ANN Rentill was born in a quiet little village. Her parents were worldly people, but very industrious. John Rentill was a shoe-maker by trade, and brought up his children in comparative comfort in a humble way. Ann showed marks of piety at an early age; she took great delight in the Sunday-school; she loved her teacher dearly, and much enjoyed committing hymns to memory. Ann's teacher was a godly young person, who sought to show her pupils their need of a Savior, and who tried to lead them to Christ. She instructed them that children will be called to give an account to God for their every thought, word, and deed, and consequently need the blood of Christ to wash them and make them clean, quite as much as people of mature age. She tried to make them see the evil of trusting to works and morality to save them from judgment, and sought to prove to them that Christ and Christ alone must save every sinner who enters heaven.
Ann Rentill loved her Savior, and all went well during her childhood, but when she grew up she accepted the friendship of a worldly young man. He made promises of amendment, saying that if he had a good counselor and a home of his own, he would be a better man. He often told her his home was not a happy one, and that if she would consent to marry him he would turn over a new leaf. Alas! without seeking guidance from her God she accepted him, and they were married early in the spring.
For a time Job Senstill kept his promises; he regularly attended the house of prayer with his wife; he left his worldly comrades, and outwardly there was a change for the better, but, alas! his heart was not changed. His attendance at the chapel was soon irregular; his visits to the public-house increased, and, sad to relate, Ann began to be dragged away from God by him, and would go for a holiday upon the Lord's day to please him. At the end of two years Job's life was as wicked as before, and his wife had been led by him into evil. She had disobeyed the plain word of scripture in marrying a man not a Christian, and the influence she at one time possessed for doing good was gone. Time went on, and Job became a drunkard.
Poor Ann cried to God for forgiveness, and was brought back to the Savior from whom she had strayed, but she had to travel the path of life in sorrow as regards this world. Lonely and sad, she could see, alas! too late, that she had chosen her own way instead of her God's ways, and though God in mercy had looked upon His wandering sheep, it was after much suffering that she was brought back to the Shepherd she had left.
She was often beaten by her drunken husband, and sometimes he even threatened to take her life. In these dark hours she found her Savior precious, and the promise," I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," very sweet.
Job would not hear one word of counsel; he was determined to fill up the measure of his iniquities. Poor Ann could only carry her heavy burden to God in prayer, and stay herself upon Him. So was a long life spent! Ann reaped as she had sown. There was no cheer in her sad life, save her hope in God. At the age of seventy-nine she died.
As her husband saw her happy death he thought, as have many before, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." Then God in His mercy began to answer Ann's prayers. The funeral being over, Job was left alone, and he thought over all his cruelty to his wife; he thought of her patience and love; he was ashamed of his wickedness, and grieved over the hopeless past. Nor did he grieve alone for his cruelty towards his wife! The Spirit of God showed him the depths of the sin of his heart, and he was humbled and contrite before the holy God. He cried aloud in the agony of his soul: “What must I do to be saved?" Then he bethought him of his wife's Bible, and there he read the tender and compassionate words of Jesus, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" and, oh! how he longed for rest.
After turning over the leaves of the Bible, and reading many underlined passages, which seemed to him as his wife's voice appealing to him from the grave, he read " Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off." (Isa. 33:1717Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. (Isaiah 33:17).) The light shone in upon his dark soul as he read on, and the 22nd verse was blessed to him: "For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us." The Spirit of God showed him that Christ had done all for him, when nailed to the cross: he might come with all his sin to Jesus, and trust the gracious call. He came, and found Christ to be "as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
Some time afterwards Job was taken ill, and died trusting in his Savior.
In the quiet little graveyard Job and Ann lie side by side, and upon his stone the words are engraved: “Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?”
E. B.—y.