An Apt Reply | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 13, 1859

An Apt Reply.

A NATIVE deacon, named Hagop, now has the charge of the Protestant Armenian church at Trebizond, in Asia Minor, as there is no missionary there. Mr. Wheeler of Kharpoot says of this man, that he has good abilities, an excellent judgment, a good knowledge of the Bible, and a pleasing address. To show his shrewd quickness in reply, he relates the following anecdote:

Some years since, the deacon was employed by an English mercantile house in Samsun, and was required to work on the Sabbath. This he steadily refused to do. His employer used all his ingenuity to convince him that it was necessary and right to do so then.

"What!" said he one day, "if an ass fall into a pit on the Sabbath, does not even the Saviour say that it is right to pull him out?"

"Certainly," said Hagop, "but if an ass has a habit of going every Sabbath and falling into the same pit, then his owner ought either to fill up the pit, or sell the ass."—Sel.