p. 10 | THE LETTER A

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 24, 1898

THE LETTER A.

“It’s a queer story,” said Tom, “but it’s true; the letter A was the letter that led me to my Saviour. I was in a peck of trouble at the time; my wife and the babies were ill, and I was worried, and I had less than no hope to look to anywhere, for I didn’t believe in religion and that sort of thing. Well, one night the paper given me to set up for printing was about a prize which was offered to any one who could correctly tell the number of A’s in the book of Hosea. It struck me I might try.

“I’d had extra expenses at home through illness, and the doctor to pay, and so on, and my work being amongst letters all night, I thought I stood as good a chance of the prize as any one, and so I determined I’d go in for it. I hoped to get the money, but I found what was better than silver or gold: I found the key to life. I used to fancy that life ended with what you see and what we made our own lives, but that letter showed me that we are being led by a way that we know not, and are in the hands of One who orders all things for our good.

“It was Friday night I set it up. As soon as we were free I got to work, and by Saturday night my task was done. But as I was counting the a’s, one struck me more than others; perhaps it was because it was a capital, and so I missed it at first, having been counting the small ones, and had to go back for it; perhaps because it was an uncommon word, ‘Achor.’ ‘Achor,’ I thought, ‘what a queer word! I wonder what it means.’ And so I turned to the reference and saw in Joshua in the margin, ‘trouble.’ ‘Well, that’s odd,’ I said to myself, ‘the valley of trouble for a door of hope. I’m sure I’m in trouble enough, and yet I don’t see where the hope is coming from.’

“All day long that word ‘Achor’ stuck in my mind. Saturday night I spent nursing my wife and wondering what sort of ‘hope’ there could be for me with the prospect of losing her, for she was very bad that night. In the morning I got a turn out-of-doors, and as I passed an open church door, with service going on, I thought I’d look in and see if I could get any light in my difficulty, how trouble could bring hope. It was late, and the clergyman was in the pulpit, so I don’t know what his text was. He was talking about atheism, and saying that ‘A’ meant ‘without,’ and that without God there was no hope for any man. He then showed that Christ was the hope of every man, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all things. I’d heard lots of similar sermons, but you see I’d got the letter A in my head, having counted so many the day before, and so it struck me as curious that I should hear a sermon which was so much about it, and it made me listen, and there I found hope, for I found my Saviour. He led me through trouble by a way I knew not, and now I feel I can not be silent, but must spend myself for Him. —From “Fragments in Baskets.”