p. 12 | Delivered from a Fanatical Mob by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 27, 1911

Delivered from a Fanatical Mob

By W. A. S.

THE promise, “Lo, I am with you alway,” does not mean that the path may not be the way of trial. But it gives assurance of sustaining grace in the trial.

The apostle Paul said of his appearance before Cæsar: “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; . . . and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” And though he knew that he was soon to suffer martyrdom, he testified to his confidence that the same delivering grace would keep him through the crisis: “And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.” 2 Tim. 4:17, 18.

Continually the child of God who looks up may see evidences of the delivering, shielding power of God. We know that still “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”

Here is a story from Spain, told by Elder Walter Bond at the Latin Union meeting last summer, which shows anew how the intervening providence of God guards his children in service in difficult places.

Good work has been done in Spain by some of our Spanish sisters who have gone out with our publications to bring the precious truth to others. Two of these sisters were working in a fanatically Catholic region in the province of Lerida. Elder Bond said:—

They came in their work to a village built at the summit of a high hill. They went from house to house offering for sale their tracts and papers. Soon they were being followed by a woman, under the influence of one of the priests, who would take her stand behind them at every door, and by gestures, if not by words, warn the villagers not to buy the tracts. This opposition was so persistent that very few publications were sold in the place.

Our sisters went over the village, however, determined not to miss any opening to sow some seeds of truth. They then started for the next town. As they passed along the road, on the way down the hill, they both became suddenly conscious of being very thirsty. They had not felt the thirst before that moment; but now it was so insistent that they stopped to look about for a place to get a drink.

Just at the moment, a man called to them from his garden, down the hillside, and motioned to them to come down. They turned from the road and made their way down a rocky path to the peasant home. There the man asked them courteously if they would not like a drink from his well. Thankful for this kindly peasant hospitality, they quenched their thirst, and sat for a time resting, before going onward down another path leading them by a shorter way into the valley.

Later they learned that the special providence of God was in that sudden sense of thirst and the call from the stranger, that led them from the highway. While sitting by the peasant’s well, they were entirely hidden from the road above by a high wall. At that same time a mob of ruffians, stirred up by fanaticism, were hurrying along the road, armed with stones, expecting at every turn to overtake our sisters. They followed the road for some distance, and searched in vain for the distributors of the heretical tracts. No women were visible, and yet they had but a moment before passed along the road. The superstitious villagers concluded that either their visitors had been evil spirits, or else that the ground had opened and swallowed them.

Our sisters knew nothing of it—hidden as they were behind the high wall—until the next day, when one of the same neighborhood saw them in another town, and told them how the whole village was talking about it.

Several months afterward one of the sisters visited the village again. The people had learned that our workers had not been swallowed up that day, and now many felt that truly their deliverance was of God, and that he had hidden them behind that wall to save them.

And so, we know, it was in truth. Things are not merely happening. God is over all, and his angels are in the world and by the believer’s side. “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.”

One of these colporteur sisters is the woman whose father, in dying years ago, told her that sometime a people would come to Spain who would preach the truth of God, and he wanted her to watch for that message of truth. When she heard of our teaching, through her little boy, who attended a school started by our workers, she felt impressed that this was the message of truth her father had prayed that she might be ready to hear. And on listening to it herself, she gladly received it, and has been working to bring the light to other hearts.

W. A. S.