JIM AND HIS BOOK

"They that seek the Lord understand all things." Jim spoke with his usual deliberation. Again, I had found my way to the little house, where now I felt welcome. It was "lightin' an' readin'" time as Jim called it.

"They that seek the Lord, understand all things," repeated Jim. I'm finding it true more and more. It is true that the Lord giveth to a man what is good in His sight, wisdom and knowledge and joy.

"We began sharin' the book, just as we began sharin' the wallet. I callated that since the Lord by wisdom founded the earth we'd have to found our earth home the same way.

"I'm not educated with figgering knowledge. I never got much school wisdom, for I never went much, and what I did get was mostly from the fellow that set on the bench with me instead of from the teacher. The teacher was so busy with fifty odd pupils, varying from four to twenty years in age, that he didn't have much time for any one. He had to skip from the multiplication table to algebra and often he skipped some of the pupils, and I was apt to be the one he overlooked.

"I know my limitations. A city chap told me about them once and I thanked him." Jim chuckled at the remembrance.

"'Look ahere,' the city chap said to me, 'do you know you've lost all the G's out of your vocabulary. Your words don't look nor sound natural. You better start in putting them on. And there is no such word as ain't. Remember that or you can't talk in polite society.'

"I presume he knew, for he talked as though he was on good terms with a dictionary; and when he went fishing and caught the hook in his hand he said words that weren't in the dictionary, and that came near breaking the first commandment. I've got some of those G's put back on, but not all. Two things is helping me on the job, the reading of the Good Book and the children.

"Book learnin's a fine thing. I'm stumblin' along thru a book or two myself, but I callate the prophets didn't refer to book knowledge when they wrote of wisdom, but rather heart and soul wisdom. The promise I recollect was this: 'For wisdom shall enter into thine heart and knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul.'

Then he reached for his Bible, but before he opened it he said:

"This is the most valuable thing in this house. I've been in houses in St. John's fussed up with furniture and things, so many you felt you would disturb 'em by setting down, but this book wasn't no where to be seen and once I asked a woman to let me look at the Book, and she said she'd have to keep me waitin' till she found it, but she was quite sure she had it. Guess its wisdom never got very far into her soul.

"It's a satisfyin' book. Readin' of it is like quenching your thirst at a hill spring. In the days afore I was converted as a young fellow with the rest, I used to sail over to the French Island of St. Pierre and smuggle in a few gallons of rum. But it never quenched my thirst. It would leave me afterward, all-fired thirsty. But open this book and you find fountains of cool water.

"I've tried in the years to halt at the springs as Moses and his people did when they crossed the desert and come to a spring. There's many a river of the water o' life flowing sweet and fair as we journey thru the good book, but to me the promises are the springs and wife and I have lingered longest at the springs. We've marked them and there's a good many of them and we haven't found them all yet. She has helped me mark 'em. A fisherman's hands get a bit calloused and clumpsy and she does most of the markin', but I do my share of the discoverin'. It's always a happy night, when we find a new spring and rejoice in a new promise, but it's a glad night when we quench our thirst at any one of the never-failing springs. Their all of 'em fresh an' sparklin'; there's nary a one of His that are salt or bitter.

"Effie keeps a pencil handy there with her sewing things and when I find a new promise, I hand over the book to her and she underlines it. Then the favorite springs we mark in the margin, so we'll find 'em easy as we journey."

He opened the book, his book it was in more ways than one. It was very much worn; its leaves were thumbed and now and then as he turned the pages a fish scale dropped out.

"Here are the Great Mountain Springs. The Master indicated them with a big, Blessed, so we wouldn't miss them, perhaps the clearest one is this, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, but they've all got sparkling water; their all promises that quench the soul's thirst.

"You will find some of these same markers in the Old Testament, though few folks seem to search there for the Blesseds. Here are some of the springs that are marked for our use.

"'Blessed are they that wait for Him!'

"'Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.'

"'Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto Thee, that he may dwell in Thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple.'

"'Blessed is he that considereth the poor.'

"'Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.'

"Let me turn the pages slowly and when I come to a favorite spring we'll halt a moment," commented Jim as he continues his reading.

"'He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.'

"It won't hurt you a mite, if you hev to wait awhile atween the verses. Most parsons read the Bible too fast. They go scurryin' thru the readin' like as though a shower was comin' an' they had to get in out of it post haste."

"'Fear not; I am with thee; be not discouraged; for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee, yes, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.'

"'With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.'

"That there first part has puzzled me somewhat, for I've known many a one to die young. My folks used to say the good died young, cause the Lord had need of 'em over there. Struck me as kinder queer. But I reckon He meant here just what He said, as He does elsewhere. It's His intention to have long life and goodness go together, only some of us interferes with His plan, but He lets us interfere 'cause it's best and will work out His way in the end."

"'He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him.'

"'Behold I will bring thee health and a cure.'

"'The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.'

"'There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.'

"Did you think," said Jim, interrupting his reading, "that there were so many bright, clear springs for the traveller?"

Then, without waiting for any answer, he continued slowly turning the pages, reading me from his marked places.

"'Delight thyself in the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart.'

"'The joy of the Lord shall be your strength.'

"'He that endureth to the end shall be saved.'

"There are signs put up, too, not only to mark springs but to inform us," interpolated Jim.

"Now once as we was journeying, it come over me that these springs may have been intended for others and not for us and that very night, I come upon this sign and it took every bit of doubt out of my heart.

"'For the promise is unto you and your children.' How could it be plainer than that?"

As he closed the Book I said: "I, too, have a Book but I think sometimes I have lost my way as I journeyed and I am going to put up sign-boards of my own now, so I'll never lose my way again. There is no use to camp in dark valleys when just beyond are the hills and the springs. It's unwise to wander thru deserts of generalizations when the promises are close at hand."

"Yes," added Jim, "what do we care whether King Agag was hewed to pieces or not. We know the words of salvation."