For today's entry we return to In the Service of the King. It comes from a portion of the book where the author was serving as a deacon, leading Morning Prayer and preaching in a country parish where he traveled by buggy between the five churches in his charge.

But above all the rewards of his early ministry he holds the experience of that Sunday, when, for the encouragement of the truest-hearted gentleman he ever knew, he preached a sermon. This was a man who, in the midst of a losing fight with fortune, fought on with quivering lip from which no plaint ever came; whose gracious courtesies in the home, whose simple services of neighborly helpfulness, and whose hatred of a lie marked him as a man after God's own heart. The sermon was on Isaac, the commonplace man; the man without executive ability, the unprogressive son of a masterful father, but withal a good neighbor, a good husband, and one who found his place in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, God's own Westminster. When the service was over, and the deacon had just retired to the robing-room, the living Isaac of the parable opened the door, and gowned as he was, the deacon found himself lifted from his feet and held tight in the bear-like hug of his friend, who, after he had set him down, left without a word.