A BEAUTIFUL INCIDENT by Missionary Moffat

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 15, 1881

A BEAUTIFUL INCIDENT.

By Missionary Moffat

In one of my early journeys I came, with my companions, to a heathen village on the banks of the Orange river. We had traveled far, and were hungry, thirsty, and fatigued; but the people of the village rather roughly directed us to halt at a distance. We asked for water, but they would not supply it. I offered the three or four buttons left on my jacket for a drink of milk, but was refused. We had the prospect of another hungry night, at a distance from water, though within sight of the river. When twilight drew on, a woman approached from the height beyond which the village lay. She bore on her head a bundle of wood, and had a vessel of milk in her hand. The latter, without opening her lips, she handed to us, laid down the wood, and returned to the village. A second time she approached, with a cooking vessel on her head, a leg of mutton in one hand, and water in the other. She

sat down, without saying a word, prepared the fire, and put on the meat. We asked her again and again who she was. She remained silent, until we affectionately entreated her to give a reason for such unlooked-for kindness to strangers. Then the tears rolled down her sable cheeks, and she replied: "I love Him whose you are; and surely it is my duty to give you a cup of cold water in his name. My heart is full, therefore I can't speak the joy I feel at seeing you in this out-of-the-world place." On learning a little of her history, and that she was a solitary light burning in a dark place, I asked her how she kept up the light of God in the entire absence of the communion of saints. She drew from her bosom a copy of the Dutch New Testament, which she had received from Mr. Helm when in his school some years before. "This," said she, "is the fountain whence I drink; this is the oil that makes my lamp burn." I looked on the precious relic, printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the reader may conceive my joy while we mingled our prayers and sympathies together at the throne of the Heavenly Father.—Missionary Moffat.