The Best Pupil

If God's truth demands the tortured cry of a single innocent child, argued Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov, then God's truth is not worth the price of admission. But there are other ways of looking at the ancient mystery of guiltless suffering, as was shown last week by the remarkable story of one child. The story was told by the U.S. Sixth Fleet's Admiral Charles Brown, and it concerned the son of his old friend Jack Peurifoy, onetime (1950-53) U.S. Ambassador to Greece. The child's name was Clinton Peurifoy, and he was a spastic.

"He was a brilliant lad," recalled Admiral Brown, "and, in spite of, or, if you will, perhaps because of his handicap, deeply appealing." Queen Frederika grew fond of the boy while the Peurifoys were stationed in Greece, and often asked him for long visits to the royal palace in Athens. During these visits young Clinton Peurifoy played freely with Queen Frederika's two children. One day Prince Constantine said to his little American friend: "My sister and I have been talking about you, and we have decided that you must be the favorite pupil of Jesus."

"What do you mean?" asked Clint.

"Well," replied the prince, "you know how it is. In school the best pupil is always given the hardest problems to solve. God gave you the hardest problem of all, so you must be His favorite pupil."

With sudden tears in his eyes, the crippled child replied: "I don't believe you!"

The prince in turn answered with all the finality of a child's argument: "I don't care what you think. My sister and I think you are."

That night the Queen sat on the edge of Clint's bed as she tucked him in, and said: "I heard what the prince told you today, and I agree with him. I believe you are a favorite pupil of Jesus." For a moment, two troubled eyes stared back at her. Then Clint said: "I don't believe it! I won't believe it unless my daddy says that he believes it!"

Later Queen Frederika told Jack Peurifoy the story. The Ambassador shook his head and said: "I can't tell him that I believe that. I cannot believe that a good and just God would do that to my little boy." And the Ambassador burst into tears. But eventually, as the Queen had advised, he did tell the boy that he believed it was Jesus who had given him this "hardest problem."

In 1955, when Jack Peurifoy was U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, he and his two sons were in an automobile accident. Jack Peurifoy and his younger son, a normal, healthy lad then 9 years old, were killed. But Clinton, 14, the spastic, survived--"by one of those forever puzzling strokes of fate," as Admiral Brown put it. Brown also reported that before he died Jack Peurifoy had come "to really believe that God, in His way which passes all human understanding, was preparing a favorite spot for a little boy who must spend his earthly days as a hopeless cripple."

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