IT was on a fine morning in the month of May, says a correspondent of an American publication, I left the dwelling of a friend residing in the great valley of Virginia, and took a ride for the benefit of my health. I followed the course of a small stream for some miles, without seeing the habitation of man: at length I espied, near the end of the valley, and at the foot of a mountain, an aged negro at work on a small farm. His head was whitened with age, and the deep wrinkles in his face and a stoop in his shoulders indicated that he had seen many years and suffered many hardships. Glad to see and converse with a human being after my solitary ramble, I alighted from my horse, and addressed him as follows: —
“You seem to be enduring the curse pronounced on fallen man — getting your bread by the sweat of your brow.”
“Ah, massa,” said he, “I have no reason to complain, I have a great many blessings left yet. I have Jesus Christ and his gospel; and that is enough for poor old Moses.”
“As you seem to be quite shut out from the world here, I suppose you have but few temptations?”
“Ah, massa,” said he, “wherever I go I carry this bad heart with me,” putting his hand to his breast; “and that it is which lets in the world. I have to pray against the world at night, and in the morning, and then I have to fight against it all day. The devil can get up here in these mountains as well as anywhere else, for you know he tempted our Saviour on a mountain.”
“My good old friend, you seem to have been long a pilgrim to the heavenly country?”
“For forty years,” said he, “I have found that the Lord has been good to me, and that he who trusts in the Saviour shall never be moved.”
“But are you never tempted to forsake the Saviour?”
“I know that my heart is very deceitful, and Satan keeps trying to get old Moses; but my Master in heaven says, ‘By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.’ This is my hope, that He who has begun a good work will finish it. When you plant corn, massa, you don’t go away and leave it to let the birds pull it up, or the grass and the weeds to kill it; so, when God plants the good seed in the sinner’s heart, he does not go away and leave it to die.”
“You say you are tempted sometimes?”
“Yes, massa, sometimes the devil will come and ‘whisper in my ear, Moses, you serve a hard Master; he sends sickness and poverty, and trouble; he sends the fly, and kill all your wheat;’ but I say devil liar, he is no bad Master; for He knocked at the door of my heart, and I would not let Him in; and then He knocked again and again, till I was obliged to open the door; and ever since I have found Him to be good. He has bound up my heart when it was broken, He has come to my bed when I was sick, He has not cast me off because I was poor and old and did not love Him as much as I ought; and then He died for poor Moses’ soul. Oh, no! He is not a bad Master. He may take away my wife and my children; He may burn my house, and lay me on a sick bed, and smite me with His own dear hand; still I would love Him, and say it was all for good.”
As he said this, a silent tear stole down his cheek. I could not help saying to myself, “What would I give for such tears and for such heavenly gratitude which seem to dwell in the heart of this pious old negro!”
“You have preaching here, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said he, “and sometimes when I go to preaching, my heart feels cold and dead; but then the minister preaches so good, that my soul gets happy, and then the Bible preach, and woods preach, and everything preach; and when my hand is at the plough my soul is in heaven.”
“You have a Bible, then?”
“Yes, I have; I learned to read thirty years ago, and now, when it rains all day on a Sunday, I read, and sing, and pray; and find that Jesus Christ can come to the ugly cabin of poor Moses.”
I bade the old man farewell, with a confident hope of meeting him in heaven. I afterwards learned that he was remarkably punctual in attending Divine worship, and was considered by the congregation to which he belonged, as remarkable for piety.