A TRUE INCIDENT | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 14, 1881

A TRUE INCIDENT.

WHEN the Boston train came steaming into the depot, the crowd rushed for seats. As a band of recruits mounted the platform, they shouted back to their friends who had accompanied them to the train, the various slang phrases they could command, interspersed with an oath now and then. As the train moved off they pushed each other into the car, where many ladies were seated, including a Mrs. B— and her two boys. Then the oaths came out thick and fast, each one evidently trying to outdo the others with profanity.

Mrs. B— shuddered for herself and her boys, for she could not bear to have their young minds contaminated by such language. If the train had not been so crowded she would have looked for seats elsewhere, but under the circumstances, she was compelled to remain where she was.

Finally, after this coarse jesting had continued for nearly an hour, a little girl, who, with her mother, sat in front of the party, stepped out timidly from her seat, and going up to the ringleader of the group—a young man whose countenance indicated considerable intelligence—she presented him with a small Bible. She was a little delicate-looking creature, only seven or eight years old, and as she laid the book in his hands she raised her soft eyes appealingly to his, but without saying a word went back to her seat.

The party could not have been more completely hushed if an angel had silenced them. Not another oath was heard, and scarcely a word was spoken by any of them during the remainder of the journey. The young man who had received the book seemed particularly impressed. He got out of the car at the next station and purchased a paper of candy for his little friend, which he presented to her. He then stooped down and kissed her, and said that he would always keep the little Bible for her sake.

The little girl's mother afterward told Mrs. B— that her child had been so troubled by the wickedness of these young men, that she could not rest until she had given her little Bible, which she valued so highly herself.