THERE died recently, in the great city of Lyons, a poor widow, who had been so fortunate as to become possessed of a great treasure in her old age. Her parents were very poor, and her husband had nothing but his industry to depend on; as long, however, as he was able to work, they honestly gained their daily bread, though they were never able to put anything by for a rainy day. But when the old man died, leaving his poor widow childless and infirm, want entered her desolate dwelling as an armed man. She sold everything but what was indispensable, and removed to a miserable garret, to spend the remainder of her days. She was not entirely without some feeling of dependence upon the God of the fatherless and the widow; but she was a poor Romanist, and knew much more about saints and guardian angels than of Jesus Christ and what He has done for us.
One day, as she was sitting alone in her comfortless half-empty room, it struck her that there was a singular outline on the beams of the wall. The walls had been whitewashed; but she thought it looked as if there had been a square opening in one of them, which had been carefully closed with a kind of door. She examined it more closely, and the thought occurred to her, “Perhaps there is some treasure hidden there,” for she remembered as a child, the fearful days of the Revolution, when no property was safe from the men of “liberty and equality.” Perhaps some rich man had concealed his treasure there for their rapacity, who had himself fallen a victim to the Revolution before he had time to remove it. And perhaps one of the saints, to whom she daily prayed, had preserved it there for her, to sweeten the evening of her days. She tapped it with her finger, and the boards returned a hollow sound. With beating heart she tried to remove the square door, and soon succeeded without much difficulty; but alas! instead of the gold and silver she hoped to see, she beheld a damp, dirty, mouldy old book; In her disappointment, she was ready to fix in the boards again, and leave the book to mould and crumble away; but a secret impulse induced her to take it out, and see if there were any bank-notes or valuable papers in it; but no, it was nothing but a book, a mouldy book!
When she had recovered from her vexation, she began to wonder what book it could be that some one had hidden away so carefully. It must surely be something extraordinary. So she wiped it clean, and set herself to read. Her eyes fell upon the words, “Therefore, say I unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat and what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they?” And the words which she read appeared to her so sweet and precious, that she read on and on during the whole day, and far into the night, almost forgetting to eat or sleep. The next morning she sat down again to the damp old book, the words of which made an ever-deepening impression on her soul. She began to see that she had indeed found a treasure, and an invaluable one. Her little chamber no longer looked so desolate; her food which had so often seemed to her as the bread of tears, now appeared to her more like bread from heaven; and her solitude was relieved by the presence of the great King, from whose book of gracious words streams of blessedness flowed.
She had the book cleaned and bound, and it was to her as meat and drink, by day and by night, until she was permitted to close her eyes and enter into the joy of her Lord. She related this history, in the latter days of her pilgrimage, to a beloved pastor in Lyons, in whose hands the blessed book is now. It is Amelotte’s edition of the New Testament, of the time of the Huguenot persecution.—Christian Treasury, 1860.
God wills many changes but He never changes His will.
—Matthew Henry.