A Telling Incident

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 1, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 37.

A Telling Incident.

A CERTAIN New England church recently became the scene of much wrangling and contention. One of the deacons had made himself obnoxious in secular affairs to several members, and the good brethren were determined to oust him. Nearly all the members had taken sides for or against the deacon, and the church seemed on the verge of dissolution. At one of the evening meetings, in which the prayers and testimonies were of a decidedly personal nature, a venerable man of eighty arose and told the following story:—

“When I was a boy, our family lived on a small farm over in York State. One day in the fall of the year, father and mother went away, and left us children to our own devices. They told us not to go away from the house, but to pick over beans until we were tired, then to play quiet games in the kitchen.

“It didn't take us long to get tired of picking over beans, and we soon growled ourselves hoarse playing menagerie; then, by common consent, we went to the barn and began hunting hen's eggs. One old hen was sitting, and refused to leave her nest. My brother was of an inquiring turn of mind, and very stubborn. He was determined to know how many eggs old Nancy had under her. He seized her energetically by the tail feathers, and tried to drag her from the nest, but she picked him in the face so fiercely that he was glad to retreat. Soon a bright idea suggested itself to him, and he shouted triumphantly, ‘I know what I'll do, I'll burn her off.’ He ran to the house for a match, and we looked on admiringly while he set fire to the hay. You can readily imagine the result. We routed the hen, but we burned the barn and the house.

“Now, brethren, will you persist in having your own way, and destroy the church? It seems just as though the Lord had left us to our own devices, and we aren't willing to work for him, so we find time to meddle with our neighbors. Let us pray, brethren, that we may not consume the church in fire everlasting.”

The old man knelt, and the rest of the evening was spent in a real prayer-meeting.—Sel.