WHAT a strange title this little story has, has it not? You will soon see the meaning of it. It was, and I daresay still is, a favorite saying of a Christian named Worsuph, now living near the pyramids, who once belonged to the Coptic Church, and was as ignorant of God and of the way of salvation as any of those poor Copts of whom you were reading not long ago.
Worsuph was not taught to read when a little child. Perhaps you may think that did not very much matter, as grown-up people are much cleverer than children, and so it would be very easy for him to teach himself whenever he chose to begin. You cannot remember the time when you could not read little words; nor can you remember how patient somebody was in teaching you; and you can have no notion of the trouble and toil it is for a grown-up person, no matter how clever he may be, to learn what a little child learns while its mind is quite fresh, almost as it learns to speak, without knowing how.
I once tried to teach a grown-up girl to read. First she learned A, B, C, and then began to spell little words, but, although she took great pains, she got on very slowly. There are not many things which little children can do better than old people, but they can learn better and more easily.
Worsuph was a grown man when he one day said to the Coptic priest of his village—
“My father, could one so old as I am learn to read?”
“Yes, my son,” replied the kind-hearted priest. Then, fetching some paper, he wrote out the Arabic A, B, C very clearly. “Learn this, and then come to me again,” said he, handing Worsuph his first lesson-book.
When the scholar returned, having mastered his alphabet, the priest wrote for him a short verse from the Bible. Would you like to know what it was? You will find it in your own English Bible, for it was the first verse of one of the Psalms of David (Psa. 32): “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
What wonderful words! We cannot doubt that the Holy Spirit put it into the heart of that Coptic priest to write this verse for his scholar.
“Learn this by heart,” he said, “and then write the words out.”
Worsuph did so, and on his third visit he received a copy of the Lord’s Prayer, to be learned and then written, as before. Next he had a part of the New Testament given him, and at last a whole Bible. Before very long Worsuph had quite conquered the difficulty of learning to read, and even began to read from his Bible in the Coptic Church. All his friends were astonished.
“Yes,” said Worsuph, “I can read God’s book; I have learned from my father.”
He called the good priest “father,” because it was the custom to do so, and, indeed, he had much reason to feel love and gratitude to him who had, by encouraging him to learn to read and patiently teaching him, given him a treasure which could never be taken away from him.
As Worsuph read his Bible, he now and then met with something written there which made him stop and think. When reading the law which God gave to His people of old, he found (Ex. 20:3, 4, 53Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; (Exodus 20:3‑5)) that He had commanded them, saying, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything... Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.”
“How is this?” said he. “Our Coptic church is full of pictures”
Another day, Worsuph read these words of the Lord Jesus to His disciples (John 14:66Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)), “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
“This is strange,” thought he. “Our church tells us we must draw nigh to God, not in the name of Christ only, but we must pray also to the saints, and to the good angels. We have forgotten this word of our Lord, who says, ‘I am the Way.’”
At last someone told Worsuph that there were some people called Protestants who said as he did, that it was not according to God’s word to worship pictures or to pray to saints and angels, and he traveled a long way that he might see these Protestants and learn from them. At the end of his journey he found some missionaries, who had come from the far-off land of America to teach the people in Bible-lands of the Saviour whom they loved. They joyfully received him, and wondered at what he had learned, all alone, with no one to help him. “We can teach you nothing,” they said. We need not be surprised at this, for Worsuph had the Word of God, which is truth, and the blessed Spirit of God to guide him into all truth.
Whenever he wishes to encourage anyone to learn to read, he says, “Look at me; I learned to read when I had a beard!” meaning when he was a man, and not even a young man.
C. P.