AN INFIDEL by the name of William Hone used to go up and down the country lecturing against the Bible.
One day while traveling through the country he lost his way and he stopped before a poor man's cottage. On the front steps was a little girl reading a book. After inquiring of her the way to a certain place, he picked up the book she was reading and to his surprise he found it was a copy of the New Testament. Throwing it on the ground in disgust he said to her, "How is it that you read such foolish books as this?"
The little girl looked at him with such a feeling of surprise and disappointment. "Oh, Sir," she said, "please don't speak to me like that. Mother is sick in bed and this book is the only comfort we have."
Those words spoken by the little girl set Hone thinking. He said to himself, "Those poor simple folks are in trouble; the mother is sick, the little girl is so young, and yet they have found something real in that Book. They have got something on which to live and die. What could I give them that would be a comfort now or something to rest on in death? All I do is take away people's hopes — no God, no Christ, no heaven, no hell. What have I for myself but nothing, instead of something real?"
William Hone began to study the book, and in the mercy of God he was saved with an everlasting salvation. Now it was his delight to tell others what great things God had done for him. On the flyleaf of his Bible he wrote the following words:
The proudest heart that ever beat Hath been subdued in me.
Have you, dear reader, carefully read and pondered God's blessed Word? Do you take time, when you are alone, to see in it what God's thoughts of sin and salvation are? He loves you, and longs to save you, and to satisfy your heart forever.
Messages of the Love of God 1/5/1975