Children’s Story

Children’s Story – The Golden Windows

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“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Ruth impatiently, as she straightened the book shelves. “I do wish we could have a new carpet this spring. I never liked this at all, and now it is so faded and worn it is simply dreadful. It makes me miserable every time I look at it.”

“Then, since you say you cannot very well have a new one just now, why do you look at it?” asked Aunt Rachel, smiling. “There are a great many unpleasant things in our lives—we find them every day—some of which we are unable to prevent. If we persist in thinking of them and keep fretting about them, we make ourselves and everybody about us miserable.

“It seems to me we might all learn a lesson from the bees. I have read that when anything objectionable, that they are unable to remove, gets into a hive, they set to work immediately to cover it all over with wax. They just shut it up in an airtight cell, and then forget all about it. Is not that a wise way for us to manage our aggravations?

“Someone sent me a postcard the other day with this motto: ‘The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one has to do.’ It is not in having and doing just as we like, but in being determined to make the best of the inevitable. When you find an unpleasant thing in your life that cannot be removed, find a way to deal with it and then forget it.

“And then I think that many times it helps to get a different view of things. You remember the story of the golden windows, do you not? A little boy who had very few pretty things in his own home because his parents were poor, often stood in his own doorway at sunset time and looked longingly at the big house at the top of the opposite hill. Such a wonderful house it was! Its windows were all of gold, which shone so bright that it often made his eyes blink to look at them. ‘If only our house was as beautiful,’ he would say. ‘I would not mind wearing patched clothes and having only bread and milk for supper.’

“One afternoon his father told him he might do just as he pleased, so he climbed the hill from his house and up the other long hill. He was going to see the golden windows. But when he reached the top of the other hill he stopped in dismay; his lips began to quiver, his eyes filled with tears. There were no golden windows there—nothing but plain, common windows like his own. ‘I thought you had beautiful golden windows in your house,’ he said to the little girl in the yard.

“Oh, no!’ she said, ‘our windows are not worth looking at, but stand beside me and you will see a lovely house with truly golden windows. See?’

“The little boy looked. ‘Why, that is my house,’ he exclaimed, ‘and I never knew we had golden windows!’

“You see, much depends on your point of view. I have lived to be an old woman, Ruth, and I have come to feel that the most heroic lives are lived by those who put their own troubles out of sight, and strive by every means in their power to ease the burden of others, who leave always behind them the influence of a cheery, loving, thankful spirit.”

Reprinted from The King’s Daughter and Other Stories for Girls, A. B. Publishing, Ithaca MI, 1993, 210–213.

Children’s Story – A Modern Raven

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The most wonderful answer to prayer that I ever saw was that of a poor Mohammedan widow, who, with her children, was starving.

I had closed the White Memorial Hospital in Pasrur, India, for two months. One day, I decided to open it, and, taking with me my assistant, a young Indian girl, we drove in the evening to put the hospital and dispensary in order. As my decision was made suddenly, I took with me only a small five-cent loaf of bread and some butter. The next morning at five o’clock, we ate most of the bread and butter.

We were so anxious to open to patients the next day that we worked on till two o’clock that afternoon, forgetting our need of food. Then, becoming weak and faint, I sent the assistant to prepare some Indian bread and greens for herself, telling her I would take what was left of the bread and butter we had in the morning.

Later, I drew a small table to the edge of the veranda, and sat down to my bread and butter. My Indian assistant drew a native bedstead close to the veranda, with her bread and greens on a brass plate, and also made ready to eat.

She had just seated herself, but had not yet touched her food, when a big black mountain crow, or raven, flopped down on her. He took one side of the bread in one claw and the opposite side in the other claw. Then he carefully brought his feet together and took up the vegetables.

It is not uncommon for crows to steal food from our plates when we sit outside, but they generally fly into a tree near by and caw and brag. This bird acted differently, and although both of us were most indignant, we watched him with interest. Up into the clear sky he went, over the hospital, across the city, on, on, till only a speck, when he seemed to sink and vanish. I shared my bread and butter with my assistant, and we finished the work. Then we opened up to patients the next day.

I cannot recall whether it was one or two days later that we saw a poor, weak woman coming in the gate, carrying a baby in her left arm, and a child of two or more on her right hip. Two other children came trailing after her, snatching at her clothes whenever they could to help themselves along. She staggered to the veranda and sank exhausted to the floor. We revived her, and asked from what she suffered.

“I am a Mohammedan widow,” she said. “My husband died six months ago, and left me with these four children. My children and I have been starving. For three days we had nothing to eat. I prayed, oh, how I prayed to Mohammed; but Mohammed never cares for women and children. Then I prayed to the gods of the Hindus, but they, too, never care for women and children. Then I threw myself on the ground and clasped my hands as the Christians do, and I cried, ‘O God of the Christians, send food to us, that my children may not die.’

“While praying, a crow dropped down and swept my head with its wings and flew away. I lifted my head and looked. There before me lay a beautiful piece of bread and some vegetables. I took the food, and my children and I ate.

“Some of the village women came past me as we ate, and asked me where I got the food. I told them the crow had brought it. ‘That is not a poor man’s food,’ they said. ‘That has come from some one of the better class.’

“ ‘I know the tender-hearted doctor who has a hospital at Pasrur,’ one woman said. ‘I think if you go to her, she will take you in and care for you.’ I started at once. Sometimes we got a ride, sometimes we walked, but we are here.”

My assistant thanked God that she had been counted worthy to give her dinner to answer this woman’s prayer. It was her food, without a doubt, that the crow had carried to the starving widow and her children.

True Education Reader, ©1931, Maria White, M.D., 354–356.

“Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

Children’s Story – He Will Soon Be Here

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After a long day’s journey, I arrived at the house of some relatives in Wales, who had invited me to spend Christmas with them. After the first greetings had been exchanged, I said, “But I don’t see my dear Ruthie.”

“No, Aunt, one of the children answered, “Ruth is out this evening, and she wants to have you all to herself first when she returns, because she has some news that nobody else is to tell you.”

Ruth, the eldest daughter, had been for some time engaged to a young man holding a civil post in India. There was every probability of his being able to revisit England in a few months and claim his bride; but when last I heard from Ruth, the time for his coming was still unsettled. I at once guessed her good news had reference to this matter. Soon after I had retired for the night, there came a gentle tap at my bedroom door, and Ruth entered; there was a light in her eyes, a joyous elasticity in her step.

“Auntie,” she cried as she embraced me, “they have not told you?”

“No, darling, only that you have something to tell.”

So, making me sit down by the fire, she told me, with a happy, blushing face, while she drew a letter from her pocket, that Herbert had written to say he would be home from India soon.

When Ruth had left me, I sat thinking how much more gladness there should be in the lives of those who are looking for the coming of the heavenly Bridegroom. Every day spent with my niece taught me, in some new and practical way, how the thought of our Lord’s appearing should regulate our present aims and occupations—should influence our views concerning the possessions, privations, joys, and sorrows of this life.

I noticed she was less often with the family, and one day I went to find her in her room. There I found her sitting at a table which was covered with books; she was reading a large volume and busily making notes from it.

“This is a new interest of yours, Ruthie, isn’t it?” I remarked.

“Yes, Aunt, but you see Herbert is so clever; I do not want him to find me very ignorant, so I am studying history two hours a day. And as he said something in his last letter about touring Europe after the wedding, I want to improve my French and German efficiency.”

One afternoon as the women of the house were going shopping, Ruth declined the outing, and when her mother inquired what she could bring for her, Ruth replied, “Nothing, thank you, Mamma. I must think about my outfit next month, as Herbert will soon be here.”

On another occasion I heard some young friends ask her if she had heard anything about the house in India where she was to live. “Hardly anything,” she answered, “except that he has been preparing it for a long time, and he will be there.”

The impression left upon my mind by her earnest looking for her expected bridegroom has never been erased. When the things of this life threaten to assume an undue importance, I recall Ruth’s oft-repeated words, “It is not worthwhile, when he will soon be here;” and I strive to bring the glory of Christ’s soon return to bear on all the interest of time; to keep me sober in its joys, and content in its sorrows; and to be careful for nothing because “the Lord is at hand.” And many times when I have longed for more information regarding the Promised Land, I have remembered Ruth’s simple words with respect to her unknown dwelling in India and rested my heart on the blessed thought, “He who loves me with an everlasting love is preparing a mansion for me there.”

Children’s Story – Spare Moments

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Alean, awkward boy cameone morning to the door of the principal of a celebrated school and asked to see him.

A servant eyed his thread-worn clothes, and thinking he looked more like a beggar than anything else, told him to go around to the kitchen.

The boy did as he was directed, and soon appeared at the back door.

“I should like to see Mr. Brown,” said he.

“You want a breakfast, more like,” said the servant girl, “and I can give you that without troubling him.”

“Thank you,” responded the boy, “I should have no objection to a bit of bread, but I should like to see Mr. Brown, if he can see me.”

“Some old clothes, may be what you want,” remarked the servant, again eyeing the boy’s patched trousers. “I guess he has none to spare; he gives away a lot,” and without minding the boy’s request, she set out some food upon the kitchen table and went about her work.

“Can I see Mr. Brown?” again asked the boy, after finishing his meal.

“Well, he’s in the library. If he must be disturbed, he must, but he does like to be alone sometimes,” replied the girl in a peevish tone. She seemed to think it very foolish to admit such an ill-looking fellow into her employer’s presence. However, she wiped her hands, and told him to follow her.

Opening the library door, she said: “Here’s somebody, sir, who is dreadfully anxious to see you, and so I let him in.”

I don’t know how the boy introduced himself, or how he opened his business, but I know that after talking awhile, the principal put aside the volume he was studying, took up some Greek books, and began to examine the new-comer. The examination lasted some time. Every question that the principal asked, the boy answered as readily as could be.

“Upon my word,” exclaimed the principal, “you certainly do well!” Looking at the boy from head to foot, over his glasses, he asked, “Why, my boy, where did you pick up so much?”

“In my spare moments,” answered the boy.

Here he was, poor, hard-working, with but few opportunities for schooling, yet almost fitted for college, by simply improving his spare moments. Truly, are not spare moments the “gold dust of time”? How precious they should be! What account can you give of your spare moments? What can you show for them? Look and see.

This boy can tell you how very much can be laid up by improving them; and there are many other boys [and girls], I am afraid, in the jail, in the house of correction, in the bar or in the pool hall, who, if you should ask them when they began their sinful courses, might answer, “In my spare moments.”

“In my spare moments I played addictive games.”

“In my spare moments I began to smoke and drink.”

“It was in my spare moments that I began to steal candy from the corner store.”

“It was in my spare moments that I gathered with wicked associates.”

Oh, be very, very careful how you spend your spare moments! Temptation always hunts you out in small seasons like these when you are not busy; Satan gets into your hearts, if he possibly can, in just such gaps. There he hides himself, planning all sorts of mischief. Take care of your spare moments. “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 2, 216.

Reprinted from Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys, A. B. Publishing, Inc., Ithaca, MI., 1993.

Children’s Story – God Seen in All His Works

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In that beautiful part of Germany which borders on the Rhine River, there is a noble castle, as you travel on the west bank of the river, which you may see lifting its ancient towers on the opposite side, above the grove of trees about as old as itself. About forty years ago, there lived in that castle a noble gentleman, Baron Philippie. He had only one son, who was not only a companion and a comfort to his father, but a blessing to all who lived on his father’s estate. It happened, on a certain occasion, that, this young man being from home, there came a French gentleman to the castle, who began to talk of his heavenly Father in terms that chilled the old Baron’s blood, who reproved him, saying, “Are you not afraid of offending God?” The gentleman replied that he was not, for he had never seen Him.

The Baron did not notice the answer, but the next morning he took his visitor about the castle grounds and, among other objects, showed him a very beautiful picture that hung on the wall. The gentleman admired it very much and remarked that whoever drew that picture, knew how to use the pencil.

“My son drew that picture,” said the Baron.

“Then your son is a clever man,” replied the gentleman.

The Baron then went with his visitor into the garden and showed him beautiful flowers and the plantations of forest trees.

“Who had the ordering of this garden?” asked the gentleman.

“My son,” replied the Baron, “he knows every plant here, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall.”

“Indeed,” replied the gentleman, “I shall think very highly of him soon.”

The Baron then took him into the village and showed him a small, neat cottage, where his son had established a school, and where he caused all young people who had lost their parents to be received and nourished at his expense. The children in the house looked so innocent and so happy that the gentleman was very much pleased, and when he returned to the castle, he said to the Baron, “What a happy man you are to have so good a son!”

“How do you know that I have so good a son?”

“Because I have seen his works, and I know that he must be good and clever if he has done all that you have showed me.”

“And you have not seen him?”

“No, but I know him very well for I judge of him by his works.”

“True,” replied the Baron, “and in this way I judge the character of our heavenly Father. I know by His works that He is a being of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness.”

The French gentleman felt the force of reproof and was careful not to offend the good old Baron any more by his remarks.

Creation

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.

He gave us eyes to see them,

And lips, that we might tell

How great is God Almighty,

Who has made all things well.

—Cecil F. Alexander, 1848

Children’s Story – Missionary Spirit

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Oh!” thought Anna Markham to herself as she closed the book she had been reading about a mission in Madagascar. “How I wish it were possible for me to do something like this for Christ,” and here Anna lost herself in a sort of heroic dream. She pictured herself teaching, exhorting the unbelievers in India, or in some far African station, where the gospel had never before been heard. She fancied herself enduring suffering, starvation, imprisonment and torture for her faith, and had just come so far in her romance as to be “led out for execution,” and “forgive her murderers with her last breath,” when her mother called her from the next room.

The rapt, ecstatic look on Anna’s face gave way instantly to a fretful frown. “Oh, dear!” she said sharply to herself, “I never can be let alone a minute.”

She threw down the book and went to her mother.

“Well, what is it?” she asked in a most ungracious tone.

“I want you to run over to Mrs. O’Hara and take her the dinner I have prepared for her, and Anna, if you can, get her up and make up her bed.”

“Oh, Mother!” said Anna, as if she had been asked to perform impossibilities, “I can’t bear to go to Mrs. O’Hara’s, and the house is so dirty and disagreeable.”

“She is an old lady and all alone,” said her mother with some displeasure. “She cannot do anything for herself now, and it is the duty of her neighbors to take care of her till she is well.”

“She might go to the resthome and let the nurses take care of her.”

“She won’t go, as you know very well, and there are some good reasons on her side too. Besides, do you think it would be any more agreeable for the staff at the resthome to nurse Mrs. O’Hara than it is for you?”

“Well, I don’t like to,” said Anna very crossly.

Anna obeyed her mother; however, she performed her errand in so ungracious and uncharitable a manner and assumed such an air of martyrdom that Mrs. O’Hara, who was by no means reserved in speech, told her that she’d “never be the lady her mother was.” So Anna went home disgusted and wished herself away from a home where “no one understood her.”

By the next day, however, she had forgotten about the matter and was telling her mother about the missionary story she had been reading and how she should like nothing better than to go as a missionary to Africa.

“What would you do there?” asked Mother, rather amused.

“Oh! Teach the children, and the women, and take care of the sick, and so forth.”

“You think the natives of Africa would be less disagreeable than Mrs. O’Hara and you would take more pleasure in doing for them than for your own neighbor?”

The question at first angered Anna, but then she began to feel a little ashamed.

“Isn’t it rather better on the whole,” said Mother, “to look about us and see what little things we can do if we will, than to spend the time fancying what great things we would do if we only could?”

After a little consideration, Anna began to see how little of the true missionary spirit she possessed and to feel that she was not actuated by right motives.

We must be willing to take up the little crosses that lie in our pathway and to labor for the good of others. In doing this we may show a true missionary spirit.

Children’s Story – Tom’s Revenge

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“I hate Ned Lane,” said Tom Bixby, doubling his fists and stamping his feet. “He’s a mean, spiteful, wicked boy. I wish he were dead, I do!”

Then Tom broke down and fairly burst into tears. His mother, who had heard his angry words, came out to the garden to see what had caused them. She, too, was indignant at what she saw. There was Tom’s pet dog, Fawn, stretched out cold and stiff on the grass. Around his neck a string was tied, from which dangled a card. On it these words were written in a scraggy, blotted hand: “He’ll never chase my chickens no more.—Ned Lane.”

“Oh, Mother!” cried Tom, “look at poor, poor Fawn; see what that cruel Ned has done. Oh, how I hate him. I’ll be revenged.”

Fawn had been a favorite with the Bixby family, and in spite of the fact that he would pursue chickens and tear the clothing of passing pedestrians or hide away stockings and handkerchiefs when they were not put away, Mrs. Bixby had borne with him. She had hoped that his youthful faults would be cured in time. She knew that Ned Lane had been very angry because of the loss of two rare fowls, which Fawn had shaken and torn to pieces, and she felt that Fawn had been a great annoyance to the neighbors—a great transgressor.

But what to do with Ned was the question, for Tom’s heart was almost broken.

“Tom,” she said, “you say you hate Ned. Do you wish, what I heard you say just now, to be really avenged?”

“Yes, Mother, I want to see him suffer. I wish all his chickens were gone.”

“Ned has done a cruel deed, and I do not wonder that you are deeply grieved; but, my son, he that hateth his brother is a murderer.”

“He’s not my brother.”

“In one sense he is; yet I am sure you do not mean that you would really like to see him dead and cold like your dog. If you think of the meaning of your words, I am sure you wish him no such ill. I think there is a way by which you can make him very sorry for this and yet keep your own self-respect.”

The gentle tones won their way to Tom’s heart. He sat down by his mother, and she passed her soft hand over his hot brow and soothed him tenderly. Then she gave him her plan for being “quits,” as he called it, with Ned, and for getting the victory.

The next day, when Ned Lane met Tom Bixby on his way to school, he was rather mortified to hear nothing about Fawn. He was prepared to defend himself if attacked. But Tom passed in silence. He tried to say “Hallo, Ned!” but failed in the attempt. All the morning, however, when the boys were in the classes together, Tom looked and acted as usual, and at recess he engaged heartily in games with the other boys.

When Ned, feeling more and more uncomfortable, went home to dinner, a surprise awaited him. A superb pair of Brahma-pootra fowls had arrived, with a string and card attached: “For those my poor Fawn chased.—Tom Bixby.”

I cannot say truly that the two from this time became fast friends; but this I know, Ned Lane was thoroughly ashamed of his mean and unworthy action, and never after was guilty of the like cruelty, while Tom felt, even at Fawn’s grave, that forgiveness is sweeter than revenge.

Children’s Story – A Mother’s Love

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The story is told of a sharecropper family who lived in the South shortly after the Civil War. Every year when the crops were harvested, the family’s share was barely sufficient to provide food and clothes for the next year. There was never enough for any luxuries or things that could make life easier or more pleasant.

One year the fields yielded a bumper crop, and after all of the necessities were bought, there was enough money left over to buy something special for the entire family. The only condition was that the purchase had to be approved by every family member. So the mail order catalog was opened and the pages turned slowly. The pages pictured wonderful attractions for various members of the family, but nothing suited the liking of every member of the family until they came to the page featuring mirrors. When they saw the mirrors, the family decided unanimously that a mirror was something they could all use.

Well, the day came when the mirror arrived. The package was quickly opened, and the father beheld his own image for the very first time. At first there was a look of puzzlement, then a smile, and then great laughter as his face displayed the sheer delight of seeing himself in the mirror.

By now the rest of the family members were anxiously waiting their turn, and as the mirror passed from member to member, the response was the same, until it passed into the hands of the youngest member. In a moment the look of anticipatory joy vanished and was replaced by a look of grief and terror, as he saw his reflection for the first time. The family’s laughter ended abruptly as they all realized the little boy’s pain. As a baby he had been burned in a fire, and his face was badly disfigured.

Looking in the mirror, then back at his mother, then in the mirror and back to his mother, he said to her, “Did you know I looked like this?”

“Yes, son,” came her response.

Looking again in the mirror and then back at his mother, a tear running down her cheek, he asked, “How could you love someone as ugly as me?”

Grasping the child and holding him close, she looked deep into his eyes and said, “I love you because you’re mine.”

The love of a mother that looks beyond her son’s disfiguring burns and says, “I love you, because you are mine,” reminds us of God’s love that looks beyond our sins and weaknesses, that grasps us close to His breast with those same words, “I love you, because you are mine.”

God loves us so much that He wants us to live with Him in Heaven. He sent Jesus to show us how we must live each day on earth so we can go to Heaven. If you live like Jesus, obeying all the things God asks you to do in His Word, you will be able to see Him one day soon.

Children’s Story – The Night Dad Prayed

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Back in 1956 we lived way out in the country, and at the time, we didn’t have a car to get around. If we went anywhere, we either had to depend on relatives or neighbors to take us to town, or we would have to walk. We were always very poor. We didn’t have any way to go to and from church, so every once in a while a preacher would come to visit and to minister to all of us, but my dad would go out to the workshop and stay out there until the preacher would leave. Then he would come back to the house.

Well, one day the preacher came to the house, and Dad didn’t have a chance to get away from him like the other times when he had come. The preacher got to minister to him a little bit that day, but Dad still didn’t seem ready to really listen to him yet. All he would say to the preacher would be “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” For years and years that was all he would say whenever someone would try to talk to him about the Lord.

One day a neighbor let my dad use his car to go to town to get some groceries. He didn’t have too much money to buy groceries; course we never had much money, but it was enough to get us by, so he took off early in the afternoon. The rest of the family, along with myself, had finished doing our chores, finished our supper, and it was starting to get dark, but Dad still hadn’t made it home. My mother was starting to get worried, but she wouldn’t let on to the rest of us. Course, we knew something had to be wrong, because Dad had never done anything like that before.

Everyone finally went to bed except for Mother; she sat up and worked on her crocheting—she always had something like that going. I guess it was about three o’clock in the morning when Dad finally got home, carrying all the groceries, which was five full bags. We couldn’t figure out just how he managed to carry all that stuff, but the next day he told all of us the story.

He said he started from town and only went four miles out of town when the car broke down. He didn’t know what to do, so he waited and waited for someone to come by, but to no avail. So he said he got on his knees and prayed to God. Dad said he didn’t know whether God would answer him or not, but he had to try.

While he was praying, he said something was telling him to pick up the bags. He said he didn’t think he would have the strength to be able to carry all the bags, but he picked up all five bags and started out for home. He continued walking until he arrived home. When he arrived home, he said he wasn’t even tired. He also told us that the bags never, ever got too heavy for him to carry, and he did not have to set them down at all. The only way he could have walked the eleven miles home, carrying those full bags of groceries, was with help from God!

From that night on, my dad’s favorite Bible text was Matthew 17:20: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

Children’s Story – Tales of a Tennessee Chain Gang, Part I

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Bill Burchard jerked his head up and peered quizzically from among the cornstalks. What was that noise? He pushed a crumpled blue bandana slowly across his brow and then stood scanning the underbrush 40 yards away.

Seeing nothing, he moved to the next stalk and ripped the blades off. His family of seven had long since consumed the last of the corn, and now, early in September 1894, he was salvaging the blades to feed his scrawny cow.

Burchard worked five days a week in the Dayton Coal and Iron Mine. He ascended from the brutal bowels of the earth to go to church on Saturday, and this schedule left Sunday as his only day to catch up on work around his home.

He straightened up again. He had heard something. A screeching jay betrayed two men about to disappear over a low ridge.

Burchard thought nothing more about the incident until one evening a week or two later when he came home to find Sheriff Darwin sitting on his front stoop. The sheriff rose slowly as Burchard approached.

“Help ya ‘t all, Sheriff?” Burchard asked.

Darwin looked down, slipping the four fingers of each hand into his front pockets.

“I’m sorry, Bill,” he mumbled, “but I got to take ya in.”

“Take me in!” Burchard’s face paled in shock, even under the layer of coal dust. “But what in the world for?”

“Here,” said the sheriff, slipping a long folded piece of paper out from under his vest, “listen to this.”

“State of Tennessee, To the Sheriff of Rhea County, Greeting: You are hereby commanded to take the body of William S. Burchard, if found in your county, and him safely keep, so that you have him before the judge of our Circuit Court . . . at the Courthouse in the town of Dayton, on the first Monday in March next, then and there to answer the state for violating Sabbath. Herein fail not. . . . C. G. Gillespie, Clerk.”

By the time Burchard finally returned home, he understood what his two secretive visitors had been doing that Sunday.

Burchard lived four and a half miles from Graysville, Tennessee, in a little valley called the Cove. In Graysville, a town of 600, about 20 percent of the town kept the seventh-day Sabbath. The religious community had built up around Graysville Academy, a school begun two years earlier by a Sabbath- keeping minister named G. W. Colcord. (The school was later moved and grew into what is now known as Southern Adventist University near Chattanooga.)

Not only Burchard but also Colcord and two of the Academy teachers, along with several other Sabbathkeepers, were under indictment for violating Tennessee’s Sunday law. Burchard was charged on two counts—stripping fodder and helping to dig a well on Sunday. Others were charged with such crimes as putting chicken wire around a garden or carrying a few boards.

The trials made it obvious that the chief instigator of the trouble was an angry coal miner named Wright Rains, who had been refused credit by the Sabbath-keeping proprietor of a local grocery store. Two of his friends had slipped out of the services in their Sunday church, just over the ridge from Burchard’s cabin, to spy on him.

For more than 15 years, Sabbathkeepers had been subjected to sporadic persecution for Sunday-law violations in various states. They believed at the time that to rest on Sunday was an admission of Sunday’s sacredness. They believed that that would be giving in to a false system of worship.

To be continued . . .