A Good Fight by Talmage

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 29, 1873

A Good Fight.

By Talmage

It is a sad thing to see a man contending for a livelihood under disadvantages; but to see a delicate woman, with helpless little ones at her back, fighting the giants of poverty and sorrow, is more affecting. It was a humble home; and passers-by knew not that within those four walls were displays of courage more admirable than that of Hannibal crossing the Alps, or in the pass of Thermopylæ, or at Balaklava, where, “into the jaws of death rode the six hundred.” These heroes had the whole world to cheer them on; but there were none to applaud the struggle in that humble home. She fought for bread, for clothing, for fire, for shelter, with aching head, and weak side, and exhausted strength, through the long night, by the brook Jabbok. Could it be that none would give her help? Had God forgotten to be gracious? No! contending soul, the midnight air is full of wings coming to the rescue. She hears it now, in the sough of the night wind, in the ripple of the brook Jabbok—the promise made so long ago, ringing down the sky: “Thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.” Some one said to a very poor woman, “How is it that in such distress you keep cheerful?” She said: “I do it by what I call ‘cross-prayers.’ When I had my rent to pay, and nothing to pay it with, and bread to buy, and nothing to buy it with, I used to sit down and cry. But now I do not get discouraged. If I go along the street, when I come to a corner of a street, I say: ‘The Lord help me.’ I then go on until I come to another crossing of the street, and again I say: ‘The Lord help me.’ And so I utter a prayer at every crossing; and since I have got into the habit of saying these ‘cross-prayers,’ I have been able to keep up my courage.”—Talmage.