Coals of Fire | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 9, 1882

Coals of Fire.

Farmer Dawson kept missing his corn. Every few nights it was taken from his crib, although the door was well secured with lock and key.

"It's that lazy Tom Slocum," he exclaimed one morning, after missing more than usual. "I've suspected him all the time, and I wont bear it any longer."

"What makes you think it's Tom?" asked his wife, pouring out the fragrant coffee.

"Because he's the only man around who hasn't any corn—nor anything else, for that matter. He spent the summer at the saloons while his neighbors were at work. Now they have plenty, and he has nothing—serves him just right, too!"

"But his family are suffering," rejoined his wife; "they are sick, and in need of food and medicine; should we not help them?"

"No;" growled the farmer; "if he finds his neighbors are going to take care of his family, it will encourage him to spend the next season as he did the last. Better send him to jail and his family to the poor-house, and I'm going to do it, too. I've laid a plan to trap him this very night."

"Now while Tom is reaping the bitter fruits of his folly, is it not the very time to help him to a better life?" suggested the wife.

"A little course of law would be the most effective," replied the farmer.

"In this case coals of fire would be better. Try the coals first, William, try the coals first."

Farmer Dawson made no reply, but finished his breakfast, and walked out of the house with the decided step of one who has made up his mind, and something is going to be done.

His wife sighed as she went about her work, thinking of the weary, heart-broken mother, with her sick and hungry babes around her.

The farmer proceeded to examine his cribs, and after a thorough search found a hole large enough to admit a man's hand.

"There's the leak," he exclaimed; "I'll fix that," and he went to work setting a trap inside.

Next morning he arose earlier than usual, and went out to the cribs. His trap had caught a man—Tom Slocum, the very one he had suspected!

He seemed to take no notice of the thief, but turned aside into the barn, and began heaping the mangers with hay, sweet-scented from the summer's harvest field. Then he opened the crib door, and took out the golden ears, the fruit of his honest toil.

All the time he was thinking what to do. Should he try the law or the coals? The law was what the man deserved, but his wife's words kept ringing through his mind. He emptied the corn in the feeding troughs, then went around where the man stood with one hand in the trap.

"Hello! neighbor, what are you doing here," he asked.

Poor Tom answered nothing, but his downcast, guilty face confessed more than words cou'd have done.

Farmer Dawson released the imprisoned hand, and, taking Tom's sack, ordered him to hold it while he filled it with the coveted grain.

"Here, Tom, take that," said the farmer, "and after this when you want corn, come to me and I'll let you have it on trust or for work. I need another hand on the farm, and will give steady work with good wages."

"Oh, sir," replied Tom, quite overcome, "I've been wanting work, but no one would hire me. My family was suffering, and I was ashamed to beg. But I'll work for this and every ear that I've taken, if you'll give me the chance."

"Very well, Tom," said the farmer, "take the corn to the mill, and make things comfortable about home to-day, and to-morrow we'll begin. But there's one thing we must agree to first."

Tom lifted an inquiring gaze.

"You must let whisky alone," continued the farmer; "you must promise not to touch a drop."

The tears sprang into Tom's eyes, and his voice trembled with emotion as he said:—

"You are the first man that's ever asked me that. There's always enough to say, 'Come, Tom, take a drink,' and I've drank until I thought there was no use in trying to be a better man. But since you care enough to ask me to stop drinking, I'm bound to make the trial; that I will, sir."

Farmer Dawson took Tom to the house, and gave him his breakfast, while his wife put up a basket of food for the suffering family in the poor man's home.

Tom went to work the next day and the next. In time he came to be an efficient hand on the Dawson place. He stopped drinking and stealing, attended church and Sabbath-school with his family, and became a respectable member of society.

"How changed Tom is from what he once was!" remarked the farmer's wife one day.

"Yes," replied her husband, "'t was the coals of fire that did it."—Mrs. H. E. Blakeslee, in Royal Road.