Children’s Story – Finding My Cornet

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.”

“There’s one more piece, porter—a basket!”

“No, sir! Your ticket says eight pieces. That’s all you put in.”

“But the basket! It has my cornet in it, porter.”

“Well, I’m sorry for you, mister, but it isn’t usual to expect more out of a cloakroom than you put in. You’d better inform the police.”

“Then is it really truly lost?”

The awful truth that the porter’s statements were correct made me feel sick all over. No, stopping to think, I couldn’t remember seeing the basket when we got off the train in the morning. My cornet was lost!

Here we were on our way to the Burma meeting. The good pastor over there wanted some help with the music. But now it was gone. Gone! The cornet that had inspired the jungle band, and had played in a hundred villages—gone! I was surely disheartened.

I informed the police. I informed the station master. I searched the station and the lost luggage room. I asked every coolie within hearing distance if he had seen my basket. Not a soul had seen such a basket all day long. Neither had I. That was the whole trouble. The basket was lost, and my cornet was gone!

Lifelessly I put my eight pieces of luggage into the cart, and directed the driver to the mission house. I felt dejected. All at once the thought flashed into my mind, Why not pray? It was then just 3:30 in the afternoon. So right there, in that old cart rumbling off down the road, mingling with the thousand sounds and voices common to an Eastern street, I prayed.

I told the Lord that cornet was just as much His as it was mine. I told Him that it was just as good a preacher as I was. Then as we talked the situation over together, I dared to ask Him that if it could glorify His name, if it could benefit His cause, to please have it sent back that evening, as I wanted to take it to the meeting the next day.

Talking it all over with the Lord lifted my burden, and made me feel sure that God was now going to take matters into His hands. Maybe He would teach me a severe lesson. But I felt safe in the hands of the Lord, because He always works things out for our good. That’s what the Bible says (Romans 8:28). In this frame of mind, I completed the journey to the mission house, where my wife, sharing my disappointment and hope, helped me get things ready for the night.

While we were thus engaged, at five o’clock in the afternoon, there was a knock at the door. I opened the door and a total stranger stood before me with my basket in his hand! A friend of his, traveling in the ladies’ compartment with my wife, had by mistake taken it with her luggage. She had remembered my wife’s name, and in conversation had learned that we were Seventh-day Adventists. The stranger had quite a time finding us. First, he went to the church, then to the pastor’s home, then to the office, and finally to the mission house where we were staying. He declared that his friend had given him no peace till, at 3:30, he had started off in a cart to hunt us up.

But why did our friend wait till 3:30 before starting out to hunt us? Just what was it that made him start that afternoon at exactly 3:30?

Eagles, True Education Series, Eric B. Hare, adapted, 40, 41.