THE following beautiful incident of consecration in lowly life teaches us that the most adverse circumstances, coupled even with intense suffering, need not interfere with a life of most intense devotion to Christ.
In one of the deplorable, miserable East London homes, in a dark, wretched room at the top of the house, lay a cripple boy. He had lain there for over two years, greatly neglected and comparatively unknown. When quite young his parents had died, leaving him to the tender mercy of an aged relative, whom he called “Granny.”
Born a cripple, he had always been a sufferer; but as long as he was able he had swept a crossing on his crutches, or gone short errands to earn a few pence. But soon after his parents’ death the boy had to take to his bed. Very ungraciously the old woman allowed him to occupy the top room in her house which room he never left again.
His mother had taught him to read and write, but not knowing the truth herself, she had ‘never told him of— “Jesus and His love.”
Sometimes, however, on a snowy night when the wind was blowing hard and cold, the lad had crept into the mission hall not far distant, merely for the sake of getting a warm by the comfortable stove. Numb with cold and weary in body, he took little heed of what he had heard on those nights; but lying a one day after day there came into his mind the memory of it, and by degrees he was possessed with a great longing to know more about the things of God, and to have a Bible of his own.
He knew that it was from the Bible that the speakers had gathered their knowledge, and that was all. So summoning up courage, he one day consulted “Granny” about it. His only encouragement in that direction was an ironical laugh. “Bibles weren’t in her line! What did a lad like him want with a Bible?” So the matter dropped for a time, but the lad’s desire to possess one did not grow less.
One day, however, up the creaking stairs came noisy, boisterous Jack, the only friend the cripple had in the world. “Hurrah! hurrah! got a new berth; north tomorrow; came to say good-bye, Tom,” he cried, all excitement, seating himself on the bed, and wiping the perspiration from his brow; “but I’ve got a real beauty present for you, my lad,” taking from his pocket something wrapped in a greasy bit of brown paper. Tom raised himself on his elbows, not at all gladdened by the news he had heard.
“A bright new shilling for you, Tom, lad; and you’re not to spend it till yer wants suffin’ real particular.”
“O, Jack, you are good, but I want a Bible.”
“A Bible! when I had to scrape months and months to save it in coppers.”
“Don’t be angry, dear Jack,” said the cripple boy, “you’re going away, and I shall be lonelier than ever, and I do so want a Bible. Please get it, Jack, now —this very evening, at Fisher’s, before the shop closes. Granny never would; she’d spend it in gin, if I let it get into her hands.”
“What can yer want with a Bible, Torn, lad? Only scholards understands them there things,” he answered, rather crossly.
“Maybe so, Jack, but I am hankering after one, for I must find out whether them there folks in that mission hall you and I used to go to, told true about someone they called Jesus. Let it be your parting gift, Jack, and you will make me so glad.”
“Very well, lad. Then I’ll go, but I knows nought about Bible buying.”
“Fisher has ‘em at a shilling, for I saw ‘em marked in the window’ when I used to go by. Quick, Jack, or the shop will be closed.”
Jack complied very ungraciously, and descended the stairs less rapidly than he had mounted them. But he got over his disappointment before he returned with a beautiful shilling Bible. “Fisher says I couldn’t leave you a better friend, Tom, lad, and he declares ‘the shilling couldn’t be ‘vested better; and,’ says he, ‘it may be worth a thousand pounds to the lad.’ So ‘pears there’s suffin’ as we ought to know about.”
Tom’s joy and gratitude were unbounded. “I know it, Jack, I know it,” hugging the book to his breast. “I am happy now. Oh, how kind you were to save that shilling.”
The lads never met again; but if the honest errand boy could only have known what a precious treasure the holy book became to his cripple friend, he would have been amply rewarded for the sacrifice he had made to save the shilling. After a month’s hard reading, Tom knew more about his Bible than many who have professed to study it for twenty years. He had learned the way of salvation, his only teacher the Holy Spirit; he had learned also that obedience to God’s will meant helping to save others.
“It won’t do to keep all this blessed news to myself,” he said; so he thought and thought, until at last a simple but very beautiful work was decided on for the Master. His bed stood close by the window sill, which was low, and somehow he got a pencil and paper and wrote out different texts, which he would fold, pray over, and then drop into the street below, directed—
“To the passer-by—please read.”
He hoped that by this means someone might hear of Jesus and His salvation. This service of love faithfully rendered went on for some weeks, when one evening he heard a strange footstep, and immediately afterwards a tall, well-dressed gentleman entered the room and took his seat by the lad’s bedside.
“So you are the lad who drops texts from the window, are you?” he asked kindly.
“Yes,” said Toni, brightening up. “Have yer heard as someone has got hold of one?”
“Plenty, lad, plenty. Would you believe it if I told you that I picked up one last evening, and God blessed it to my soul?”
“I can believe in God’s Word doing anything, sir,” said the lad humbly.
“And I am come to thank you personally,” said the gentleman.
“Not me, sir. I only does the writin’; He does the blessin’.”
“And you are happy in his work for Christ?” asked the visitor.
“Couldn’t be happier, sir. I don’t think nothin’ of the pain in my back, for shan’t I be glad when I sees Him, to tell Him that as soon as I know’d about Him, I did all as I could to serve Him? I suppose you get lots o’ chances, don’t you, sir?”
“Ah, lad, but I have neglected them; but, God helping me, I mean to begin afresh. At home, in the country, I have a sick lad dying. I had to come to town on pressing business. When I kissed him good-bye, he said, ‘Father, I wish I had done some work for Jesus. I cannot bear to meet Him empty-handed,’ and the words stuck to me all day long, and the next day, too, until the evening when I was passing down this street your little paper fell on my hat. I opened it and read, ‘I MUST WORK THE WORKS OF HIM THAT SENT ME, WHILE IT IS DAY; THE NIGHT COMETH WHEN NO MAN CAN WORK.’ (John 9:44I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. (John 9:4).) It seemed like a command from heaven. It startled me and brought me to my knees that night, and I could not sleep until I could sing—Oh, the cleansing blood has reached me,
Glory, glory, to the Lamb.’
I have professed to be a Christian for twenty-two years, my lad, and when I made inquiries and found out who dropped these texts into the street, and why it was done, it so shamed and humbled me that I determined to go home and work for the same Master that you are serving so faithfully.”
Tears of joy were rolling down the lad’s face. “It’s too much, sir,” he said, “altogether too much.”
“Tell me how you managed to get the paper to start it, my lad.”
“That warn’t hard, sir. I jest had a talk with Granny, and offered to give up my ha’p’orth o’ milk she gives me most days, if she would buy me paper instead. You know, sir, I can’t last long. The parish doctor says a few months of cold weather may finish me off, and a drop of milk ain’t much to give up for my blessed Jesus. Are people happy as have lots to give Him, sir?”
ML 09/09/1906