Coo ee, an Australian Bush Story

 
A young man, one of the audience, who was quite unknown to me, after I had spoken asked for an interview. “Well,” I said, “what is it?”
“I want to have a little talk with you, if you don’t mind. I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe in anything.”
“Lots of fellows are skeptics nowadays, just like you, and it’s not very easy to help them. What do you want to know?”
“Well, I wanted to ask you if you would kindly try and prove to me that Christ really exists.”
“Why should I? He doesn’t interest you at all, if you are a skeptic. It can’t concern you, surely.”
“Well, I am very miserable, and I find things unsatisfactory; and I have been wondering this evening whether I could get any proof about this.”
“Supposing you did; what next?”
“Well, perhaps I might become a Christian.”
“Is it worth your while, being a skeptic?”
“Well, I am so utterly miserable and wretched.”
“That’s no wonder―serves you right; and I’m not going to waste two minutes in trying to prove to you that Christ exists.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not worth while under the circumstances. Besides, I’m not sure it’s possible to do so to a skeptic.”
“I wish you’d try. You have no idea how dark and miserable I am.”
“Perhaps I will, if you will kindly prove me something first.”
“What’s that?
“That you are your mother’s son!”
“That’s easy enough.”
“All right; fire away. How will you begin?”
He sat thinking some time, and then said, “I’m blest if I know how to begin!”
“That’s just my fix, too, about proving Christ exists. I don’t know how to begin. Look here, my dear fellow. All you can tell me is that so far back as you can remember someone taught you to call her mother, and she called you her own son; and you have both gone on doing it ever since. Has it worked all right?”
“Certainly it has.”
“Are you satisfied that she is your mother?”
“Perfectly so.”
“Can you prove it?”
“No; but I’m perfectly satisfied she is.”
“And so am I that Christ exists. Many years ago I first began to call Him my Saviour, and to obey Him as such; and He has called me His, and it works perfectly. I have no further proof for you than that.”
“How can I find Him out for myself, then?”
“Very quickly and simply, if you are thoroughly honest in the inquiry.”
“Yes, indeed I am.”
“Suppose you were ever to be lost in the bush, you could only do one thing-stand still and Coo-ee. Then if any one heard your Coo-ee, of whose existence you had no knowledge, he would answer you, and you two would keep it up until he found his way to you and took you out the way he came in. You’ve got to Coo-ee to the Lord Jesus Christ. If He exists anywhere round., He will hear. If He hears, I can guarantee He will answer; and if you keep it up He will come to you and lead you out of the dark.”
“That’s simple enough!”
“Will you Coo-ee?”
“Yes.”
“When will you begin?”
“Here and now.”
“Then just kneel down and begin right away.”
He dropped on his knees, and began in some such words as these: “O Lord Jesus, I don’t know whether You exist or not, but I’m lost, I’m ‘bushed.’ Can You save me?”
He paused, and I then began to pray with him, watching his pale, anxious face. Presently I saw a great smile steal over it, and I stopped, feeling sure that God was working.
“Does He exist?” I asked him.
“Of course He does.”
How do you know?”
“He has taken me out of the dark, and I am His. He has saved me. He is my Saviour.”
“Are you satisfied?”
“Perfectly.”
We rose, and after a few words we parted. More than twelve months passed away, when I was accosted on the top of a tram by a young man with a good-sized Bible under his arm. “Do you remember me?”
No, “I said; “I can’t say I do.”
“The Coo-ee fellow at H―! That was a grand night’s work. I have been studying this Book ever since, and it is just grand!
“Prove me now herewith, said the Lord, if I will not open you the windows of heaven; and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Mal. 3:1010Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. (Malachi 3:10)). “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:1313For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)). Reader, will you call?
George Soltau.