Power of the Bible

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 28, 1879

Power of the Bible.

At a recent meeting in London, the Rev. Dr. Moffat, the celebrated African Missionary, who is now over eighty years of age, related the following anecdotes: Some time after the gospel had been preached among the Bechuanas, and converts had been made, I met an elderly man who looked very downcast. He had quite an elongated countenance, such as I had never seen him with before. I said to him, "My friend, what is the matter; who is dead?" "Oh," said he, "there is no one dead." "Well, what is the matter? You seem to be mourning." The man then scratched his head, and said, "My son tells me that my dog has eaten a leaf of the Bible." "Well, what of that," I said. "Perhaps I can replace it." "Oh," said the man, "the dog will never be any good; he will never bite anybody; he will never catch any jackals; he will be as tame as I see the people become who believe in that book. All our warriors become as gentle as women and my dog is done for."

There was a man in the congregation over which I was pastor, in the country where I labored, and he had conceived a bitter hatred of me, which burnt like fire in his breast. The cause was this: he had observed that the people who received my testimony became quite other creatures, and he could not comprehend what kind of medicine I used in order to produce the change. The general testimony borne in answer to his inquiries was, "Oh, Moffat has got his medicine out of the book; that is the medicine that changes men's hearts into women's hearts." The man continued to hate me, and he would have given anything to get me cut off. If I met him by chance in a narrow lane or in any hole or corner, he would get out of the way.

On one occasion when I thus met him in a lane, I saw him a long way off. He could not turn to the right or to the left. I thought to myself, "Have you found me, O my enemy?" There was no alternative for him but to come forward. Of course, I was not going to turn back. When he came a little nearer he shouted in the Bechuana language, "Look away from me." Then he came nearer and nearer, until he came within ten or twelve paces, and he roared out again, "Look away from me." When he came close to me, I said to him, "My good friend, what is all this about?" smiling at him at the time. "Why do you want me to look away? I can look at you and you can look at me." He then dropped his spear and shield, and called out, "Forgive me, my lord, forgive me." I grasped his hands at once. "Forgive you!" I said; "with all my heart I have forgiven you." He again repeated, imploringly, "Forgive me." I said, "What have you done? I have forgiven you whatever you intended to do or whatever you have done."

He said, "If I had had my will, you would have been long since dead. I have waylaid you, with that spear, when you knew it not, but I dared not throw it. When you returned from visiting the sick during the midnight hour, I had my bow and arrow, and I could have shot you, and you would not have known where it came from; but I dared not, I could not."