During this perennially beautiful Lenten season the column of last week looks silly indeed. I mailed it too late, evidently, and so it was carried over into Lent. It's funny how the omission of a tiny word to the printed column will bother you. I wrote that, after my day of beautician work, I felt as if I had just swum the Hellespont - and "jist about as tuckered out." The compositor left out the word "as," and made my remark sound like self-pity. Oh, well - it was all very trivial, ennyhoo.

I wonder if your Pittsburgh papers are carrying the inspiring messages taken from "Guideposts," that wonderful little magazet edited by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. Our Plain Dealer carries a daily message, each of which is a classic of faith - faith that has stood the test. Now, this is just during Lent, and these articles are called "Lenten Guideposts." It would be hard to select the best; but let me tell about Cecil B. DeMille and his religious experience as a child. Mr. DeMille, as you know, has been Hollywood's greatest producer of films that might be termed "magnificent." among them are such notable films as "The Ten Commandments," "King of Kings," and "The Sign of the Cross." A New York interviewer once asked Mr. DeMille what had been the finest religious memory of his life. The great producer, always hesitant to discuss openly the deeply vital thing in his home life and career, felt he could not and should not evade this forthright question. He recalled his boyhood days, when his father's vivid reading of the Bible had so profoundly influenced him. Then a particularly significant incident came into his mind - the time when a minister performed a complete church service with but a solitary boy in the congregation. This preacher (with a prominent red beard) came to the DeMille's home town of Pompton, N.J., to preach for a week - Passion Week. He announced that, during that week, he would conduct an early morning service - 8 o'clock, as Mr. DeM. recalls. Cecil, then a boy of ten, went to church on a cold, rainy morning, and it so happened that he was the congregation. That wonderful, inspired minister went through his complete church service, including a short sermon, in which - to quote Mr. DeMille - "he talked earnestly to me - and to God." When it came time for the offering, the minister stepped down from the pulpit and put the collection plate on the altar railing. The boy went up and dropped in his nickel. Then this godly man did a beautiful thing. He left the pulpit, came down to the Altar to receive the boy's offering. As he did this he placed his hand on the lad's head. The great producer says that to this day he can feel the thrill and sensation of that gentle touch. As the boy walked back to his seat he knew that this man's God was a real God, and that his faith was God-like in its monumental simplicity. The experience left a lump in the boy's throat, and the great man of today cannot think of it without emotion. How little did that good man realize that he was to influence the lives of millions of people through that impressionable little boy! ****

Coming much closer home, I would like to tell you briefly of a wonderful thing that has happened within my own family. It is the true conversion of my dear sister's child, now a mature woman of 27. Ellen Mary, better known as "Muggins," is gifted with the most profound mind that I have ever encountered in one so young. Coupled with this is an innate love of humanity, a dear unselfishness, and a wisdom far beyhond her years. In fact, when I got to know her well in the summer of '48, I felt that Ellen Mary had everything - everything except a pure faith in God and the buoyancy and inner joy that comes from serving Him. Even then I sensed that she was searching - but still in the wilderness. Now she has found Him! As proof of her sincerity she has given up her high-salaried job as private secretary to one of Texas' greatest scientists, and has already left for Richmond, Va., to take a graduate course in the Presbyterian Assembly Training School for Lay Workers. Again a godly minister has helped a searching child find the Way. Dr. Moffett, of the First Presbyterian Church in Austin (Texas) talked to her and gave her the right books to read. As for my beloved sister, who is left entirely alone, she writes, "I feel that Muggins is carrying out my ambition that I had as a girl, to be a missionary. I am so proud to have a child that I can give up to the Lord's work." Oh, don't you sense there a "peace that passeth all understanding"? Now, I must close. I know you rejoice with meover the advent of one more precious soul into His Kingdom.

Faithfully yours,
Florence B. Taylor

Next - 3/16/50 - In Atlanta to learn about selling the "How and Why"
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