Asa and Ira | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 28, 1858

Asa and Ira.

Asa and Ira were two brothers, whose farms lay side by side in a fertile vale.

When the corn, the oats and the barley were springing up, the weeds took advantage of the rich soil and came up with them.

"Do you see," said Asa, "what hold the weeds are taking? There is danger of their choking our crops entirely."

"Well, well, we must be resigned," replied Ira; "weeds as well as grain were a part of the Creator's plan, and there is no use in murmuring about them."

And he laid down for his afternoon doze.

"I can only be resigned to what I cannot help," said Asa. So he went to work and hoed until his fields were clear of weeds.

"The army worms are in the neighborhood," said Asa to Ira one day. "They have eaten through the adjoining meadows, and are moving rapidly toward us."

"Ah," exclaimed Ira, "they will surely destroy what the weeds have not choked out. I will immediately retire and pray that their course may be stopped or turned aside."

But Asa replied, "I pray betimes every morning for strength to do the work of the day."

And he hastened to dig a trench around his land—while Ira returned only in season to save a small portion of his crops from their ravages.

"Do you see, Ira," said Asa, another morning, "the river is rising very fast. There is but a slender chance of preventing our farms from being overflowed."

"Alas, it is a judgment upon us for our sins, and what can we do?" cried Ira throwing himself in despair on the ground.

"There are no judgments so severe as those which our own sloth brings upon us," said Asa.

And he went quickly and hired workmen, with whose help he raised an embankment that withstood the flood, while Ira witnessed with blank looks and folded hands the destruction of his harvest.

"There is one consolation," said he, "my children at least are left me."

While Asa's sons grew up strong and virtuous men, among Ira's there was a drunkard, a gambler, and a suicide.

"The ways of the Lord are not equal," complained Ira to his brother. "Why are you always prospered, while I am afflicted, and my old age disgraced?"

"I only know this," replied Asa, "that heaven has always helped me to treat the faults of my children, as I did the weeds, the caterpillars and the flood; and that I have never presumed to send a petition upward without making my toil, my right hand servant a messenger of my prayer."—Sel.