Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. Ill 



and said, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world," In the 

 Greek that phrase translated means just about "Hurrah" in our 

 language. "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." 



But beloved, I wish I might go on and tell you of other ex- 

 periences in making a church minister to a community. In closing, 

 let me tell this story of Henry Grady, that famous editor of the 

 Atlanta Constitution. They tell us that in those days after the 

 civil war when he was making every effort he could to heal the 

 wounds that the war had made that he was very much criticised. 

 Sometimes when he would hear his Southern friends criticise the 

 North very severely for the things they had done he would take 

 their side, and he would be misunderstood by his friends, and when 

 he would hear the Northerners speak disapprovingly of some issues 

 that had been settled by war, settled on the battlefields, he would 

 take the Southern side; and the result was in those awful days of 

 reconstruction he would have to fight many battles alone. His 

 friends deserted him, and the struggle became so hard for him 

 that he locked the door and went back home to Northern Georgia, 

 where his mother was still living in the old mountain cabin, and as 

 he crossed the threshold of the cabin he said, "Mother, your boy 

 has come home to rest awhile ; mother, I want you to treat me just 

 like a boy again, and cook for me the things I like; I want to get 

 back again into the atmosphere of the old home." So the mother 

 humored the boy and at night he would kneel down at her side, 

 as he had long ago, and offer his evening prayer, and then the 

 mother would follow him to his bed, just as she did then, and would 

 tuck down the coverlids around the bed, and then she would kneel 

 down and offer up a mother's prayer for the boy, so that the last 

 sound he heard as he went out into dreamland would be the voice 

 of his mother ; and so he rested. By day he would go out into the 

 hills, see God's face in the glory of the sunrise ; he would see God's 

 beauty in the flowers, in the valleys, in the mountains. And as he 

 rested the vision came back to him, and then he went back in the 

 chaos and in, the turmoil of the great things for which he was 

 standing, and he won out. 



And so we have so many problems still to solve, so many 

 things for which we are striving, and for which we know not just 

 which way to turn. But let me tell you that the power, the vision, 

 the fountainhead that shall supply the stream of purity, meditation, 

 thoughtfulness, that shall help to solve the problem most, the place 

 where the church and the moral life of America will find the great- 



