Part 2.
We heard last week part of the story told by the father of the little deaf and dumb girl. She had been suddenly seized with a violent fever, and was not expected to live. When she saw her parents weeping beside her, she said to them, “Papa and mamma, don’t worry about me. I believe that I shall, die soon, but I am not afraid of death. I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has promised to take me to heaven.”
“I thought,” said the father, “that in her fever and delirium she believed she had to do with spirits or with Jesus Christ himself, and in order to drive these troubled thoughts from her brain, I said to her: “You ought not to grieve yourself with such thoughts, my child. I hope you will soon be better.”
“No, papa,” she interrupted, quickly, “what I tell you does not grieve me at all, for I assure you that the Lord Jesus has spoken to me in such a way as to make me very, very happy.”
“Well, well, my dear child,” said I to calm her, “that is a beautiful dream which you had.”
“No, no, papa, it was not a dream!” she cried, growing more and more excited. “I read the Word of God at school; I prayed and I heard as a voice in my heart which said to me, ‘Thy Saviour loves thee, and will take thee to be with Him in heaven.’ No, papa, it was not a dream, I am certain.”
“It was perfectly incredulous. If it had been any other occasion than the bedside of my dying child, I would have laughed. Now, however, I contented myself with saying, ‘Well, my child, we will talk of it another time.’
The fever grew worse and worse. Ah! how many bitter tears we shed at her bedside. The little sufferer in her few conscious moments would realize our distress, and look at us with such tenderness as almost to break our hearts. She would often join her little thin hands and move her lips as if to pray. The sickness continued for twenty-one days, which seemed to us so many years. One day, the last, we thought, that we should spend together, she made a sign to us to come close, and her lips murmured,
“‘I knew—
“Then they closed forever. Yes, they were the last words that she ever spoke. As you see she got better, but became deaf and dumb.”
A tear shown in the eyes of the narrator. The stranger, too, who had listened with the greatest interest, showed intense sympathy, and said, profoundly moved:
“It certainly was a hard trial to lose at one blow both speech and hearing. But you have seen yourself how the Lord has sustained your child. May I hear how this continued?”
“It is I who could tell you best, sir,” said the mother of the little girl. “When our little Jeanne’s strength began to come back little by little, she seemed very sad not to be able to speak to us. But on other occasions her face expressed the deepest joy. She constantly repeated a sign which we could not understand. If only she could have written her desire! But as you see, her fingers are so twisted as a result of the illness that she cannot hold anything. Then we noticed that she kept looking towards an old book of stories. We thought she wanted it to pass the time, but soon saw we were mistaken, for when we touched the book she shook her head.”
“Yes,” said the father, continuing the story, “for a long time the conduct of our child was an enigma to us. It was evident that she wanted a book, but what book? At last I thought of asking the schoolteacher. She, however, had nothing to distract or amuse her, but at last she cried:
“‘Wait, I have a book here which the poor child was particularly fond of.’
“‘What is it?’ I asked, eagerly.
“‘A New Testament.’
“‘Do you think she could understand that?’
“‘Yes, I almost think so; for often when the other children were playing outside, she would hide in a corner and read with the most profound interest.’
“She sold me a volume and I hastened to go back to the house, asking myself all the time if I had really found the object my little girl wanted so much. I shall never forget the smile, or the look, that Jeanne gave me when she saw in my hand the little black book. She sat up in bed and eagerly stretched out her hands towards me. From that moment she got better rapidly. Her joy increased from day to day, and a heavenly peace seemed to possess her.
“But what is most extraordinary of all is that the poor, little deaf and dumb girl has taught her parents to look to Christ, too. Jeanne would make us read the passages which she liked best, and which made her so perfectly happy. At the beginning we did not understand much and the words of Christ which filled our little girl’s heart with comfort, left us perfectly indifferent. But, thanks be to God, that changed, and now we have learned to share the happiness of our child.”
Do you, too, share this happiness, dear reader? Can you say, “He loved me, and gave himself for me”?
The colporteur listened to the story in silence, but what joy it was for him to see in this poor little cripple, fruit for the glory of his Master. He spent the night at the cottage, and the evening was passed in singing hymns of praise to God. The little deaf and dumb child could not join with her lips, but the Lord alone knew what the child’s heart had to offer Him.
ML 10/15/1916