Two men, living in the southern part of Africa, had a quarrel, and became bitter enemies to each other. After a while one of them found a little girl, belonging to his enemy, in the woods, at some distance from her father’s house. He seized her, and cut off two of her fingers; and as he sent her home screaming with her bleeding hands, he cried, “I have had my revenge.”
Years passed away. The little girl had grown up to be a woman. One day there came to her father’s door a poor, worn out old man, who asked for something to eat. She knew him at once as the cruel man who had cut off her fingers. She went into the hut, and ordered the servant to take him bread and milk as much as he could eat, and then sat down and watched him eat it.
When he had finished, she dropped the covering that hid her hands from view, and, holding them up before him, she cried, “I have had my revenge!” The man was overwhelmed with surprise. The secret of it was that in the meantime, the girl had become a Christian, and had learned the meaning of the verse, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” How beautiful the conduct of this injured Christian girl appears, in contrast with that of her heathen enemy. Rom. 12:2020Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. (Romans 12:20).