Far up among the Hills where in olden days gypsies encamped, and sold their wares from farm to farm, a tall, dark gypsy woman was found on the hillside in a dying condition with a babe clasped in her arms, evidently only a few days old.
A farmer’s cottage, the nearest human dwelling to the lone spot where this young gypsy mother and her babe were found, was willingly placed at the disposal of the shepherds who found them that early afternoon on the hill, and with tender hands, wrapping the babe in their coats, bore her to the warm cottage, where kind hands did all that love could do for the pretty child.
As for the mother, she was beyond human aid, and at sunset passed into the eternal world without saying a word. All efforts to trace the mother’s name and connections failed to trace the name of the foundling child. But the shepherd’s wife, who had no children of her own, decided to adopt and care for the nameless baby, and to bring her up as if she had been her own. And in due time she was named and registered as “Lily,” and grew up in the little, humble home on the hillside, as the shepherd’s child.
Lily was a beautiful child, loved by all the simple folks of that region, and many a little present did they bring to her during her childhood’s years as their love tokens to the attractive, and oft visited child.
Lily was sent to a little country school, and few of the scholars excelled or equalled her in the progress she made with her lessons. From her early years, she was a lover of Bible Stories, which even before she could read, the shepherd’s wife told her in the evening hours in the winter time while sitting around the fire. And her foster-father, Ronald the shepherd, was proud of the bright, intelligent child, who with all loving reverence called him “father,” and clung to him with more than a daughter’s love.
When Lily was about ten years old, the only daughter of a well-to-do farmer in that vicinity offered to “see to her education at her own expense,” making the offer that Lily should always return to her childhood’s home, to keep the old shepherd and his wife company at the weekends.
This kind lady, who was a true Christian, and loved the Lord Jesus, being too delicate to engage in Christian work in the ordinary way, gathered the children, whose homes were scattered among the Hills, to her father’s house on Sunday afternoons and held a little Sunday school in her own room. And there she sought to win their young hearts to the Saviour.
And hers was a genuine case of conversion, manifested from the beginning, by a life of loving devotion to the Lord. And for many a year, her light shone in that lone region for Christ, and her lips spoke of Him to all around.
ML 12/20/1942