HAS the little reader ever seen a colporteur, traveling about with his pack of Bibles? If not, perhaps you would like me to tell you what kind of persons they are. Well, colporteurs are men employed to sell Bibles and Testaments, going about from place to place, in this and other countries. The word Colporteur is a French word, and means a person who carries something by hanging it from the neck; and the reason why they first came to be so called is, that their packs of books are hung from their neck by a strap. There are colporteurs who do a great amount of good; because, in carrying the word of God from house to house, in places where but for them it would perhaps be unknown, they spread about the knowledge of the truth. Besides, they have, of course, much opportunity, if Christian men, of speaking a word for Christ. Some are very earnest and devoted servants of the Lord, and many little tales are told of their labors, not only among grown-up people, but also among children. One day a colporteur went into a house near D—, to try to sell one of his books. A woman was sitting in a chair at work, but she had no wish to possess a Bible. Nothing that he could say would persuade her. She knew not God, and, though the colporteur read some verses from the New Testament, her ears had never been opened to hear the sweet words of Jesus, and to her they had no melody. God was not in all her thoughts: how, then, could she desire His word. But there was a little boy standing by, and listening to all that the colporteur was saying. His young heart was not yet “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin;” and perhaps the Lord had been at work with him before, but at any rate He was at work now. As he listened to the missionary’s word, he longed to read the word of God for himself, and at last got courage enough to say, “I wish I might have one of those good books. How much are they?” “The cheapest Testament I have is five cents,” was the reply: but the poor boy had no money, and either his mother had none also, or else would not spare that trifle for God’s priceless word. So the little boy turned away with a sigh, and the colporteur left the house. ‘But sometime after this the colporteur happened to be in the same neighborhood, when he heard someone running after him, and a child’s voice calling, “Please, sir, stop!” Looking round, he saw the little boy who had asked him the price of a Testament. His face was beaming with joy, and, running up to the colporteur, he cried, “I prayed to God for one of those books, and one day I found twenty-five cents in the road. No one has owned it, and so now please give me a Bible.” The colporteur gladly opened his pack and gave the child what he had asked for, adding, “You can have that Bible for fifteen cents.” “No,” said the boy, “God gave me the quarter for it, and you must keep it all,” then away he ran, “rejoicing as one who has found great spoil.”
And so he had—don’t you think so? Who shall tell the value of one Bible? We know they are common enough; for they are now spread abroad by millions. They are cheap enough, too, as you see, for the boy could have had one for fifteen cents. But if Bibles are cheap and common, that only makes it a more solemn thing for those who neglect to read or hear them. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Thus, you see, the whole world is not worth one, soul: but “the word of God is able to gave them that believe. How many, many, souls, then, may one Bible save through grace!
Now tell me, when you look at it in this way, who shall count the value of one Bible? But do you appreciate it? do you read or love to hear it read? If not, may the little boy’s example) make you sorry, and lead you henceforth to prize God’s precious Book.
ML 04/12/1903