A Christian Lady | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 9, 1872

A Christian Lady.

SOME years since, a lady was on her way to a southern plantation, to assume the duties of a teacher. At a distance of a hundred miles from her home, she was met by the gentleman in whose family she was to reside. He had come to accompany her thither, and the kindness and cordiality of his greeting showed the true southern gentleman.

They traveled pleasantly on through the luxuriant forests, whose rich undergrowth of flowering shrubs is always so striking to a northern eye, till the night came on. The next morning was the day she esteemed as Sabbath, the day of holy rest. But to her astonishment the lady found her escort preparing to continue his journey as if it were any other day. Here was an unexpected trial of her Christian firmness. What should she do? Should she timidly compromise her principles and yield to the wishes of her companion? It was easy to see that there lay beneath his gentlemanly bearing a quick and somewhat haughty spirit. Alone, in a strange land, should she run the hazard of offending her only protector by what would seem to him fanatical obstinacy? Though sensitive and shrinking, Miss G. was a Christian, and she felt there was but one simple course to be pursued, namely, to do right, and leave the results with Him who overrules all. She expressed her unwillingness to travel on the Sabbath. The gentleman appeared somewhat irritated, and announced an intention of going on himself, to which she replied: “I am not afraid to travel alone, but I am afraid to break God’s law, and must remain here till to-morrow.”

The firmness of this answer struck him, and he was, years afterward, heard to say, “From that moment I felt a genuine respect for Miss G. I was sure that one so true to her religious convictions would be equally true to any trust imposed in her.”

Miss G. filled, in after life, a large sphere of usefulness in one of our northern cities. If, like her, all Christians were firm in the hour of trial, even the worldly would respect their consistency, whereas the vacillating, yielding spirit so often exhibited by professors of religion, receives the just reward of contempt from those they most wish to propitiate.