Illustrations of Providence.
Some years ago, a young man holding a subordinate position in the East India Company's service, twice attempted to deprive himself of life, by snapping a loaded pistol at his head. Each time the pistol missed fire. A friend entering his room shortly afterward, he requested him to fire it out of the window; it then went off without any difficulty. Satisfied, thus, that the weapon had been duly primed and loaded, the young man sprang up, exclaiming, “I must be reserved for something great;” and from that moment gave up the idea of suicide, which for some time previous had been uppermost in his thoughts. That young man afterward became Lord Clive. Two brothers were on one occasion walking together, when a violent storm of thunder and lightning overtook them. One was struck dead on the spot, the other was spared; else would the name of the great reformer, Martin Luther, have been unknown to mankind. The holy St. Augustine, having to preach at a distant town, took with him a guide, who by some unaccountable means mistook the usual road, and fell into a by-path. He afterward discovered that his enemies, having heard of his movements, had placed themselves in the proper road, with the design of murdering him. Bacon, the sculptor, when a tender boy of five years old, fell into the pit of a soap-boiler, and must have perished, had not a workman, just entering the yard, observed the top of his head, and immediately delivered him. When Oliver Cromwell was an infant, a monkey snatched him from his cradle, leaped with him through a garret window, and ran along the leads of the house. The utmost alarm was excited amongst the inmates, and various were the devices used to rescue the child from the guardianship of his newly-found protector. All were unavailing; his would-be rescuers had lost courage, and were in despair of ever seeing the baby alive again, when the monkey quickly retraced its steps, and deposited its burden safely on the bed. On a subsequent occasion, the waters had well nigh quenched his insatiable ambition. He fell into a deep pond, from drowning in which a clergyman named Johnson was the sole instrument of his rescue. At the siege of Leicester, a young soldier, about seventeen years of age, was drawn out for sentry duty. One of his comrades was very anxious to take his place. No objection was made, and this man went. He was shot dead while on guard. The young man in the first drawn, afterward became the Author of the “Pilgrim's Progress.” Doddridge, when born, was so weakly an infant that he was believed to be dead. A nurse, standing by, fancied she saw some signs of vitality. Thus the feeble spark of life was saved from being extinguished, and an eminent author and consistent Christian preserved to the world. John Wesley, when a child, was only just preserved from fire. Almost the moment after he was rescued, the roof of the house, where he had been, fell in. Of Philip Henry, a similar instance is recorded. John Knox, the renowned Scotch reformer, was always wont to sit at the head of the table, with his back to the window. On one particular evening, without, however, being able to account for it, he would neither himself sit in the chair, nor permit any one else to occupy his place. That very night a bullet was shot in at the window, purposely to kill him; it grazed the chair in which he sat, and made a hole in the foot of a candlestick on the table. Many years have now elapsed since three subalterns might have been seen struggling off St. Helena; one of them, peculiarly helpless, was fast succumbing. He was saved, to live as Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The life of John Newton is but the history of a series of marvelous deliverances. As a youth, he had agreed to accompany some friends on board a man-of-war. He arrived too late to go; the boat in which his friends had gone was capsized, and all its occupants drowned. On another occasion, when tide surveyor in the port of Liverpool, some business had detained him, so that he came to his boat much later than usual, to the great surprise of those who were in the habit of observing his then undeviating punctuality. He went out in a boat, as heretofore, to inspect a ship, which blew up before he reached her. Had he left the shore a few minutes sooner, he must have perished with the rest on board.