A True Story | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 21, 1868

A True Story.

ONE beautiful evening in summer, a carriage drove up to a village inn. A stranger stepped out, and directed the landlord to prepare him a dinner. The last rays of the setting sun were visible on the fleecy clouds and on the vane of an antiquated church, which stood on the opposite side of the way. The stranger looked about him for a few moments, and then directed his steps to the church.

He entered the gate which opened into the grave-yard, and walked around; he viewed the grassy beds, beneath which the sons of other years lay silently resting from want, and toil, and pain. While he was reading the various inscriptions on the tombstones, his attention was drawn to a corner of the yard by the sobs of a child. He went immediately to the spot where two ragged children sat weeping upon a newly-made grave. A piece of hard bread lay between them. The stranger, being sensible to the sorrows of others, sat down upon the grave, and inquired into the cause of their distress. The little boy, whose name was William, began to tell him that his sister Mary was a naughty girl, and would not eat the piece of bread which he had begged for her. She interrupted her brother here, and told the man that she had some bread yesterday, but that her brother had eaten none since the day before, and she wanted him to eat this.

The boy then proceeded to tell the stranger that about a year ago his father left the village, and went to sea, and that in a storm he had been drowned. “And poor mother cried so hard, and said she must soon die, too; but that we must love each other, and that God would be our father. She called us to her bedside, kissed us both, and then died.”

The stranger listened to the tale of sorrow until his eyes were filled with tears, and he was moved with compassion for the wanderers. He exclaimed as he rose from the grave: “Come with me, poor children. God will be your father. He has, no doubt, sent me here this night to befriend you.”

He took them to the inn, and had them provided for until he returned home. Then they were received into the bosom of his family, where they were fed, clothed, and instructed; and the stranger, in his declining years, witnessed them useful and honorable members of society. His hospitality was rewarded a hundred fold.—World.