THIS GREAT MAN DESCENDED FROM IGNOBLE
PARENTS—BORN IN POVERTY—HIS EDUCATION AND EVIL HABITS—FOLLOWS HIS FATHER'S
BUSINESS AS A BRAZIER—ENLISTS AS A SOLDIER—RETURNS FROM THE WARS AND OBTAINS
AN AMIABLE, RELIGIOUS WIFE—HER DOWER.
'We have this
treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God,
and not of us.'—2 Cor 4:7
'For my thoughts are
not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.'—Isaiah 55:8.
'Though ye have lien
among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and
her feathers with yellow gold.'—Psalm 68:13.
When the Philistine
giant, Goliath, mocked the host of Israel and challenged any of their stern
warriors to single combat, what human being could have imagined that the
gigantic heathen would be successfully met in the mortal struggle by a youth
'ruddy and of a fair countenance?' who unarmed, except with a sling and a
stone, gave the carcasses of the hosts of the Philistines to the fouls of the
air, and to the wild beasts of the earth.'
Who, upon seeing an
infant born in a stable, and laid in a manger, or beholding him when a youth
working with his father as a carpenter, could have conceived that he was the
manifestation of the Deity in human form, before whom every knee should bow,
and every tongue confess Him to be THE ETERNAL?
Father Michael, a
Franciscan friar, on a journey to Ancona, having lost his way, sought direction
from a wretched lad keeping hogs—deserted, forlorn, his back smarting with
severe stripes, and his eyes suffused with tears. The poor ragged boy not only
went cheerfully with him to point out his road, but besought the monk to take
him into his convent, volunteering to fulfill the most degrading services, in
the hope of procuring a little learning, and escaping from 'those filthy hogs.'
How incredulously would the friar have listened to anyone who could have
suggested that this desolate, tattered, dirty boy, might and would fill a
greater than an imperial throne! Yet, eventually, that swine herd was clothed in
purple and fine linen, and, under the title of Pope Sixtus V., became one of
those mighty magicians who are described in Rogers Italy, as
'Setting
their feet upon the necks of kings,
And through the worlds subduing, chaining down
The free, immortal spirit—theirs a wondrous spell.'
A woman that was 'a
loose and ungodly wretch' hearing a tinker lad most awfully cursing and
swearing, protested to him that 'he swore and cursed at that most fearful rate
that it made her tremble to hear him,' 'that he was the ungodliest fellow for
swearing that ever she heard in all her life,' and 'that he was able to spoil
all the youth in a whole town if they came in his company.' This blow at the
young reprobate made that indelible impression that all the sermons yet he had
heard had failed to make. Satan, by one of his own slaves, wounded a conscience
that had resisted all the overtures of mercy. The youth pondered her words in
his heart; they were good seed strangely sown, and their working formed one of
those mysterious steps which led the foul-mouthed blasphemer to bitter
repentance; who, when he had received mercy and pardon, felt impelled to bless
and magnify the Divine grace with shining, burning thoughts and words. The poor
profligate, swearing tinker became transformed into the most ardent preacher of
the love of Christ—the well-trained author of The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or
Good News to the Vilest of Men.
How often have the Saints of God been made a most unexpected blessing to others? The good seed of Divine truth has been many times sown by those who did not go out to sow, but who were profitably engaged in cultivating their own graces, enjoying the communion of Saints, and advancing their own personal happiness! Think of a few poor, but pious happy women, sitting in the sun one beautiful summer's day, before one of their cottages, probably each one with her pillow on her lap, dexterously twisting the bobbins to make lace, the profits of which helped to maintain their children. While they are communing on the things of God, a traveling tinker draws near, and, over-hearing their talk, takes up a position where he might listen to their converse while he pursued his avocation.
Their
words distill into his soul; they speak the language of Canaan; they talk of holy
enjoyments, the result of being born again, acknowledging their miserable state
by nature, and how freely and undeservedly God had visited their hearts with
pardoning mercy, and supported them while suffering the assaults and
suggestions of Satan; how they had been borne up in every dark, cloudy, stormy
day; and how they contemned, slighted, and abhorred their own righteousness as
filthy and insufficient to do them any good. The learned discourses our tinker
had heard at church had casually passed over his mind like evanescent clouds and left little or no lasting impression. But these poor women, 'methought they
spake as actually did make them speak; they speak with such pleasant as of
Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that
they were to me as if they had found a new world, as if they were people that
dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned among their neighbors' (Num 23:9).
O! how little did
they imagine that their pious converse was to be the means employed by the Holy
Spirit in the conversion of that poor tinker, and that, by their agency, he was
to be transformed into one of the brightest luminaries of heaven; who, when he
had entered into rest would leave his works to follow him as spiritual thunder
to pierce the hearts of the impenitent, and as heavenly consolation to bind up
the broken-hearted; liberating the prisoners of Giant Despair, and directing
the pilgrims to the Celestial City. Thus were blessings in rich abundance
showered down upon the church by the instrumentality, in the first instance, of
a woman that was a sinner, but most eminently by the Christian converse of a
few poor but pious women.
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