A String of Providences by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 16, 1909

A String of Providences

By W. A. S.

Walking Over a Game Trap

Dr. W. H. Leslie, of the Baptist mission, at Cuillo, in the regions of the upper Kongo, near the Kwango River, tells of occasions when the food supply was exhausted, and again and again game appeared so timely and unexpectedly that the native men said, “The Lord not only gave us meat, but delivered it at our door.” Dr. Leslie wrote in the Baptist Missionary Magazine (February, 1909):—

In many ways has the Lord manifested his care for us. Once while seeking a short-cut through a bit of jungle, I passed over a hidden game pit four or five feet wide and twelve feet deep, set with sharp pointed stakes at the bottom. The dead leaves covering it were rotted and packed together by months of rain, so that it was impossible to distinguish it from the surrounding ground. Only when I returned, and the long staff I carried pierced the covering, and I stopped with one foot on the edge, did I know of its existence. How it was passed in the going is still a mystery, as it occupied almost all the narrow opening.

Jehovah-Jireh, “The Lord Will Provide”

In a sermon or paper prepared by John Flavel, a minister of Dartmouth, England, and published in 1820, are mentioned the following special providences illustrative of his text, “And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen” (Gen. 22:14):—

How remarkable was the relief of Rochelle [the Huguenot city of France, besieged by Catholic forces] by a shoal of fish that came into the harbor when they were ready to perish with hunger, such as they never observed either before or after that time.

Dr. Tate and his wife, in the Irish rebellion, flying through the woods with a sucking child, which was just ready to expire, the mother going to rest it upon a rock, puts her hand upon a bottle of warm milk, by which it was preserved.

The Protestants besieged in Beziers delivered by a drunken drummer, who, going to quarters at midnight, rang the alarm-bell of the town just when the enemy’s troops were making an attack.

A spider, by weaving her web over the mouth of an oven, shall hide a servant of Christ (Du Moulin) from his enemies, who took refuge there in that bloody Parisian massacre.—Flavel’s “Works,” Vol. IV.

Reported by Luther

Luther gives the following account of facts that fell under his own observation:—

When I lived at Turica, in Franconia, a child that could hardly speak or walk was got into a wood near the house. An unexpected snow covering and altering the surface of the ground, the child could not find the way back again to the house. The snow continued to fall in great abundance; he remained there, covered over with it, two days and three nights. During that time an unknown man brought him meat and drink; but at the beginning of the third day, he led the child near his father’s house, and there left him. I was present when he came in, and I protest he told all that had happened to him as clearly and in as good terms as I could have done myself; notwithstanding, from that time for three whole years he was not capable of putting any words together that any one could easily understand. I am therefore persuaded that the man that preserved him was a good angel.

Fainting in the Forest

It was among many perils that the early Moravian missionaries pushed their way in among the Indians of the Six Nations in the early colonial times. In his “Life of Zeisberger,” De Schweinitz says that Bishop Spangenberg, Zeisberger, and two Christian Indians were returning from a visit to Onondaga, the head town of the Six Nations Confederacy. Their food had given out, and a famine through all the country had depopulated it. At last they reached the Susquehanna, and sank down on its

banks exhausted. The historian says:—

Faint and silent, the bishop and his young companions waited to see what God would do; while Shikelliny and his son, with the stoicism of their race, resigned themselves to their fate. Presently an aged Indian emerged from the forest, sat down among them, opened his pouch, and gave them a smoked turkey. They could not but recognize in this meeting a direct interposition of their Heavenly Father.

The same God that preserved Elijah in the wilds by the brook Cherith, where “the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening,” and whose angel again provided for him, in the wilderness of Beersheba, “a cake baken on the coals,” has all along been actually doing things for his children. And to the loyal, trusting soul in the last days his promise is given: “He shall dwell on high: his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off.” Isa. 33: 16, 17.

W. A. S.