Heaping Coals of Fire by Country Parson

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 5, 1866

Heaping Coals of Fire.

By Country Parson

Not many years since, there was a Christian merchant in Mesopotamia, of great wealth, with the right spirit in him. A neighboring trader, who did not know much about the Christian merchant, published a calumnious pamphlet about him. The Christian merchant read it. It was very abusive, and wicked, and malicious. All he said was, that the man who wrote it would be sorry for it some day. This was told the libelous trader, who replied that he would take care that the Christian merchant should never have the chance of hurting him.

But men in trade cannot always decide who their creditors shall be, and in a few months the trader became a bankrupt, and the Christian merchant was his chief creditor. The poor man sought to make some arrangement that would let him work for his children again. But every one told him this was impossible without the consent of Mr. Grant—that was the Christian merchant's honored name.

'I need not go to him,' the poor bankrupt said. 'I can expect no favor from him.'

'Try him,' said some one who knew the good man better.

So the bankrupt went to Mr. Grant, and told him his sad story of heavy losses, and of heartless work and sore anxiety and privation, and asked Mr. Grant's signature to a paper already signed by the others to whom he was indebted.

'Give me the paper,' said Mr. Grant, sitting down at his desk.

It was given, and the good man, as he glanced over it said, 'You wrote a pamphlet about me once;' and without waiting for a reply, handed back the paper, having written something on it. The poor bankrupt expected to find libeler or slanderer, or something like that written. But no! There it was, fair and plain—the signature that was needed to give him another chance in life.

'I said you would be sorry for writing that pamphlet,' the good man went on. 'I did not mean it as a threat. I meant that some day you would know me better, and see that I did not deserve to be attacked in that way. And now,' said the good man, 'tell me all about your prospects, and especially tell me how your wife and children are faring.'

The poor trader told him that to partly meet his debts, he had given up everything he had in the world, and that for many days they had hardly had bread to eat.

'That will never do,' said the Christian merchant, putting into the poor man's hand money enough to support the pinched wife and children for many weeks.

'This will last for a little, and when it is gone you shall have more; and I shall find some way to help you, and by God's blessing, you will do beautifully yet. Don't lose heart; I'll stand by you!'

I suppose I need not tell you that the trader's heart overflowed, and he went away crying like a child. Yet the right tack is the effectual thing! To meet evil with good, fairly beats the evil and puts it down. The poor debtor was set on his feet again; the hungry little children were fed. The trader never published an attack again upon that good man as long as he lived; and among the good man's multitude of friends, as he grew old, among all the things that should accompany old age, there was not a truer, heartier one than the old enemy thus fairly beaten. Let us all get upon the right tack!—Country Parson.