A DEEPLY interesting circumstance is related in the life of Breutius, the chief reformer of Wurtemberg. Compelled to flee from the rage of persecution, he entered the first house that he found open, went unobserved upstairs to the part under the roof, and creeping on his hands and knees between it and a pile of faggots, sought in one corner a refuge from his enemies. To this place, however, he was pursued; and his feelings must have been indescribable when he heard their spears thrust through the wood-pile that concealed him, and had even to shrink aside from one of the thrusts.
In this situation he continued for fourteen days, and during that time he was sustained by very extraordinary means. On the first day he was there a hen came at noon to a spot near his feet, laid an egg, and then went away quietly, without the peculiar cry made by a hen after depositing her egg, and which in this case might have proved fatal to Breutius. This faithful sufferer for the truth’s sake received the egg as from the hand of God, and ate it with a piece of the single loaf he had brought with him. As long as Breutius remained in this place the hen came daily and laid her egg; and it is equally remarkable that on the day when the Spanish soldiers who were ordered by the Duke of Wurtemberg to take him, dead or alive, left the town, she did not come.
“Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.” Ps. 50:15.
ML 03/28/1909