, atikir rbbi 01)111 4 Si (14SirlitC pul structure, but up there on top of the hill, near a great bull pine, there was such a pleasant, flat place, and down by the brook a knoll especially prepared by nature for a red-and-blue Chinese summerhouse. Then there was that grove of sweet bay trees. A brook ran through it. What a delightful outdoor living room it would make ! The manzanitas formed a pretty hedge, just as they stood. The old dean rather liked the gnarly bushes. In her mind she had already planted flowers and placed rural seats all along the hillside beneath the shining red madrofia trees. "For students who want to get out of the turmoil of school life, you know," she would say. And then she thought the boys were going to build there. That was good. That would mean more young people to pass along the road before her house. Two new homes, good sensible Chris- tian homes, too, they would be. Then suddenly it all stopped. The boys didn't come any more. "Depression." That was what they said. "But we will find a way to build T.--; A H. A. ROBERTS 7-$ somewhere !" they resolved earnestly. "If not now, sometime !" She Had a Blueprint in Her Once a slip of a girl had stopped M Hands and Evidently Was Cre• and looked at the lot with happy eyes. C. ating a Home From the Material keep the ‘'") • Before Her She had a blueprint in her hands and PARK' was evidently creating a home from the material before her. That passed, too ! The depression had killed it. "Gone to wattles !" sighed the old dean. "Just gone to wattles !" DREAM in lAy #eatt Then out of the past crept the pic- ture of a white, green-shuttered New By MAY COLE KUHN England house, set back from the road among a wealth of elms and maples, pink and white dogwood and snowy "Across the fields of yesterday three weeks they had been measuring apple blossoms, and the clean, dainty He sometimes comes to me, and remeasuring a little hilly patch of fragrance of arbutus. The dean rang A little lad just back from play— The lad I used to be. timber across from her home. the curtain down on that ! It was her "Two hundred feet this way and first dreain• house, and the negative "And yet he smiles so wistfully eight hundred fifty feet that way. had been buried down beneath whole Once he has crept within, Room enough for two houses on the buildings full of schoolrooms teeming I wonder if he hopes to see The man I might have been." hill and space for two gardens on the with children and young people of level land across the creek; wood various ages and nationalities. They HOSE aspirations ! What has enough to build a rustic bridge and to we.re no dream ! become of them? What has keep a fireplace going for at least two On her lap lay a Bible. She opened Tgrown out of all the dreams you years." That was what the boys had it to 2 Chronicles 6:7-9. "Now it was had ?" the old dean had questioned, said. in the heart of David my father to build looking wistfully at the two boys— H-m-m ! thought the dean. She had a house for the name of the Lord God well, they weren't boys either, any built several houses on that land al- of Israel. But the Lord said to David more. They must have been between ready—dream houses. Not that she my father, Forasmuch as it was in thine twenty-five and thirty. For two or ever expected to build a sure-enough heart to build a (Turn to page 13) VOL. 91, NO. 49 DECEMBER 7, 1943 E had come out of one of the slowly. I went to the bank of a river plained that she was making' no sac- West Coast relocation centers, some distance away and sat down there rifice at all, because her "good con- this smiling Japanese minister who, to think. I was only twelve years old, science" more than repaid her, they at the request of the General Con- but there by the river that day I made still could not understand, but their re- ference, was attending the recent my decision for life. I would be a spect for her grew apace. Autumn Council. "I am very for- Christian. Soon afterward I was bap- Many times in the three years that tunate," he said, "in being the first tized and united with the Seventh-day followed, this young woman had op- Japanese child born of Seventh-day Adventist Church. I have never been portunity to witness for her Master. Adventist parents." Then he went on sorry for that decision." Not once did she compromise principle, to tell that when he was a boy growing As I listened to this experience I and experiences proved again and up there were no church schools in his thought of three young men of Hebrew again that a firm statement of her country, even as there are none today, parentage—Shadrach, Meshach, and standards at the outset of the course and that he had been obliged to attend Abednego—who, by order of their had done much to solve her problems. the state schools, which are very differ- king, stood before a great golden image In her Junior-A year she was one of ent from even the public schools in the set up on the plain of Dura, just out- the few elected to the Honor Society United States. From the time that he side the city of Babylon, and said, in of that great high school. Membership was a very small boy he had to meet answer to his command that they bow in this group was based on superiority the problem of school activities on the before the image or face death in a in leadership, scholarship, character, Sabbath and endure the taunts and fiery furnace: "We are not careful to and service. The faculty did careful abuse of the other boys, who pointed answer thee in this matter. If so be, work in making the selections, and at him and shouted the Japanese equiv- our God whom we serve is able to when the announcement was made, the alent of "little Advent !" when they saw deliver us from the burning fiery fur- honor which came to this Seventh-day him on the playground or on the street. nace, and He will deliver us out of Adventist girl was more than an honor But childish feelings are resilient, thine hand, 0 king." All of which He —it was a sacrament. Again, near the and he managed to have a rather good did, gloriously ! end of her senior year, when the four time, notwithstanding the fact that he senior students best qualified to ex- was so very "different" from the rank emplify the various virtues that con- and file of his schoolmates. T is not easy to be numbered with stitute the four prerequisites for mem- How he did love a picnic ! And his I the unpopular minority. Only bership were selected, she was chosen school had many picnics—but always young people with real backbone and to represent "character." on Saturday. Therefore he could the courage of their convictions will Then came the greatest test—gradu- never attend. This was a great sorrow dare to face the finger of scorn with ation was set for a Friday evening that in his young life. But one Saturday it head up and eyes looking straight year instead of Thursday evening as rained, and so the picnic was post- ahead, "as seeing Him who is invis- was customary. For a brief moment poned ! What joy welled up and ible." she questioned whether or not God had brimmed over in one little lad's heart ! A young Seventh-day Adventist girl forgotten her. Not graduate with her When he went to bed on Sunday night found herself in a great city high school class ? Disappointment of disappoint- he placed his clothes and the lunch with an enrollment of approximately ments ! It was the end toward which which his mother had prepared care- two thousand. With all her loyal heart she had striven diligently for four fully, by his bedside, so that come she longed to attend a Christian acad- years ! Then came the thought that morning he could dress without delay emy, but this privilege being denied her very absence would preach a more and be off for a grand, good time. her, she determined to accept the situ- eloquent, sermon than words could ever The happy boys and their teachers ation as a real challenge and so faith- express, on loyalty to her Saviour and started out for the long climb gp a fully live her religion that she could be to the peculiar truths of the third an- mountain. Arriving at their destina- a real witness for God before all with gel's message, which motivated her life. tion, they had merry games until hinch whom she had to do. The principal urged her to put aside hour, and then this lad's teacher or- The stakes she set were high. She her scruples for once, argued that com- dered his class to "line up" ! In front took her mother into her confidence, mencement was "a sort of" religious of them was a shrine ! "I had for- and they agreed that to accomplish her service ; but she did not attend, and gotten all about shrines," said this purpose she must be an outstanding called for her diploma later, following Japanese boy-now-grown-tall, in tell- student and scholar ; a fountain of good to the end of her high-school experi- ing the story, "and that was strange, cheer, friendliness, and helpfulness to ence the straight course she had set for because in Japan there are shrines for both teachers and fellow students ; an herself when she entered.