“YOU LOOK specially pleased I about something this morning, John. Have you come into a fortune?”
John Craig, Mr. Coburn’s gardener, was busy planting early peas when his master accosted him with this question.
“I came into a fortune many a year ago, sir,” came the answer, accompanied by a bright smile and a respectful touch of his hat.
“Really! And you are still gardening?”
“Yes, sir, still gardening.”
Mr. Coburn laughed knowingly. “Oh, John,” he said, “you transparent soul; but I can see through your little ruse. You would like to get me converted, wouldn’t you?”
Honest John Craig looked straight into the handsome though dissatisfied face of his master. “Sir,” he said, “it would be one of the happiest moments of my life.”
Mr. Coburn was still smiling.
“Well, I am afraid you will not have that joy, John. Your religion is too cheap for me.”
A look of pained surprise came into the man’s eyes. “Cheap, sir! Begging your pardon, but—would you call it cheap if you was called upon to part with Miss Essie? The Lord of glory gave His only Son, to die to save you and me from death and judgment. It was a vast cost, sir, a very vast cost. Seems to me there was nothing cheap about that sacrifice, sir—again begging your pardon, and no offense meant.”
“Oh no, of course not, my good fellow, I know you too well for that; but we must agree to differ, that’s all. How about these peas; are they all early ones?” And so the conversation was changed.
That evening after dinner, Mr. Coburn was standing in front of the fireplace deep in thought, when he heard a patter of footsteps, and the next minute his only child, little motherless Essie, ran into the room and seated herself on the chair bide him.
“Well,” he said, folding his arms and looking down tenderly at the white-robed figure, “and what’s the meaning of this visit?”
“Essie can’t sleep,” came the plaintive answer, “she dot such a sore froat.”
He caught her into his arms in alarm. “Sore throat, my pet, does it hurt much?”
“Drefful,” answered the child, speaking with difficulty.
An awful fear tugged at the father’s heart. Diphtheria was raging in the village three miles away; was it possible his darling had contracted it?
His fears were not groundless. Bore twelve hours had passed, wee Essie was fighting the grim disease with every fiber of her little being, and her father, in an agony, sat in his study, alone.
“Would you call it cheap, sir, if you was called upon to part with Little Essie?”
The words came back to him now
—relentlessly, persistently.
“Cheap! Oh, God,” he muttered hoarsely, “forgive! forgive! forgive!”
~~~
It was some weeks later, and the peas John Craig had sown were showing in nice straight rows.
“How well I call to mind the day I sowed ’em!” he was thinking, “and the little word I was permitted to speak for my Master. I wonder what time they’ll be home? It was to be today, I’m thinking.”
Almost as if in answer to his thoughts, John caught sight of a tall familiar figure coming toward him, and in another moment Mr. Coburn was by his side.
“We have only just arrived home, John,” he said, “and you will be glad to hear that Miss Essie is quite her old self again.” He paused—“And I—”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have come into my fortune, John.” In his deep sorrow and distress, he had turned to the Lord who had so graciously forgiven all his sins. And now he was happily saved.
He held out his hand, and the gardener clasped it with both of his, toil-stained though they were. Tears of joy were in his eyes, as he said, “I knew my prayers would be answered, sir. I knew it. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name.”
The best book to read is the Bible,
If you read it every day,
It will help you on your way,
Yes, the best book to read is the Bible.
ML-04/27/1969