SOME years ago I was riding on a donkey up one of the steep paths on the mountains of Auvergne. These mountains were once volcanoes, but are now covered with grass and with thick woods, which make the valleys cool and pleasant. Along the mountain streams are countless varieties of wild flowers—the ground carpeted with lilies of the valley and tufts of pink liles and higher up, the rocks are half hidden by heath and broom.
“How good God is,” I said to Antoinette, “to make so many beautiful things for us to see and enjoy.”
Antoinette was the donkey-woman. She walked beside me in her snow-white cap and wooden shoes, called sabots.
“These things,” she said, “were not made; they were always there.”
“But do you not know,” I said, “that God made all the things we see? The sun and the stars, the mountains and trees and flowers?”
“Nobody could go up to the sky to put the sun and stars there,” said Antoinette, “and as for them and everything else, I know that they have always been there—always. But you English people have a religion. I know all about it—you worship palm-trees, and you never eat ham.”
“There you are quite wrong, Antoinette. We worship God. Did you never hear of Him?”
‘I hear people talk about the good God, sometimes,’ said Antoinette, “but I know nothing about Him.”
We had reached the top of the stony path. The donkeys were to have a rest, and Antoinette and I sat down on a rock amongst the broom.
“I will read you something about the good God,” I said, and I opened my pocket Testament at the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. I read to her the beautiful story of the son who went into the far country, and who was welcomed home by his father, who fell on his neck and kissed him. “This story is to show what God is.” I said. “He is like that father, and we are like the son who behaved so ungratefully, but who was all the while so dear to his father, and who was forgiven as soon as he came home again. God forgives us because His Son, Jesus, took upon Himself all our sins when he died on the cross.”
But Antoinette only said, “All I see is, that the good God is not like me. I never forgave anybody and I never will if anyone behaves ill to me, I hate him and detest him, and there’s the end of it.” Now all the rest of the party arrived on their donkeys, and after gathering handfuls of wild flowers, we rode down again to the hotel.
I was very sorry for Antoinette. Next time, I thought, I must give her a penny Gospel, that she may learn something about God. She was living where Bibles were never seen. Sometimes, she told me, she went to church, and heard the priest say something in a language she did not understand, so she went seldom.
“I am not paid for going there, as the priest is,” she said, “and it does me no good.”
I was glad that we had, at the hotel, a large cupboard with a section of it filled with some hundreds of penny Gospels. And we were to have the donkeys again a few days later. Then Antoinette should have one.
A few days after, I was called in haste—the donkeys were at the door. I ran to the old cupboard where the Gospels were kept, lying in a heap of some hundreds, all mixed and unsorted. I took out one; it was the Gospel of John. “No,” I thought, “Antoinette must have one that just tells simply the history of the Lord. The beginning of the Gospel of John will be quite beyond her comprehension, and she would then not care to read more.” If you look at the first part of the first chapter, you will understand why I thought so. I took out another: again—John! I reached to a far corner of the cupboard and took out a third: again— John! “The Lord Jesus means her to have John,” I said to myself, “and He is wiser than I am.” So at the end of the ride I gave her the little book.
“It is no use to give me that, madame,” Antoinette said, “for I can’t read.”
“Have you no one at home who can read?” I asked. “O! yes, Madame, my husband is very fond of reading; he is a great scholar.”
“Well then, Antoinette, give it to him and he can read it to you.”
“O! no, Madame,” said Antoinette, “he has often had little books just like that given to him, and he never reads a word of them. He says they are heretic books and he just puts them straight in the fire. It would be a pity to burn that pretty little book; Madame had better keep it for somebody else.” Now, if I had not taken it three times out of the cupboard, and had felt sure that God thus meant I was to give her that book, and no other, I think I should have kept it. But so sure did I feel that I was to give it, that I put it into her hand, and said, “that book is intended for your husband, give it to him.” Antoinette looked surprised, but she took it.
It must have been about a week later, that the donkeys came round again. Scarcely had we started from the door when Antoinette said, “What a wonderful book that was you gave my husband! He sat for a whole hour reading it, just as if he was nailed to his chair. He neither spoke nor moved. Then he said, ‘Toinette, this is a most wonderful book; I believe there is no other book like it in the whole world; I never read anything like it before. Go and call the neighbors, as many as you can find, I must read this book to them!’ So I went and called the neighbors. Our kitchen was so full it would hold no more. Then he read the book to them, and they talked about it, and he read more and more; and so they went on reading and talking till it was past mid-night. And since then, whenever lie has a single spare minute, he reads the book. He seems scarcely to think of anything else. He says if anyone offered him a thousand francs for that book he would not give it up; it is like having the most precious treasure in the world. So it is well you gave it to him.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” I said, “you know you told me he would burn it.”
“Yes,” said Antoinette, “and I told you the truth. That day you gave it to me, he came in from his work and saw it on the table—how he frowned at it! He snatched it tip and went straight to the fire with it. Then just as he was putting it in, he stopped all at once and looked at it, and he said, ‘Toinette, I can’t burn this book, it is called John.’ Then he sat down as I told you, and read it for a whole hour without moving.”
“But I don’t understand,” I said, “why he did not burn it.” “No, Madame, but I understood,” said Antoinette, “so I did not ask him. You must know that long ago we had a little boy called John. It is twenty years since he died—he was four years old. Since then there has scarcely been a day that his father has not spoken of his little John. How they loved one another, I cannot tell you. John would never care to play with other children if he could be with his father. He used to sit by him and watch him at his work—my husband is a basket maker —and John would think he was helping his father; he would hand him the osiers, and then when the work was over, he would sit on his father’s knee and put his arms round his neck. It was like a beautiful picture to see them together. And then he died. You can understand now why my husband could not burn that book.”
Yes, I understood; and I understood too why God guided my hand to take that Gospel and none other out of the cupboard; and I understood why He had taken away the father’s darling, that long after, the remembrance of him might be the means of bringing to the poor father the knowledge of Him who said, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” And so would father and son meet again; for little John was amongst those of whom the Lord Jesus said, “It is not the will of My Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
Messages of God’s Love 2/23/1913