Special Divine Protection
By W. A. S.
IN view of the fact that, on an average, about twenty thousand persons are killed by snake bites every year in India alone, and thousands slain by wild beasts, the following report by a student of missionary history is worthy of special emphasis:— It is a notable fact that though missionaries, especially those in India and Africa, are constantly exposed to danger by reason of wild beasts and venomous reptiles, there is not, so far as the writer has been able to discover, a single case on record of a missionary who has met death in this way. The peculiar promises made to the seventy (in Luke 10:19) and to the disciples (in Mark 16:18) seem to have been wonderfully fulfilled. Times without number missionaries have been in such peril from reptiles and beasts that they were conscious of the fact that only the special interposition of God could have saved them. In such times these promises have been very towers of refuge. God, from his throne in the heavens, actually sends angels to stand by and protect his servants.