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DID NOT KNOW IT WAS THERE

A well-to-do deacon in Connecticut was one morning accosted by his pastor, who said: “Poor widow Green’s wood is out. Can you not take her a cord?” “Well,” answered the deacon, “I have the wood and I have the team, but who is to pay me for it?” The pastor, somewhat vexed, replied, “I will pay you for it, on the condition that you will read the first three verses of the forty-first Psalm before you go to bed to-night.” The deacon consented, delivered the wood, and at night opened the Word of God and read the passage: “Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, and he shall be blessed upon the earth; and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing; thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.”

A few days afterward the pastor met him again. “How much do I owe you, deacon, for that cord of wood?” “Oh!” said the now enlightened man, “do not speak of payment; I did not know those promises were in the Bible. I would not take money for supplying the old widow’s wants.”

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— January, 1884 —