In a miserable cottage at the bottom of a hill two children hovered over a smoldering fire. A tempest raged without against which man was powerless.
A poor old miser, much poorer than these shivering children, though he had heaps of money at home, drew his ragged cloak about him as he crouched at the threshold outside the miserable door. He dared not enter, lest they might ask payment for shelter, and he could not move for the storm.
"I am hungry, Nettie."
"So am I. I've hunted for a potato paring, and can't find any."
"What an awful storm!"
"Yes, the old tree has been blown down. I guess God took care that it didn't fall on the house. It would certainly have killed us."
"If He could do that, couldn't He send us bread?"
"I guess so; let's pray 'Our Father,' and when we've prayed that part, stop till we get some bread."
So they began, and the miser crouching and shivering, listened. When they paused expecting in their childish faith to see the answer, a strange feeling stole into his heart. He had bought a loaf in the village, thinking it would last him many days, but the silence of the two little children spoke loudly to him. He opened the door softly, threw in the loaf, and closing it, listened to the wild, eager cry of delight uttered by the half-famished little ones.
"It dropped right from heaven, didn't it?" questioned the younger.
"Yes, I mean to love God for giving us bread because we asked Him."
"We'll ask Him every day, won't we? Why, I never thought God was so good, did you?"
"Yes, always, but I never quite knew it before."
"Let's ask Him to give father work to do, all the time, so we'll never be hungry again. He'll do it, I'm sure,"
The storm passed, and the miser went home. In a few weeks he died, but not before he had given the cottage, which he owned, to the poor laboring man.
And the little children ever after felt a sweet solemn emotion when they came to those trustful words, "Give us this day our daily bread."
Messages of the Love of God 10/12/1952