A MOTHER AND CHILDREN IN GREAT WANT—THE MOTHER'S FAITH—HER PRAYER—IS PROVIDED WITH MONEY IN A MYSTERIOUS WAY.
In the year 1864, a little boy named Charles lived with his mother and sister in the city of C——, near the central part of the State of Indiana. His father and elder brother had enlisted in the army, then fighting for the Union. Charles was but four years of age, not large enough to earn anything, and their daily food depended upon what his mother earned by her hard day's labor.
It was in the winter season. Times were hard, and growing worse every day, and the people had but little for the mother to do. It was with great difficulty that she earned enough for herself and children to live upon.
One morning she went out in the cold wintry blast and gathered bark from the fence rails to keep her children from suffering with the severe cold, and at breakfast she gave them the last crust of bread that was in the house, not eating any herself. Then she went out into the city to seek something to do to earn some more bread for her little ones. But after a long search she returned, very tired, both in body and mind, without accomplishing her object.
The poor woman sat down and wept bitterly. Her children were crying for bread, and she had none to give them. But when they again asked her for bread she said to them, "The Lord will provide."
Presently she knelt down, her bosom swelling with grief, and asked the Lord to spare her children's lives.
Then rising to her feet, she thought of some carpet rags she had put into a barrel just the day before, and decided to take them to a store and see if she could sell them for some bread.
Just as she turned the barrel up-side down, to empty out the rags, she said in a tone of motherly kindness: "Dear children, do not cry; the Lord will not let us starve." Then she turned the barrel back, and, on looking into it, what do you suppose greeted her eyes?
It was something that made her countenance beam with gladness and her eyes dance with joy, and she exclaimed, "The Lord will provide! Blessed be the name of the Lord!"
It was a dollar bill. It had never been lost there, because she had washed out the barrel the day she put the rags into it. But how it got there I will leave you to form your own opinion. Suffice it to say, that it was neither in the rags nor barrel the day before.