I AM letting a man know quite well relate his most interesting experience. He is a small business man and does not by any means belong to the so-called intelligentsia, as his manner of expressing himself will reveal. He was practicing Faith with Love, without even realizing that he was doing it. He is just “folks,” but he has a good bit of common sense.

This is his story. “I had build up a fine little business in the course of years, but the depression hit me and I felt myself going on the rocks. My old line was entirely out of date and the new things I tried did not work out. I was fast losing what money I had saved and after several years of this my courage was beginning to go with it.

“I had sense enough to understand that it would never do to let the world know of my desperate position. You know what happens to you, when they find out that things are slipping with you!

“And here was the worst of it. Everyone I met those days was sorely troubled and almost the first thing people would ask you was, ‘How is business with you? How are you doing!’ That didn’t make it any better or easier for me. It always brought the whole situation up again when I was trying my best to forget about it.

“I could not say that things were fine, for no one would have believed me, and at the same time this question could not always easily be sidestepped. So, in the end, I hit upon the plan to answer, ‘I am taken care of! Thank you.’

“That seemed to satisfy them. I had to say it a dozen times and oftener during the day, and to my surprise I found that in some way it seemed to help me. I actually began to believe it at times. The trouble was, however, that the effect did not last and after a while the same old worry over what was to come would grip me. Then came the day when I found out why this was.

Published by H. G. Fullerman, New York City. For Sale by Sun Publishing Co. $1.40 postpaid.

“Among my customers was a fellow who was a most trying man to have to deal with. He had come from eastern Europe without a cent in his pocket, but by hard work and a good bit of luck he had succeeded in his business, and this had made him what he was—a bit of an arrogant, coarse individual whom most people hated and whom everyone avoided as much as he could. In all my wide experience I had never met such an unbearable fellow as this one!

“Now, this kind of a man seems to go to pieces quicker than anyone else when things go wrong, and he was no exception. He showed it in every way, in his talk, in his manner and even in his appearance. His face had been ruddy and full, because he had been living well, but now his complexion was pasty and dull. I don’t believe anybody was particularly sorry for him. I know I wasn’t!

“It happened that one day Koch (that was the man’s name) called for me in his auto to make an estimate on a job which he had in view. We had not been riding very long when that question, of course, had to come up. ‘How is business with you? How are you doing?’

“Things were not any too bright with me and this fat fellow next to me seemed anxious to have me admit it to him. Misery loves company, they say! He wasn’t going to have my company, and so I gave him my regular answer, ‘I am taken care of, Mr. Koch! Thank you!’ In a way that made him wince in his own troubled state of mind.

“He didn’t reply and we rode quite a while in silence, when Koch suddenly pulled up to the sidewalk and called to a Western Union messenger who was passing by on a bicycle, ‘Come over here for a minute, boy!’ When the lad hesitated, Koch urged, ‘I want to tell you something!’ His voice was friendly, as I had never heard it before, and the youngster stopped his wheel and came.

“Then, to my amazement, Koch went on gently, ‘Son, put your hand on your heart and see how it beats!’ The boy did and cried, ‘Gee, it beats like a sledgehammer!’

“Koch nodded and said, ‘That’s because you’ve been riding your wheel up this steep hill! Your heart can’t stand the strain!’ “The boy saw the point, and my neighbor continued, ‘Walk your wheel up-hill after this, son, and you’ll last longer!’ He pointed to a passing auto and added, ‘If the engine of that car over there is overstrained and gives out, nobody will have much use for the car any more, will he? And if the heart of this boy gives out, I doubt whether the Western Union or anybody else will have much use for the boy. What do you think?’ The last words were accompanied by a genial, kindly smile.

“The boy thanked the man and Koch leaned out of the window for a second. Placing his large, heavy hand on the youngster’s shoulder, he finished, ‘Tell the other fellows for me, too, will you, son?’

“I had been listening in amazement to what my neighbor was saying to this strange boy, but what surprised me even more was the complete change in the man himself. In place of his former unbearable arrogance, there was kindness. The expression of his eyes was gentle, and the droop of his mouth had given way to a cheery, encouraging little smile. He was a different man, a man whom I had not known and, I believe, he himself had hardly known before.

“There seemed to be something within the man that had been hidden all this time and was suddenly coming out now. And it was something that was fine, yes, something that was fine and good! It touched me and got hold of me in a way I can’t describe. Something within me began to sing.

“I placed my hand on the man’s shoulder and said impulsively, ‘Sam, don’t worry too much about business! You’ll come out all right!’

“When he looked at me a bit sadly, I went on, ‘You’ll be taken care of, too! I know you will be, old man!’

“I talked to him for quite a while like this and it seemed to me that words came to me in a way they had never done before. Something deep within me seemed to make me talk and believe it or not, it felt as if I myself had nothing to do with it at all. I could see it made my friend (somehow he had become my friend) feel good, and it made me feel better, too! Don’t ask me what it all means, for I don’t know! All I do know is that within me there was, as I have once read in a book, joy and music, confidence and faith, such as I had never known before.

And, say, somehow things are different with me since that day, because Sam Koch taught me a great lesson that morning in his car. A lesson which I have never forgotten for a minute. I really know today that I am taken care of! Somehow, the size of my bank account don’t trouble me now as it used to. There is always enough there to take care of everything I need. The breaks have come my way!

“When they ask me today the same old question that I formerly used to dread, and when my answer is the same old thing as before, ‘Thank you, I am taken care of!’ it means something entirely different than it used to. It means that my experience with Sam Koch and his Western Union messenger has taught me that all these poor misguided people, who are worrying themselves sick today, who become ugly and disagreeable for that reason, who have no faith in themselves—or in God, that they all have the same real good in them that spoke out of Sam that morning. And so, with my reply to them that I am taken care of, there always silently goes out the same thought of good-will that I felt for Sam Koch that day.

“Maybe,” my friend looked at me a bit doubtfully before he ventured to go on, and then he concluded half shamefacedly, “Maybe, it’s a little prayer for them!” After a pause he added thoughtfully. “And that’s where I’ve been winning out!”

What this man of today from this experience in his own way learned is the eternal Truth which has come down to us through the ages—“Of myself I can do nothing, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works!” It is the realization of the inner secret of Faith. “Closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet” to us must be the Great Soul of all, if we would have real Peace within. God, and His all-embracing Love, must live and be felt within us, must be our guide in every act, every word, and above all in every thought we have.

The above is one of the many stories used by the author to illustrate his wonderful yet simple philosophy of love, in his book by the same title, “Let Us Have Love.” Almost all the illustrations have as helpful thoughts for our consideration as this one in his second chapter on “The Miracle of Faith.”

In its way the book is a gem, one of those rare little jewels which happen all too seldom in the book world. It should be widely read in these troubled times of today.

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