MANY years ago, in a log cabin that stood in the middle of a field, close by the shore of Lake Michigan, a settler family gathered around the lamp. Supper was over, a big fire blazed on the hearth, and the shutters were bolted and barred, for in those days the dread of Indian prowlers was on every settler’s home. The thought of the Red man creeping stealthily up with tomahawk was never absent.
On this particular night the snow, intense, bitter, biting cold, was driving before the wind. The lake was storm tossed and furious, with wild waves booming on the shore. But over the door of the Ellesler’s cabin a rosy light shone out, for the mother had compassion on the wayfarer, stumbling through the darkness.
Inside sat the father and mother, sturdy boys, a blue-eyed daughter, and the darling baby asleep in the cradle. Eight o’clock struck and the father took down the large print leather bound Bible and began to read. The 23rd Psalm was chosen. The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.... The psalm being ended they sang together:
“How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word;
What more can He say than to you He has said,
Who unto the Saviour for refuge have fled?”
Then the father prayed. The little daughter always remembered how fervent, how glad and how tender those prayers were.
As the family rose from their knees that stormy night, they heard at first a low knocking, growing increasingly louder, and voices crying, “Let us in, let us in, we have wandered from the way! Let us in before we perish! If you have human hearts let us in and dinna wait!”
Reuben, the father, looked at Phebe who returned the look and then said, “Open the door, dear, we cannot deny shelter to any this night.”
Reuben unbarred the door letting in a wild gust of wind and a great blast of snow. Then in tottered a man who had battled with the cold and the gathering darkness for hours; his wife, bundled up in shawls and furs, had her baby in her arms.
“Deed, and we are lost, and we heard you pray and the sound guided us and we were no feared to knock where Christians prayed to God.”
Three days and nights passed bore the tempest was over. Warmed and fed, the McMurdo family went on their way. Mr. Ellesler took them many miles in his sleigh. At their feet was a bountiful lunch provided by his wife.
Twenty-five years passed. Reuben Ellesler started out from his now prosperous city home to keep an appointment. But after alighting from his train, he started out to walk to his destination, and was caught in a blinding snow storm. He struggled on for hours, lost and almost frozen, when suddenly a great light glowed before him and a path of light over the snow led him straight to a house. Kind hands were soon busy rubbing him and offering him food and drink.
To his surprise he found that his kind friends were the McMurdos, the very people he had rescued twenty-five years before. And as he lay under soft blankets, with warmth and comfort, and deliverance from death filling him with great thankfulness, Reuben Ellesler heard a song of praise in the room below —
“How firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word.”
ML-02/09/1969