In a village in Norway there is the figure of a stork carved on the church, and over many of the houses. This is the beautiful story they tell of it: That in that village once there lived a little lad, named Conrad, and his widowed mother. Every summer a stork came near the house, and built its nest close by. Little Conrad and his mother were very kind to the stork. They fed it and petted it, so that it got to know them, and would come whenever Conrad whistled, to feed out of his hand. Every spring they watched for it, and when it came it seemed as glad to see them as they were to welcome it.
Spring and summer chased each other, until Conrad had grown up to be a young man. Then he said he would go to sea, and make money enough to come back and keep his mother in her old age.
So he went as a sailor, and set out for a distant land. All went well for many weeks, but one day when they were near the coast of Africa, a number of cruel pirates swarmed around in their boats, and climbed up the ship’s sides. They took possession of the ship, and put the sailors in chains, and afterward sold them as slaves.
Weeks went by. The widow began to be afraid about her boy, it was so long since they had heard of him. At last they gave up all hope of seeing him again, and mourned for him as drowned, and all the village pitied the lonely mother in her grief. As for her, the only thing that seemed to interest her at all, was the stork as it came each year. For Conrad’s sake she welcomed it and fed it, until the autumn came, and it flew away into the sunny south. Now it happened that one day as poor Conrad toiled away at his dreary work in some lonely place, a stork came flying close to him, wheeling about him in great delight. In a moment the scene flashed on him of his home and of his mother and their yearly visitor. Scarcely knowing what he did, he whistled as he used to do to call the bird long ago. To his delight, the stork came at once close to him, as if to be fed. Conrad lifted up his heart to God, and with tears gave thanks that so dear an old friend should have found him there. Day after day he saved what he could from his wretched meal, for the joy of calling the bird to feed at his hand. But Conrad’s heart grew sad again as the time came for the bird to fly away to the north. Was it going to his mother’s cottage? Was the nest there still that he remembered so well? Was there any to welcome it now and any to feed it? Then it occurred to him—why, this bird may help me to get away from this vile place. He managed to write on a scrap of paper, a line or two, telling where he was, and that he was a slave, and then he tied it firmly around the bird’s leg.
The spring came again, and with it the stork. The old widow’s eye lit up as it came, reminding her of her lost boy, and tenderly she welcomed it and fed it, and as it took the food from her hand, she caught sight of this strange letter tied to its leg. Curiously removing it, —think of her joy when she found that it was from her son!
Forth with the tidings, she ran to the minister of the little parish to tell him of the news. It quickly spread through the village. They must send and redeem Conrad, was what everybody said.
The next Sunday morning the people brought their money to the church, and each gave what he could for the widow’s son. Then one was sent to the King to lay the case before him, and to get a ship of war from him that the pirates would not dare to touch. It took a long time in those days to send to Africa, and there to recover Conrad from his slavery. But before the stork had flown, the bells of the village church had rung and all the people rejoiced with a great joy, for the widow’s son was redeemed, and was safely at home again in his mother’s cottage. Such is the story they tell of the stork in that Norwegian village.
And thus from the bondage of sin and the evil of our heart, we can cry to the Lord for His help. Prayer is the white-winged bird that can bear our message right up to the Father’s house. And an answer shall come. Jesus, the King’s Son, comes to redeem us. But lo! for us He gives Himself, a ransom for us all! —Selected.
ML 06/18/1899