Six Dollars

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 24, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 42.

EIGHTEEN years ago a home missionary, riding to a distant appointment, met an earnest young man who had prepared himself for college, but saw no way to go. The minister encouraged him, and running over the account of his probable earnings and expense, prophesied a sufficient saving in the intervening weeks to justify a beginning. Just at Christmas time the young man came to the minister to say that the undertaking was hopeless. The mill where he had been working had shut down; there had been unlooked-for expense; he had barely enough left, after buying his clothing, to pay his railroad fare. But the minister, undaunted, said: "If you really mean business, go home, pack your trunk, come back and stay with me to-morrow night, and the next day start for college. I can fit you out with second-hand text-books; I can get you free tuition, and I will loan you six dollars for your first month's board. Saw wood during your spare time the first month; and if you don't earn enough for your second month's board, let me know."

The young man accepted the offer. Then the minister's wife asked, "Where are you to get the six dollars?"

"I have one dollar," said the minister, "and I shall find the rest somehow."

In the post-office that day was a letter, and in the letter a five dollar bill from a remote place where the minister occasionally preached. The woman who sent it said that as she was making up her Christmas gifts she wished to show her gratitude for the occasional religious services, which had been so helpful a reminder of days back East. The minister very rarely received such gifts. He went home, and said to his wife:

"It is a special providence, my dear. It is exactly the sum we lacked." And both rejoiced when the next day they placed the money in the hand of the young man and saw him on the train.

The story of that young man's education would be full of interest. He sawed wood during the school year; he worked as a carpenter during vacation, and found plenty of work in villages springing up along a new railroad. He graduated with no other help from the friend who had sent him to the college than the original six dollars.

Some time afterward the minister was fitting himself out in another and distant field. His work necessitated a weekly drive of nineteen miles and back across bleak prairies. He needed a fur carriage robe. The price was six dollars.

"I will consider it overnight," said the minister; for he did not have six dollars. But on his way home he stopped at the post-office, and found a letter from his friend, the graduate, who had worked late in the fall to clear up all college debts before going into his future duties. In the letter was the six dollars.

"Another providence, my dear!" cried the minister, as he threw the warm fur robe around his wife. And they knelt together and thanked God for it all.

In time the home missionary was called to a larger church, where no cold drive was necessary, and the fur robe was stored in the attic. But one day there came a request for a missionary barrel, and a list of articles needed by a minister with two appointments, miles apart, in a cold and thinly settled region. Then the robe came down from the attic, and was packed in the barrel with the other warm articles.—Anon.