MARY Jones lived many years ago in a village of Wales. Her father was a weaver, a kind honest man, who worked all day at his loom making cloth. The mother helped weave. Yet because in those days the work was slow and the pay small, together they earned barely enough for each day’s needs.
When a little child Mary learned to do many tasks about the house and when older to weed the garden, feed the chickens, and care for the bees. She was a happy little girl, who loved her home and the country round. She liked to look from their cottage door up the steep bluffs to Cader Idris or down the pretty valley to Cardigan Bay.
What she enjoyed most of all, was after the day’s work was done, her father would sit and tell her stories of Joseph, Moses, or Daniel, or of the Lord Jesus feeding the hungry people or healing the sick and lame. He could not read the stories, because they had no Bible. Books were too expensive in those days, and very few people could read or write. It was not until Mary was ten years old that a school was started in her village, where she quickly learned to read.
Then there was something which Mary wished for every day. It was to have a BIBLE of her very own so she might read it for herself. One day she decided to try and earn some money to buy one. She told her father her plan, and he made a little box in which she kept whatever she earned. Usually it was but a penny at a time, for minding a neighbor’s baby, or washing dishes. As she grew older and could help with harder tasks and could mend neatly, she received a little more pay. It was six years working and waiting before enough lay in the little box to buy a Welsh Bible.
The nearest place where a Bible could be bought was twenty-five miles away, and the only way Mary could go was walk. Her parents gave their consent to the long journey, committing her into the Lord’s loving care.
Early one spring morning Mary started out barefooted, with her shoes in a bag over her shoulder only to be worn when the town should be reached. The road was rough and hilly, but she felt happy and there was much to see and enjoy. At noon she sat under a tree to eat her lunch, and soon started on again.
It was a very weary little girl who late that evening knocked on the door of the house where she had been directed, and they kindly lodged her there for the night.
Next morning she joyfully exchanged her long saved money for a Bible, and with it held tightly to her heart, started to walk home. She arrived safely that night, tired, but happy to share her much loved Book with her father and mother.
Mary never tired of her Bible. The more she read the more she prized it, and learned to repeat many verses and even chapters.
In her Bible she read how the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, had borne the punishment of sin when He died on the cross at Calvary, and that God waits to freely forgive all who trust in Him. That is why Mary valued God’s Word above anything else and why it made her so happy to read it.
ML-02/18/1962