Nyangandi lived in west Africa, near the Ogowe River. She was going away from the missionary’s house one afternoon, where she had been to sell bunches of plantains to the missionary, when his wife said:—
“Now, you must not forget that you have promised to come tomorrow to church.”
“Yes,” the girl replied, “I will surely come if I am alive.”
The next morning she found that somebody had stolen her canoe, and no one would lend her one to go to church in. But she had promised to go, and she felt that she must. She swam all the way! The current was swift, the water deep, and the river fully a third of a mile wide, but by swimming diagonally she succeeded in crossing the river.
Remember this little heathen girl in west Africa when you feel tempted to stay away from the house of God for some trivial reason.
—Selected.
To Those Who Fail
“All honor to him who shall win the prize!”
The world has cried for a thousand years;
But to him who tries, and who fails and dies,
I give honor and glory and tears.
O, great is the hero who wins a name!
But greater many and many a time
Some pale-faced fellow who dies in shame,
And lets God finish the thought sublime.
And great is the man with the sword undrawn,
And good is the man who refrains from wine,
But the man who fails and who still fights on,
Lo! he is the twin brother of mine.
—Selected.