Pay Day Someday — R.G. Lee

In Edgefield, South Carolina. Before his promotion to heaven in 1978, Dr. Lee preached payday someday over 1 ,000 times and now payday someday. I introduce you Naboth. Naboth was a devout Jesuit light who lived in the foothill village of Jezreel.

Naboth’s Devotion and Ahab’s Covetousness

Naboth was a good man. He abhorred that which is evil. He claimed to that which is good. He would not dilute the stringence of his personal piety or any profit in money. He would not change his heavenly principles for loose experiences.

And this good man who loved God, who loved his family, who loved his nation, had a little vineyard which was close by the summer palace of Ahab, the king of Israel. And this little vineyard had come to him as a cherished inheritance from his forefathers.

And because of this, every square inch of the soil and every vine was very dear to his heart. I introduce to you Ahab, the vile human toad who squatted upon the throne of the nation. He had command of a nation's wealth and a nation's army, but no command of his lusts and appetites.

He wore the richest kind of clothes, but he had underneath these clothes a wicked heart. I introduce to you Jezebel, the daughter of Abel, the king of Tyre, and the wife of Ahab, the king of Israel. Infinitely more daring and reckless was she in her wickedness than was her wicked husband.

She was a devout worshipper of Baal and hated anybody and everybody who did not worship her pagan god. I introduce to you the preacher Elijah, the prophet of the living God, often alone but never lonely because he had communications with heaven.

He wore the roughest kind of clothes, but he had underneath these clothes a righteous and courageous heart. He had ate bird's food and widow's fare, but was a great physical and spiritual athlete. He grieved only when God's call seemed to be tottering.

He was God's tall cedar that wrestled with the paganistic winds of his day without bending and without breaking. He was God's granite wall that stood up and out against the rising tides of the apostasy of his day.

He was a seer who saw clearly, a great heart who felt deeply, a hero who died valiantly, and God took him home to heaven without the touch of the death due upon his brow. With the introduction of these four characters, Naboth, the devout Jezreelite, Ahab, the vile human toad squatted upon the throne of the nation, Jezebel, the beautiful air that coiled beside the toad, and Elijah, the prophet of the living God, I bring you as best I can the tragedy of payday someday.

And the first scene in this tragedy of payday someday is a real estate request. And Ahab the king said unto Naboth, the Jezreelite, let me have thy vineyard for a garden of herbs, because it is close by my palace, and I will give thee its worth in money, or if it please thee, I will give thee a better vineyard for it.

Thus far Ahab is perfectly within his rights. He had no intention of cheating Naboth out of his vineyard, of killing him to get it. And under ordinary circumstances we might expect Naboth to put away any sentimental attachment which he had for his vineyard, that he might please the king of his nation, because honestly did Ahab offer him its worth in money, honestly did he offer him a better vineyard for it.

But Ahab forgot, if he had ever known, the reluctance of every devout Jew to depart with an inheritance which had come by the commandments of God from their forefathers. And by peculiar tenure, every Jew looked upon God as the real owner of the soil, as well as the maker of the heavens and the earth.

And every family received its lot, and every tribe its inheritance from Jehovah God with this specific stipulation, the land shall not be sold forever. Ye strangers and sojourners with me, the land is mine.

And so Naboth, standing upon the commandments of God, and with truehearted loyalty to the covenant God of his fathers, and preferring the duty which he owed to God to any danger which might come from man, and with tones of terror in his words, and no doubt a frown of displeasure upon his face, he said unto the king, God forbid it me that I should let thee have my inheritance for money or for a better vineyard.

Nabothrist believed that he held that land in fee simple from God. And besides this, all the tender memories of his childhood were tangled up in those vines. His father, sleeping now in some obscure grave, had worked in that vineyard, and it was dear to his heart.

And his mother, sleeping now in some dust-stained shroud, had gathered the clusters of the ripened grapes in the days of the vintage. Naboth was bound up to his little vineyard by the triple tie of religion, of sentiment, and of family pride.

And when he thought of his little vineyard so sanctified by sweet and holy memories, and so enriched by prayer, coming into the hands of Ahab and Jezebel, his soul rose in quick and righteous revulsion, and with the courage of a bird that dares a stormy sea, he said, God forbid it me that I should let thee have my inheritance.

Ahab’s Petulance and Pouting

And that brings us to the second scene in this tragedy of payday someday. It's a pouting potentate. Naboth's refusal took all the spokes out of the wheels of Ahab's desire, and his refusal was a strong barrier against which the stream of Ahab's desire dashed and was turned into a foiled and foaming pool of soaps and peevishness.

And heavy and so displeased, the Bible tells us, Ahab went to his house, went to bed in the daytime, and turned his face to the wall and would not eat. And when his servants brought in his food, he drove them from his presence as though they had carried garbage in for him to eat.

Look at him there, with his face turned to the wall, his lips swollen with mutish moping, his eyes burning in cheap anger fire, his heart stubborn in wicked rebellion, whining like a whipped hound, pouting like a spoiled child that has been denied one trinket in the midst of a thousand toys.

What a picture we have here of great powers and talents prostituted to base and purposeless ends. Look at this commanding chief of an army, made captive by corporal cantankerousness, made prisoner by private pouts.

Yes, what an ancient portrait we have of great powers and talents, prostituted to the service of the devil and withheld from the service of God. Canon ability expressing itself in pop-gun achievement.

Look at this old whale, warring about and spouting about because he's denied menna food. Listen to this old bear growl because he's denied a little bit of honey. Listen to this old eagle shriek and beat his wings against the bars of the cage because he's denied crumbs over which the sparrows quarrel in the streets.

Yes, listen to this old lion roar for the cheese in a mousetrap. That brings us to the third scene in this tragedy of payday someday, the wicked wife, Jezebel. We do not know all that the servant said to her when they went back to the royal dining room or kitchen and told her that the king was lying in there in bed with his face turned to the wall and would not eat.

And we do not know anything that she said to the servants, but we do know something which she said to Ahab when tripping the like a gay dancer, she went into the room where the king was and found him there with his face turned to the wall, his lips swollen with mutish moping, his eyes burning with devilish anger fire, and his wicked heart stubborn in petty rebellion.

And as is his custom with women until this day, I suppose she put her hand on his forehead to see if he had temperature. He had temperature all right. He was set on fire of hell. And at first in a voice of sweet solicitation, she sought the reason of his anger.

She said, what's the matter with you big boy? Why is that face so sad? Why does thou not eat? And all Ahab with his face still turned to the wall, his lips swollen with mutish moping, his eyes burning in devilish anger fire, his heart still stubborn in wicked rebellion, and with grouches in his mouth said, because I said unto Naboth the Jezreelite, let me have thy vineyard for a garden of herbs, because it is close from a palace, and I will give thee its worth in money.

If it please thee, I will give thee a better vineyard for it. And he said unto me, I will not let thee have my vineyard. And every word he said stung like a whip upon a naked back this old unscrupulous woman who never had any regard for the welfare of anybody who worshipped Jehovah God.

And you can hear her derisive laugh ring throughout the palaces and the palace hall like the cackle of a wild fowl that has returned and has found a serpent in its nest. And she began to prod Ahab with a sharp razor-like tongue as a knot's driver prods a knot with a sharp goad when he does not want to put his neck in the yoke and pull.

And this old gay gaudy of the devil strutted up and down beside the king's couch and derided him as a sordid buffoon or as a cowardly jester. And as hornet-like sting in her sarcasm, and as wolf-mouth fierceness and tiger-mouth cruelty, and serpent-head hiss and eagle-furious scream, in the teasing taunt she hurled at him for his scrupulous timidity.

And then with more noise and wisdom in her words, she said, Are you not king in these parts? Can you not command and have it done? Can you not seize and take? Arise, let thy face be happy. I will get thee the thingadabne brought the Jezreelite.

And Ahab knew her well enough to know that she'd do her best or her worst to keep her wicked promise. And so like some old turtle that's been asleep in the cold water mud when the warm spring sunshine warms up the mud, he began slowly to crawl out of the slime of his silks.

Jezebel doubtless kissed him on the cheek with her lips screwed in a tight knot, or tickled him on the chin with her virginal fingers, and said, That's right. Now laugh. Let thine heart be merry. I will get thee the thingadabne brought the Jezreelite.

Jezebel’s Corrupting Influence

Which brings us to ask this question. Who can so degrade a man as a woman of unworthy tendencies? And who can so elevate a man as a woman of high and noble purposes? Let us not forget that back of the statement there was none like unto Ahab the son of Amri, who sold himself to wickedness in the sight of the Lord.

And back of the statement that he did abominably in following after the idolaters of the Amorites whom God cast out before Israel, is this statement, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. She was a polluted reservoir from which the streams of his own iniquity found mighty increase.

She was the poison pocket at which his own fangs fed. She was the sulfurous pit at which the fires of his own iniquity found intensive burning. She was the devil's grindstone on which he sharpened his wicked weapons.

Which brings us to say that you can study history all you will, and search the blessed pages of God's book as often as you please, and you'll find that the spiritual life of no nation, no community, no city, no town, no countryside, no church, no home, ever rises any higher than the spiritual life of women.

And when women sag morally and spiritually, men fag morally and spiritually. And when women slop morally and spiritually, men slip and slide morally and spiritually. Which brings us to this other scene in the tragedy of Phaidae someday.

Jezebel’s Message of Judicial Murder

It's a message meaning murder. We find that when Jezebel said, Do we have a rise, eat, let thy heart be merry, that she went into the room after promising to get him the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, got a pen and a piece of paper, and wrote a message that meant murder later on.

This is a message which she wrote to the elders and nobles of Jezreel. Listen to it. To the elders and nobles of Jezreel. Proclaim a fast. Set Naboth on high among the people. Have two men, sons of Belial, placed before him.

Have them rise and witness against him that he blasphemed God and the king. Then take him out and stone him until he's dead. And surely since writing has been known to man, no foul or plot has ever been written on paper.

And she signed Ahab's name to it. And every drop of ink she used was fatal poison to be injected into Naboth's veins. And every line she wrote was a little rope which, united with other little ropes, made a noose for Naboth's neck.

And after she had signed Ahab's name to this diabolical death warrant, she began to seal it. And she sealed it by melting the wax at the mouth of the hot candle. And then she asked Ahab for his signet ring on which, as it was on the king Ahasuerus' ring, the seal of the kingdom.

And he gave her the ring. And she pressed that ring with the seal of the nation upon it, down upon the soft wax. And back of that seal and that message that was signed with Ahab's name were all the powers of the nation, all the soldiers and all the money and all the authority of the king.

Then she gave that diabolical death warrant to the royal couriers and told them to take it down to Jezreel and to deliver it to the elders and nobles of the city. And what she was really saying and what she was doing, by all the gods of Baal, I'll kill him because he refused my lord, my king, his vineyard on religious grounds.

And I'll kill him on religious grounds. She had said, proclaim a fast. She well knew the desire of every devout Jewish heart to participate in a fast and to humble itself before God. And we find that as we look back upon the days of these fasts, as they were called by those in authority at a fast, the mere declaration of one was a proclamation that somebody had committed some heinous sin in the community.

And at this fast, the criminal was to be sought out and given proper punishment. Then she said, set Naboth on high among the people, which did not mean to put Naboth in the seat of honor. It meant to put him in the seat of the accused, as we would say in our courthouse language today, put him in the prisoner's dock before the bar of justice.

Then she said at the mouth of two witnesses, that's what she really was saying and what she did, because she said, have two men, sons of Belial placed before him, have them rise and say Naboth blasphemed God and the king, then take him out and stone him until he's dead.

And these sons of Belial were the basest sort of men. They seem to have been nursed on the tiger milk of cruelty, and they would have sold their mothers into slavery for just a few shekels. And her plan, as I said a bit ago, was to put Naboth out of the way by judicial murder rather than by private assassination.

I do not know where Naboth was when that diabolical death warrant arrived in the little town, but I do know this, that that night when he sat at the supper table with his young sons, that night when he slept with the wife of this bosom, he did not know that the hounds of death, let loose from the kennels of hell by the bejeweled hands of a king's daughter and a king's wife, were close upon his heels, ready to put their fangs in his throat and take his life.

The Fatal Fast and Naboth’s Stoning

And that brings us to this other scene in the tragedy of Thayday Someday. It is the fatal fast. I can see these men who went down to Naboth's little house and gave him part of the message that Jezebel had written, the message which she had signed with the king's name and with the king's seal.

And I can hear Naboth protest when they told him that he was to sit in the seat of the accused. I can hear him say, Well, what have I done? I have broken no law. I have done nothing that's wrong. Why should I have to sit in the seat of the accused before the eyes of the people?

They doubtless said to him something like this. That is none of our business, sir. We have orders from the king. You will sit in the seat of the accused on the day of the fast. I can see Naboth's wife's face turn pale when she heard those words.

And I can see Naboth as he tried to comfort his wife and to assure his little sons that that would be all right, that he'd come home in due season. But the day of the fast comes on. Little children in their gay clothes are running here and there like butterflies flitting above flowers.

Young men and young women glad to be together again, that they might speak the story of love, which was old when the pyramids were new. These are there. And older people murmuring, putting their heads together and whispering and foreboding because they sensed that something would be terribly wrong that day.

They're all there. And there above the people in the seat of the accused is Naboth. And presently in come these two base sons of Belial as they too look upon Naboth, the observed of all observers. There they are, the devil's hawks, ready to put their beaks into God's sparrow.

There they are, the devil's eagles, ready to put their talons into God's dove. Yes, the devil's lowbow wolves, ready to kill God's sheep. Yes, the devil's wild boars, ready to tear with their tusks the flanks of God's noble stag.

There they sat awhile. Then suddenly they sprang to their feet and cried aloud, Naboth, blaspheme God! Naboth, blaspheme the king! Then strong rough hands jerk him out to the seat of the accused. They drag him out to the throngs of the people while little children cry and women shriek and maybe think and men in excited voices talk to each other as they saw them drag Naboth out.

Out through the streets and out through the gate of the city and outside the walls of the city where they threw him up on the ground. Then they gathered up stones and threw at his body. They threw at his head until it was crushed like an egg beneath a giant's heel.

His arms were broken. His ribs were fractured and stuck out like ivory fingers from pots of red paint. Brains scattered. Blood splattered. His ears gave forth blood bubbles. His eyes rolled in sockets of blood.

His tongue moved between broken jaws and with broken hands. In his dying agony he convulsively clutched at the ground and presently with dying gas of agony in his throat, Naboth became very still. He was dead.

God's lily crushed under the heel of Satan's servants. Then these bloody butchers of the Queen who had quite bloody obeyed her bloody orders said now in all of that his sons may not inherit the vineyard that stoned them to death.

So they got hold of his little sons and stoned them to death. Then they sent word back to Jezebel. Not to Ahab but to Jezebel because they knew who was behind that diabolical death warrant. They knew who had signed the king's name to it.

Who had sealed it with the king's seal. And they said word to her. Naboth is stoned and is dead. Perhaps most of the men who had part in the death of Naboth were men who had obeyed her orders in the days when she was cutting off the heads of God's prophets.

In the day when Obadiah who feared God in Ahab's house took a hundred of these young preachers and hid them in a cave and carried bread and water to them so that they would not starve to death. Anyway Naboth is stoned and is dead.

And they sent word back to the king's palace. To whom? To Ahab? No. They sent word back to Jezebel. They knew who had written that diabolical death warrant and signed the king's name to it and sealed it with the king's seal.

I do not know where Jezebel was when she received the news that her bloody orders had been carried out. Perhaps she was out on the lawn watching the fountains splash. Perhaps in the palace listening to the royal musicians play.

Or maybe somewhere embroidering a lovely silk garment. But I do know this. That when she received the news of Naboth's death her eyes were glad with devilish delight. And her blood thrilled with a little more of her vengeful satisfaction against Naboth.

And so she went running to tell Ahab the good news. What did it matter to her that down yonder twenty-odd miles away was a little woman who the day before had her husband in sweet companionship and now beats the dogs back from his body?

Jezebel ran into where Ahab was and said unto him, Arise! Get thee down to Jezreel. Naboth is stoned and is dead. I told you I would get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite and I got for nothing what you were going to give good money for.

I got for nothing what you were going to give a better vineyard for. Arise! Get thee down and take possession. Naboth is stoned and is dead. And this last tragic statement was true because of the wicked plot conceived in her wicked mind and written out by her bejeweled lily-white queen's hand.

Elijah Confronts Ahab in the Vineyard

This brings us to the other scene in the tragedy of payday someday. It's a visit to the vineyard. When Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise! Get thee down and take possession, Ahab arose. And he gladly arose and he gave orders to his royal wardrobe keeper to get out his king's clothes because he had a little business trip to make.

Nahab, while he had no direct part in killing of Naboth, and while he was restrained by his conscience from doing the deed himself, he was perfectly willing to receive the benefit of Naboth's dying. And he had not one word of rebuke or condemnation for that tragic plot which had culminated in such an awful horror.

And so he gave orders out to the liver-stable men to Jehu and Bidkar to get out his king's horses and hitch them up to the king's chariot and tell the royal outriders to get ready and put on their gorgeous clothes and accompany him down to Jezreel.

Now Jehu and Bidkar were the royal charioteers and Jehu was a speed-breaking driver of his day. And when people heard horses galloping down the highway faster than other horses or chariot wheels whirling faster than other chariot wheels, they said, listen, that's old Jehu!

He'd drive it furiously! And he has a lot of kinfolks in America today. But Jehu and Bidkar began to put their harness on the royal horses, those wonderful horses such as kings had in those days, as the Bible tells us and as history testifies to.

So these horses, duly harnessed and hitched to the king's chariot, were driven up to the summer palace of Ivory, and they were accompanied by the outriders. Out from the palace doors came Ahab, no doubt accompanied by Jezebel.

Bidkar opened the chariot door. Ahab stepped in. Perhaps Jezebel blew him a kiss with her fingers or waved a bejeweled hand at him. And then Jehu, with the crack of his whip or the sound of his voice, sent the horses away.

There they go! Away from the palace, out through the gates and down the highway toward Jezreel. Where is God? Where is God? Is it blind that he cannot see? Is it deaf that he cannot hear? Is it dumb that he cannot speak?

Is it paralyzed that he cannot move? Where is God? Wait a minute, and we shall find out. Away in the palace, Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise! Get thee down to Jezreel, and over yonder the wilderness, where he had no bed but the leaves.

God spake to his prophet, his preacher, his spiritual whirlwind, whereby the desert and our very lives slept beneath the branches of the trees. And in the full moon time the tall cedars waved against that full moon like green plumes against a silver shield.

Out there he heard no music but the weird calling of the night birds and the howling of the wolves. But we see that God said to him, Arise! I am so glad that I live in a universe where when the devil has his Ahab to whom he can say, Arise, that God Almighty has his Elijah to whom he can say, Arise.

And so they arrive at the gate to the little vineyard, Naboth's little vineyard, which he had loved so devotedly. And there at the gate to the vineyard, Jehu gave orders to these wonderful horses to stop.

And they stopped, and with restlessly prancing feet they drew the chariot no further. They stretched their necks to try to get some slack on the rain. And you can see the marks of Jehu's whips upon their flanks, and the form of their sweat around the rim of their harness, and their great lungs a-breathing like a tireless bellows.

Well have they stood the furious pace which their master Jehu demanded that they take. And while Ahab had been driven down the highway to Naboth's vineyard, out yonder across the field so recently, golf-parched, came Elijah, barefooted and afoot, there to Naboth's vineyard.

And that brings us to this other scene in the tragedy of Payday some day. It's an alarming appearance. As they arrived at the gate to the little vineyard, Bidkar opened the chariot door, and Ahab stepped out, possibly with a jerk of his king's clothes.

It's his vineyard now, by the shrewdness of his wicked wife. He looks in the soil, and sees Naboth's footprints, and close by the smaller footprints of his wife, and no doubt the still smaller footprints of his little sons.

He looks at the vines there, gleaming in the sunlight, perhaps rustling in a quiet breeze. Over here, perhaps, are his pruning knives. Over there, the baskets which they had used in the days of the vintage.

They're in orderly array. And as he walks into this vineyard, he's planning how he's going to have his royal gardener pull up all these vines, and plant herbs, cucumbers, vegetables, onions, beans. What is it appears?

Is it some green-eyed tiger fixing to pounce upon him and take his life? No, not a tiger. Is it some furious eagle swooping from the skies to take his wicked eyes out of their sockets? No, not an eagle.

Is it some great storm cloud coming, goring its way across the earth with the flashes of lightning, carrying the shreds of black vestments of the storm clouds? Or is it some Syrian war chariot rushing along the highway with some announcement of a new war?

No, not any of these things. But what is it, then? Suddenly a shadow falls in front of him, and he whirs on his heels and finds himself face to face with Elijah, the prophet of the living God. His face grows pale, his voice as hoarse like that of a hunted animal.

And keeping his eyes fastened upon Elijah's face, he cowered before the prophet and cried aloud, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? Hast thou found me? Holy Elijah stood there with his eyes burning like coals of fire in their sockets, his sun-baked shoulders covered by sheepskin mantle, his voice as calm as an inland lake never touched by a breeze.

And looking down upon the cowardly, cowering king, he said, Ahab, as the Lord God liveth before whom I stand, God sent me here to ask you, hast thou killed and taken possession? And as the Lord God liveth before whom I stand, God said for me to say to you that someday, where the dogs licked Naboth's blood, will the dogs lick thy blood, even thine.

And the Lord God said for me to say to you that someday the dogs will eat Jezebel by the ramparts of Jezreel. And then, having pronounced God's judgment, sonnets, upon the king and Jezebel, he walked out among the rows of vines, out through the gate, out by Jehu and Bidkar and the outriders, whose eyes were wide with amazement, and as was his custom so suddenly to appear, and so quickly to disappear, Elijah, God's preacher, went on his way.

Payday Someday: God’s Judgment Cannot Be Escaped

And that brings us to the last scene in this tragedy of payday someday. It's payday itself. Did payday come? Payday always comes. It is written in the constitution of God's universe. Nations can forget God and loose their wild tongues that hold not Him at all.

But payday someday is testified to in the words of the Bible, the wicked shall be turned into hell with all the nations that forget God. People can take God's holy name in vain, but the payday that comes from this is testified to in these words, God will not hold Him guiltless who taketh His name in vain.

Men can sow to the flesh and be captives to the works of the flesh, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, vendings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like.

But payday is testified to in these words, he that soweth to his flesh shall of his flesh reap rotten flesh, carrion, corruption. Men in this world can get drunk and can be deaf to the voice that warns against the diabolical damage that comes from strong drink.

But we find that payday is testified to in these words, that at last it biteth like an adder and stingeth like a serpent. At last we find that God says, be not deceived, for drunken shall not enter into the kingdom of God.

People can lie and do lie despite the warning that lying lips are an abomination to God. But payday some day is testified to in the words of God when he says that all lies shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.

A man can forget purity and go out after the wicked woman as a man void of understanding. But the awful payday that comes is testified to in the words of God when God says he goeth after her as an ox to the slaughter, as a fool to the correction of the stocks, and as a bird to the snare, because her house is the way to hell leading down to the dungeons of death.

And men can be careless in the use of their bodies and refuse to yield them to God with the numbers thereof as instruments of righteousness. But payday some day is testified to in the fact that we must give an account some day to God of all the deeds done in the body.

He that diggeth a pit shall fall therein. He that rolleth a stone, it shall return upon him. He that soweth the wind shall of the wind reap the whirlwind. People can refuse to accept Jesus Christ as Son of God and as the Savior of the world.

But the fact of the payday some day is testified to in these words. He that hath not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. Paul Lawrence Dunbar said, This is the price I pay, just for one riotous day, years of regret and grief, sorrow without relief.

Suffered I will, my friend, suffered until the end, until the grave shall give me release. Small was the thing I bought, small was the thing at best, small was the debt I thought, but, O God, the interest!

Men cannot evade God's laws with impunity. God's laws are their own executioners, and they have strange and awful penalties annexed. And these laws see to it that you pay every cent of the debt which you owe with interest.

And the bloodhounds of God's law crack down men and women every day, and every day the newspapers are full of their shrieks of pain and their gestures of horror. I remember once when I was pastor of the First Baptist Church in New Orleans, everything that I said went out over the radio.

I used to get letters, many letters from a young man, at least I judged he was young, who always signed himself as the chief of the kangaroo court. He wrote some awfully nasty things to me, and sometimes when I found a nice line in his letter, it was like finding a gardenia in a garbage can.

The Chief of the Kangaroo Court

One day a little nurse from the Charity Hospital in New Orleans phoned me and asked me would I come down. She said, there's a man down here whose name we do not know. She told me that he would not tell them his name, and made known to me that all the name he would give was this, the chief of the kangaroo court.

And she said to me, he's going to die, and he says that you're the only preacher in New Orleans he's ever heard, and he wants you to come and see him. Will you come? I said, of course I will come. And I went down to the hospital, the little nurse led me into the Charity Ward, up and down the right wall over here were many cuts, back down in the back of the hall were many cuts, over here on this left wall were many cuts, and in the wall to my rear were many cuts, and out here were clusters of cuts, and here was a cut all by itself.

This little nurse took me up to the cut on which lay a young man about 20 or 21 years of age, and without any ado she said, this sir is the chief of the kangaroo court. I looked down upon the young man's face, and as kindly as I knew how, I said, how do you do?

He greeted me with these words, how do you do? And I said kindly again, is there something I can do for you? No, he said, no, nothing, nothing, nothing, unless you throw my body out to the buzzards when I'm dead, if the buzzards will have it.

Then his voice lost some of the snarl, and he looked at me with wild, strange eyes, and he said with soberness in his voice, I sent for you sir, because I want you to tell these guys in here something for me, for me.

The chief of the kangaroo court. I sent for you sir, because I know you go up and down this country and talk to lots of college folks and young folks, and I want you to tell them for me, the chief of the kangaroo court, that the devil pays only in counterfeit money.

Oh, I wish today that I could make all of you who hear me believe me, you boys and girls, you young men and young women, you middle-aged people, you who are in the sunset trail toward the sunset gate, I wish I could make you believe with me that the devil always pays in counterfeit money, that his most precious pearls, as he would call them, are paste, and that all of his diamonds are artificial diamonds.

I stayed with that young man, listening to the awful words which he said occasionally. I held his hand for a long time, and in about two hours I heard the death rattle and the death gurgle in his throat, and he died.

I put his hand down upon his bosom, and the young nurse came running to me excitedly and said, come here quickly, come here quickly, and I said, what do you want my child? She said, I want to wash your hands, meaning she wanted to wash them with the disinfectant.

She said, I want to wash your hands. It's dangerous to touch him, dangerous to touch him. He knew that the devil paid off in counterfeit money. Payday someday had come to this young man. But there are people who'd like to know what happened to Ahab.