THERE died, many years since, in the city of Lyons, in France, a widow who possessed a great treasure in her old age. She was very poor, and her husband was only able by working hard to earn their daily bread, when he died, leaving her a widow, childless and infirm, being in great need.
She sold nearly everything she had, and moved to a garret to spend the remainder of her days.
One day, as she was sitting alone in her half-empty room, it struck her that there was a singular outline on one of the beams. It had been white washed, but she thought it looked as if there had been a square opening, which had been carefully closed with a kind of door. She examined it more closely, and the thought occurred to her, “Perhaps there is some treasure hidden there,” for she remembered as a child the fearful days of the Revolution, when no property was safe from the men of equality and liberty. Perhaps some rich man had concealed his treasure there from their rapacity, who had himself fallen a victim before he had had time to remove it. She tapped with her finger, and the boards returned a hollow sound. With beating heart she tried to remove the square door, and soon succeeded without much difficulty; but, alas, instead of the gold and silver she hoped to see, she beheld a damp, dirty, moldy old book! In her disappointment, she was ready to fix in the boards again, and leave the book to mold and crumble away, but a secret impulse induced her to take it out and see if there were any valuable papers in it, but no, nothing but a book!
When she had a little recovered from her vexation, she began to wonder what book it could be, that someone had hid away so carefully. It must surely be something extraordinary. So she wiped it, and set herself to read. Her eyes fell upon the words, “Therefore say I unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither do they reap, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better then they?” And the words she read appeared so sweet and precious that she read on and on during the whole day, and far into the night, almost forgetting to eat or sleep. The next morning, she sat down again to the book, the words of which made an ever-deepening impression on her soul. She began to see that she had indeed found a treasure, and an invaluable one. Her little room no longer looked so desolate; her food, which had so -often seemed to her as the bread of tears, now appeared to her more like bread from heaven; and her solitude was relieved by that which gave her joy and peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. She had the book cleaned and bound, and it was to her as meat and drink, by day and by night, until she was permitted to close her eyes and enter into the joy of her Lord. She related this history, in the latter days of her pilgrimage, to a beloved Christian in Lyons, in whose hands the book is now. It is Arnelotte’s edition of the New Testament, of the time of the Huguenot persecution.
ML 12/06/1903