Help for the Helpless

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 7, 1873

Help for the Helpless.

During those years of terrible war, in which God was scourging this people for their sins, while his hand smote the nation for its crimes, it sustained the poor and needy, in the sufferings which they were called to pass through. Often, while deprived of their natural protectors, the feeble and the helpless found mercy and grace in the sight of the Lord. A little boy, whose father was in the confederate army—leaving his family with nothing to depend upon but the scanty wages of a soldier, paid in a currency which depreciated till it was almost worthless,—marking how many times in the hour of their extremity, the providence of God interposed to supply their wants, said to his mother one day,

“Mother, I believe God always hears when we scrape the bottom of the barrel.” And the experience of that little boy was the experience of many others, both north and south.

The following incident in illustration of this statement we give as related by an esteemed Christian friend, who loves to record the mercies of the Lord in her behalf.

“About the month of January, 1863, I was living in D., in Connecticut, alone, with two little boys, one of them four years of age and the other about a year and a half old. My husband was away, in the United States service. When the coldest of the weather came, I was nearly out of wood. I went down into the street to try and obtain some, but tried for a long time in vain. As help was scarce, there was but little wood coming into market, and those living on the main street would get all that came in, while those living outside the village could get none. I tried to buy a quarter of a cord of two or three merchants, but could not get any. One of them told me he could not get what he wanted for his own family. Another said he could not yoke up a team for so little; and as I had but a dollar and seventy-five cents, I was unable to purchase more, and so had to go without. I went home with my little ones, feeling very sad; and while sitting there and meditating, the thought suddenly came to me that the Lord withholds no good thing from those that love him. I went directly and asked the Lord for some wood; and I then went to the window, and waited, looking down the street expecting to see the wood coming. After waiting awhile, my faith began to fail, for I think I had put the last stick of wood into the stove; so I went and got the children’s clothes, and some water and a towel, to wash and prepare them to go to the house of Brother E. B., a man of God who lived in a neighboring village, for I knew that I could stay there until the Lord sent the wood.

I still kept looking down the street; and before I got the little ones washed, I saw the top of a great load of wood coming toward my little house. I was then puzzled to know what to do about the pay, for I well knew that a dollar and seventy-five cents would not pay for all that wood. The two yoke of oxen came dragging the load up to the door, and I asked the man if there was not some mistake, and told him that I had not money enough to pay for all that wood. He told me that the wood was paid for, and took off his cattle from the load, and took a bag of hay from the wagon, fed his oxen, called for an axe and saw, and went to work cutting up the wood. This was more than I could bear, and I began to cry like a baby. I was so ashamed of my former life, and I promised to live more faithful henceforth. I thought I would never distrust the power of God again; for I knew he had an especial watch-care over his children. I had asked for a little wood, and he had sent me a large load, all paid; and then and there I learned to believe that precious promise, “Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

About six months after the wood came, I found out who paid for it. It was a good man, who heard me ask for a quarter of a cord of wood, and he knew I would have asked for more, if I had had money to pay for it. So he purchased and sent it to me, and waited for his pay until the weather was warm and I had opportunity to repay him his outlay.”—E. J. P., in The Christian.