From the Improvement Era, April 1939 –

This Night, Thou Fool – A Short Short Story

By P.K. Edmunds

The telephone rang again. From the shower room Bill Turner stuck his head through the half-open door as Mrs. Turner came into the hall. “Shall I answer it, dear?” she asked. “Yeah, please,” then he added as an afterthought, “And if it’s Brother Evans wanting me to go Ward Teaching again, tell him I’m out.” “But dear, what if — ?” The telephone rang again and Mrs. Turner answered it. “Yes, O, yes, Brother Evans. . . . Fine, thank you. . . . Why, he’s — busy.” … A pause. . . . “Yes, you see, it’s the end of the year and those office reports. . .” Another pause. . . “All right, thank you, Brother Evans; I’ll tell him. Goodbye.”

“Wha’d he say?” asked Mr. Turner, coming out into the living room, hat in hand.

“He said he’d go alone; that he was sorry you had to work so hard and hoped you’d soon get some rest.”

“Sensible man, Evans. Most of ’em go telling yuh how to run your business and tell you you’re going to hell if you happen to miss a meeting or two. Well, so long. I’ll be home kind of late, I guess.”

Mrs. Turner suppressed a desire to remonstrate further with her husband. She had futilely tried many times to persuade him that their lives would be much happier were he to divide his time more equitably between Church work and the business of making a living. Bill had recently been rapidly climbing the ladder of success in his business but she couldn’t help feeling that he was borrowing rungs from the ladder of happiness to do so. Happiness which comes only from that service which is born of love, and which is not — nor can be — measured in dollars and cents.

At the office Bill Turner hesitated. Something unusual had caught his eye. Across the street a new sign hung on the door of the corner church and emblazoned on it were the words,

ANY MAN WHO IS TOO BUSY TO SERVE GOD IS TOO BUSY.

He read it and re-read it; then, with a shrug fitted the key into the door and closed the door behind him.

It was, as usual recently, many hours before the door opened again and Bill Turner stepped out into the late night. But tonight he had accomplished little work. His mind just hadn’t seemed to function, and the sum of each column of figures seemed to be expressed in two words —TOO BUSY. At first, Turner had tried to cast the words out of his mind and prodded himself in an effort to keep pace with his usual alacrity in turning out reports; work which had won for him praise from his employer and one promotion after another. Stimulated anew each time, Bill redoubled his efforts and put in more and more over-time, curbed more and more his Church work, spent less and less time at home, more and more time at the office. He had prided himself on being successful and frequently became angered because his wife was “narrow” and “couldn’t see anything but Church work.” Of course, it was a good thing and had to be done. But so was the business of earning a living, and once he was “on his feet” he’d be able to take things easy; and then he could devote more time to the Church. This, he told himself, he would surely do — and believed it. To bolster his belief he would often recount to himself that he had already rendered a singular service to the Church in filling a long-term foreign mission, and surely the Lord would excuse him if now he turned his efforts toward making himself and family socially secure.

But God loved Bill Turner, loved him enough it seemed to intervene — this night — before it was too late. And Turner lived eternities in the few hours spent that night in the office. The Battle of the Ages was fought again in his mind: Satan fought and his angels, and Michael fought and his angels — and prevailed. Into Bill Turner’s mind came the climaxing thought as he recalled the parable of the rich man, “Thou fool! This night. . . .”

This night Bill Turner had been born anew. It was a dark night but across the way the flickering arc light still illumined the church front. Turner paused to read again the words,

“Too busy,” he repeated. “I could make that more emphatic,” said Bill aloud. “But then,” he added, with a little laugh, “that would be swearing.”