Part 79

A. L. was known to me almost from the beginning of my coming to Bristol, in 1832. She earned her bread by needle-work, by which she gained from two shillings to five shillings per week; the average, I suppose, was not more than three shillings sixpence, as she was weak in body. But I do not remember ever to have heard her utter a word of complaint on account of earning so little. Some time before I had been led to establish an orphan house, her father had died, through which event she had come in possession of four hundred and eighty pounds, which sum had been left to her (and the same amount to her brother and two sisters) by her grandmother, but of which her father had had the interest during his lifetime. The father, who had been much given to drinking, died in debt, which debts the children wished to pay; but the rest, besides A. L., did not like to pay in full, and offered to the creditors twenty-five per cent, which they gladly accepted, as they had not the least legal claim upon the children. After the debts had been paid according to this agreement, sister A. L. said to herself, "However sinful my father may have been, yet he was my father, and as I have the means of paying his debts to the full amount, I ought, as a believing child, to do so, seeing that my brother and sisters will not do it." She then went to all the creditors secretly, and paid the full amount of the debts, which took forty pounds more of her money, besides her share, which she had given before: Her brother and two sisters now gave fifty pounds each of their property to their mother; but A. L. said to herself, "I am a _child of God_; surely I ought to give my mother twice as much as my brothers and sisters." She therefore gave her mother one hundred pounds. Shortly after this she sent me the hundred pounds towards the orphan house. I was not a little surprised when I received this money from her, for I had always known her as a poor girl, and I had never heard anything about her having come into the possession of this money, and her dress had never given me the least indication of an alteration in her circumstances. Before, however, accepting this money from her, I had a long conversation with her, in which I sought to probe her as to her motives, and in which I sought to ascertain whether, as I had feared, she might have given this money in the feeling of the moment, without having counted the cost. But I had not conversed long with this beloved sister, before I found that she was, in this particular, a quiet, calm, considerate follower of the Lord Jesus, and one who desired, in spite of what human reason might say, to act according to the words of our Lord, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." "Sell that ye have, and give alms." When I remonstrated with her, in order that I might see whether she had counted the cost, she said to me, "The Lord Jesus has given his _last_ drop of blood for me, and should I not give him this hundred pounds?" She would also have me take five pounds for the poor saints in communion with us. I mention here particularly that this dear sister kept all these things to herself, and did them as much as possible in secret; and during her lifetime, I suppose, not six brethren and sisters among us knew that she had ever possessed four hundred and eighty pounds, or that she had given one hundred pounds towards the orphan house.