picked up another three hundred dollars doing personal appearances every night in
theatres.
Then in 1934, I got a break that opened up enormous possibilities. The League of
Decency was formed to clean up the movies. So Hollywood producers decided to put on
cowboy pictures; but they wanted a new kind of cowboy-one who could sing. The man
who owned the American Recording Company was also part owner of Republic
Pictures. "If you want a singing cowboy," he said to his associates, "I have got one
making records for us." That is how I broke into the movies. I started making singing-
cowboy pictures for one hundred dollars a week. I had serious doubts about whether I
would succeed in pictures, but I didn't worry. I knew I could always go back to my old
job.
My success in pictures exceeded my wildest expectations. I now get a salary of one
hundred thousand a year plus one half of all the profits on my pictures. However, I
realise that this arrangement won't go on for ever. But I am not worried. I know that no
matter what happens-even if I lose every dollar I have-I can always go back to
Oklahoma and get a job working for the Frisco Railway. I have protected my line of
supplies.
I Heard A Voice In India
By
E. Stanley Jones
One of America's most dynamic speakers and the most famous missionary of his
generation
I have devoted forty years of my life to missionary work in India. At first, I found it difficult
to endure the terrible heat plus the nervous strain of the great task that stretched before
me. At the end of eight years, I was suffering so severely from brain fatigue and nervous
exhaustion that I collapsed, not once but several times. I was ordered to take a year's
furlough in America. On the boat returning to America, I collapsed again while speaking
at a Sunday-morning service on the ship, and the ship's doctor put me to bed for the
remainder of the trip.
After a year's rest in America, I started back to India, but stopped on the way to hold
evangelistic meetings among the university students in Manila. In the midst of the strain
of these meetings, I collapsed several times. Physicians warned me that if I returned to
India, I would die. In spite of their warnings, I continued on to India, but I went with a
deepening cloud upon me. When I arrived in Bombay, I was so broken that I went
straight to the hills and rested for several months. Then I returned to the plains to
continue my work. It was no use. I collapsed and was forced to return to the hills for
another long rest. Again I descended to the plains, and again I was shocked and
crushed to discover that I couldn't take it. I was exhausted mentally, nervously, and
physically. I was completely at the end of my resources. I feared that I would be a
physical wreck for the balance of my life.
If I didn't get help from somewhere, I realised that I would have to give up my missionary
career, go back to America, and work on a farm to try to regain my health. It was one of
my darkest hours. At that time I was holding a series of meetings in Lucknow. While
praying one night, an event happened that completely transformed my life. While in
prayer-and I was not particularly thinking about myself at the time-a voice seemed to
say: "Are you yourself ready for this work to which I have called you?"