HOW BERNARD GILPIN WAS DELIVERED FROM THE STAKE
By W. A. S.
Bernard Gilpin was a Protestant witness in the north of England in the early Reformation times. His labors and successes brought him the title of “the apostle of the north.” His cheery trust in God was proverbial. Whatever came, whether apparently of prosperity or adversity, his word was always, “Ah, well, God’s will be done; all is for the best.” This saying of his was well known through the north country. It was in this time that Catholic Queen Mary came to the throne, and tried by the stake and the sword to stem the tide of reform in England. The history says: “Toward the close of Mary’s reign, Mr. Gilpin was accused of heresy; and being speedily apprehended, he left his happy home, ‘nothing doubting,’ as he said, that it was ‘all for the best,’ though fully expecting, when he bade his family farewell, that, instead of returning, he would die at the martyr’s stake.” “While on the way to London, by some accident, he broke his leg. This, for a time, put a stop to his journey. While thus detained, some malignant persons took occasion to retort on him his habitual remark. ‘What!’ said they. ‘Is this “all for the best”?’ ‘Sirs, I make no question that it is,’ was his meek reply. And so it actually proved; for before he was able to travel, Queen Mary died, the persecution ceased, and he was restored to liberty.” Gilpin was but clinging, in those stormy times, to the lesson God would have us read for all time in the story of His work in the earth. The apostle puts it, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Rom. 8: 28. It Is God Working the Things
The margin of the Revised Version does us good service when it makes the reading, “God worketh all things with them for good.” It is not these “things” working; it is God working the things. And out of things and conditions that are in themselves forbidding and unfriendly, the loving Father can cause good to spring forth for us. Only to know it while in the trial—that is the blessedness. And the Lord wants us to know it, and to say always, “Ah, well, God’s will be done; all is for the best.” “‘My times are in Thy hand.’
Whatever they may be,
Pleasing or painful, dark or bright,
As best may seem to Thee.
“‘My times are in Thy hand.’
Why should I doubt or fear?
My Father’s hand will never cause
His child a needless tear.”