filed away among the 'dead' ones—a complete failure, so far as any one could see. But it wasn't a failure. God knew better. On the fifth of March, 1916, a young man made public confession of his faith and was baptized as a sequel to that application of Okabe Katsumi in 1912.

"Such things sometimes make me look with something like awe upon my card index. What is going on beneath the surface? How is God working in the hearts of the 'failures,' or, if not in their hearts, through them in the hearts of others? It is one more proof that 'the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.'"