Awakened at the Instant by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 22, 1910

Awakened at the Instant

By W. A. S.

DAVID ZEISBERGER, the Moravian missionary to the Indians of Pennsylvania and the Ohio, was traveling with several Christian Indians to establish a new station. One night they stopped at a trader’s, being permitted to sleep in a storeroom, on the straw. Several barrels of gunpowder were stored in the room, some open, and grains of powder were scattered over the floor amid the straw. On this account a light was dangerous, and they preferred to retire without one. But a stranger who had come in insisted on a candle, promising faithfully to watch it most carefully. The missionaries fell asleep from weariness, leaving the stranger awake. But he, too, fell asleep, and left the candle burning. In the morning Zeisberger called the host aside, and taking a little piece of candle from his pocket, said to him:—

My brother, had we not had the eye of Him upon us who never slumbereth nor sleepeth, we should all have this night been sent into eternity, and no one would have known how it happened. I slept soundly, being fatigued; and was in my first sleep when I felt as if some one roused me. I sat up, and saw the wick of the candle hanging down on one side, in a flame, and on the point of falling into the straw, which I was just in time to prevent. I could not fall asleep again; but lay awake, silently thanking the Lord for the extraordinary preservation we had experienced.

W. A. S.