“HAVE you never heard the story of old Betty?” said I to a friend who was telling me some sad history of domestic discomfort. — “No!”
Then let me tell it you. The story was told me by a young lady whom I met at the sea side; and though I believe it has appeared in print, I know no other version of it but the one she told me.
“Some years after I was converted,” said Miss F—, “it pleased the Lord to lay me aside from active occupation, and to confine me to a sick couch for full two years. This inactivity was very grievous to me, and my constant prayer was for restoration to health, and power once more to go about visiting the sick and teaching the ignorant.
“When visited by kind Christian ministers and sympathizing friends, my constant request was that they would pray for my recovery, and that I might have faith to believe that the Lord would heal me.
“Still I grew no better. About the end of the second year, I one afternoon received a visit from a minister unknown to me, who in God’s providence was then visiting the place where I lived. He read and prayed with me, he sympathized with my sufferings, and listened to my troubles. I lamented to him my weak faith, which I felt assured was the cause of my continued weakness of body.
“‘Miss F—,’ replied the minister, ‘have you never heard the story of Betty, the old match-seller?’ I had not. ‘Old Betty,’ said he, was brought to the knowledge of Jesus in her old age, and from the time of her conversion never thought she could do enough for Him who had loved her and washed her from her sins in His own blood. She went about doing good. She was ready to speak of her Lord and Master to all she met. She would nurse the sick, visit the afflicted, beg for the poor and for the heathen; she, would give to those poorer than herself portions of what the kindness of Christian friends bestowed on her. In short, she was always abounding in the work of the Lord.
“‘But in the midst of this happy course, she caught a violent cold and rheumatism, and was confined to her bed; there she lay day after day, and week after week, and I believe lay there till the Lord called her home.
“‘On her sick bed, Betty was as happy as she had been in her active duties; she was much in prayer; she repeated hymns and passages of Scripture; she meditated on the good things she had learned, and on the home to which she was hastening.
“‘One day Betty. was visited by an old friend, a minister, who had long known her. He was astonished to see his once active and useful old neighbor so happy in her bed, and he said to her, “I little expected, Betty, to see you so patient; it must be a great trial to one of your active mind to lie here so long doing nothing.”
“‘Not at all, sir, not at all,’ said old Betty; ‘when I was well I used to hear the Lord say to me day by day, ‘Betty, go here; Betty, go there: Betty, do this; Betty, do that;’ and I used to do it as well as I could; and now I hear Him say every day, ‘Betty, lie still and cough.’”
Miss F— told me this story as she heard it from her visitor, and she said it had a very strong effect on her mind. She began to think that it was self-will, rather than faith, that made her so anxious to get well and be active again; and she humbled herself before God, begging for grace to bear His will rather than seek her own. She became tranquil, happy, and contented on her sick bed, and almost immediately after it pleased the Lord to restore her to health, and continue her in it to the time when I met her.
“Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.” “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
ML 06/15/1902