reede, oktoober 15, 2004
Following Christ Against All Odds
from http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/ea/AutobiographicalEssay.htm
He could make friends only with his uncle who had a living, joyful, and courageous Christianity, which the boy had never met before, and a love to Jesus and to the poor. Once when his uncle invited a man from the much despised Salvation Army to table and spoke with him as to a brother, listening with open-hearted admiration to the report of his salvation work, the uncle won the heart of the boy completely….
The servant girls and the charwoman understood him best of all. He felt drawn more and more to the poor. He would have preferred to have put on the Salvation Army uniform so as to show outwardly too his turning away from the rich to the poorest society. It was his deepest concern to bring the joyful news of God's true freedom to the poor….
One was the social urge toward the poorest of the city, which often led Eberhard to the Salvation Army and to the slums….
There was more in the Salvation Army. For there a deep social understanding for the outer and especially the inner need of the oppressed classes was added to the Methodist way of preaching conversion and salvation. The answer he once got from a certain Captain Twesten, who was hoarse from much speaking, made an unforgettable impression on him. Eberhard had made an involuntary remark as he saw a man who obviously had come down in the world, "What an awful face!" The Salvation Army officer said sharply, "What are you saying? What do you think you would look like if you had had to suffer what this unhappy wretch has had to suffer?"
He could make friends only with his uncle who had a living, joyful, and courageous Christianity, which the boy had never met before, and a love to Jesus and to the poor. Once when his uncle invited a man from the much despised Salvation Army to table and spoke with him as to a brother, listening with open-hearted admiration to the report of his salvation work, the uncle won the heart of the boy completely….
The servant girls and the charwoman understood him best of all. He felt drawn more and more to the poor. He would have preferred to have put on the Salvation Army uniform so as to show outwardly too his turning away from the rich to the poorest society. It was his deepest concern to bring the joyful news of God's true freedom to the poor….
One was the social urge toward the poorest of the city, which often led Eberhard to the Salvation Army and to the slums….
There was more in the Salvation Army. For there a deep social understanding for the outer and especially the inner need of the oppressed classes was added to the Methodist way of preaching conversion and salvation. The answer he once got from a certain Captain Twesten, who was hoarse from much speaking, made an unforgettable impression on him. Eberhard had made an involuntary remark as he saw a man who obviously had come down in the world, "What an awful face!" The Salvation Army officer said sharply, "What are you saying? What do you think you would look like if you had had to suffer what this unhappy wretch has had to suffer?"
