AS old Thomas Waring, a Friend, of Leominster, sat one afternoon in his shop, among his workpeople, it was strongly impressed on his mind that he must set off directly to the town of Ross. It was wintertime; the days were short, and the weather none of the best. The idea seemed so strange to him that he tried to get rid of it: but he could not free his mind of what appeared to be his duty. It was impressed upon him like a mission: and he was one of those pure, simple, and obedient spirits that, once knowing the will of God, he must implicitly obey it.
He rose from the seat where he was at work, and gave orders that his horse should be immediately saddled. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and thirty miles to Ross. He stopped at Hereford to bait his horse, and, in order to lose no time, fed it with oatmeal mash, and resumed his journey. It was late in the night when he approached Ross, and still his business there remained unknown to him. In passing over the Wye, however, as he entered the town, he cast his eyes upward, and saw in the darkness of the night, and amid the tall dark houses, a light in an attic window, and immediately it was impressed upon him that there lay his mission, and that in going there all would be made plain. He lost not a moment, but riding directly up to the door, knocked loudly. No one came, and, while waiting, he gave his horse in charge to a boy in the street, bidding him to take it to a brother Quaker’s, one George Dow, and to say that the owner of the horse would sleep at his house that night. Anyone but a simple man full of faith, as old Thomas Waring was, would have feared lest the boy should run off with the horse: but the boy conveyed both the horse and the message faithfully.
After waiting long at the door of the house, a young woman opened it, and timidly asked, “What do you please to want?” He told her in all simplicity that he did not know, but that, if she would listen for a few moments to what he had to say, perhaps she herself might explain it. She invited him in, he related to her the way his mind had been impressed, remarking in conclusion, “And having told this, I can only repeat that I do not know for what I am come.”
The young woman was much affected, and wept bitterly. “Sir,” said she, “I can tell you for what you are come: it is to save me. I was gone into that upper room with a firm intention of taking my own life, which had become very miserable. Nothing would have hindered me had you not come. GOD HAS SENT YOU. I now see that I am not altogether forsaken or abandoned by Him.”
“Thou art not forsaken of God, indeed,” said the good man, himself deeply affected, as he went on to pour hope and consolation into her sorrowful and brokenhearted spirit. He told her of the One about whom it is written, “A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench” (Isa. 42:33A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. (Isaiah 42:3)). He spoke graciously of the tender compassion of Christ, until the poor woman bowed contrite, like the sinner of old, at the Saviour’s feet, and received the message of mercy and love through the lips of God’s servant.
The Holy Spirit has numberless ways of communicating God’s message of mercy to the children of men, of fulfilling the Divine purpose, and of consoling the troubled heart of the sinner whom He has convicted of sin. “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
Reader, it is a blessed thing to be so closely in touch with God as was old Thomas Waring the Quaker, so that we can be made the messengers of peace to troubled hearts.