FAR away in one of the Western States a man used to go about selling Bibles and Testaments. Sometimes he was warmly welcomed at the lonely farms and homesteads; at others he was told that books of his sort were not wanted there.
One day a farmer asked him if he knew a settler nearby who delighted to talk against the Bible, and those who believed in it. The colporter took down the name and address, and before long called at the settlement.
He found the wife busy hanging out clothes, and she seemed pleased to chat with him. After a little conversation he offered her a nicely bound Bible, telling her not to trouble about paying for it, if she would like to have it. She received it with pleasure, saving if her husband would allow her, she would be delighted to keep it.
At this moment her husband came from back of the log house, carrying a large axe over his shoulder, and seeing the Bible in his wife’s hand, asked roughly,
“Whatever do you mean by bringing-such rubbish here?”
God’s servant answered gently, and although John M— became very angry, he spoke in such a frank and manly way that the settler did not return the book, but let him go off with a scowl.
As soon as the colporter’s back was turned John seized the Bible from his wife’s hand, saying:
“Up to now we’ve had everything in common, so we’ll share this, too.”
Opening the Bible, and placing it on a block, he chopped it into two parts with one blow of his axe. Giving one piece to his wife, and putting the other part into his pocket, he walked off.
Several days afterward he was in the forest hewing timber. At noon he sat on a log to eat his dinner, and feeling for a knife in one of his large pockets his hand struck the Book. He took it out, and before he knew what he was doing, he was deep in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke, and in the parable of the prodigal son.
“What a wonderful account it is!” he said to himself. He read of the father’s home; of the son turning his back on all the love, peace, and plenty of that home; of his wandering off to the far-off land; then of his losing his money by wrong living, and being actually in want, and near starvation; how he thought of his home and of his father, and how then went up his cry, “I will arise and go to my father,” and then—
Ah, he couldn’t tell what happened then, though he longed to know, for just at that point the story had been cut into by the angry blow of his axe, and he could read no further.
He returned to his work, but those eight words rang on and on in his ears, and he found himself murmuring,
“Bother that axe; if it hadn’t been for it, I should have known what happened next.”
It was the axe, not himself he blamed!
When he returned home he determined not to let his wife know how he was longing for her portion of the Bible. They had supper, and while she washed the dishes, he said, carelessly—
“I say, wife, if you’ve got your part of that there Bible handy I shouldn’t mind having a look at it; I’ve nothing to read.”
Mrs. M— was a wise woman, so said nothing, but quietly handed him her portion, and went to bed early. Far on into the night John read. And next morning his wife saw that he had in a rough way joined the two parts together. Through that day and the next, in every leisure moment, he was reading, reading. Still Mrs. M. wisely made no remark. The next evening he said, suddenly,
“Wife, I think that’s the best book I ever read.”
Day after day passed, and still John seemed to be reading’ as for his life. At last, one evening, he put down the patched Bible, and said:
“I give in at last! By God’s help I’m going to try to live by that Book. I’ve despised it. I’ve sworn at it I’ve insulted it; but now the sword of God’s Word has pierced to my very heart. It has taught me what a sinner I am. But it has also given me a hope that there is pardon even for me.”
His wife quietly clasped his hand, whispering,
“I, too, long to know more about it all.”
Her husband smiled at her as he had rarely done even in their courting days, as he said,
“We’ll take it, won’t we Kitty, both of us together, from this day forward, as the guide of our lives? And, pray God to help us, we’ll live by it.”
“We will,” answered his wife. “O, fohn, this is a glad night!”
“Aye, it is,” he said, “and I believe it will be the beginning of brighter days to us. I’ve read things the last three weeks in that Book that have fair amazed me.”
“What about?” asked his wife.
“About all that God says He will do for those who serve Him. I couldn’t ever believe such things could ever be for the likes of me, till He seemed to keep pointing me to the hits that told so plain that He began it all by giving us the Lord Jesus as our Saviour and forgiving our sins.”
“And to think you found it all in the book you chopped in two!” said his wife.
“O, but shame I ever did such a thing,” replied her husband. “The very first day I can rightly leave, I’ll ride over to the town and get it mended the best way money can do.”
“Would you like a new one better?” suggested his wife.
“No, let’s keep to this, Kitty, if you don’t mind. No other could be to me what this has already become, and it will help to keep me humble to remember what I dared to do to it with my axe.”
“And I’d rather keep to it, too,” said his wife. “But I’ll tell you what, John, when you go to town, you get us two nice strong little Testaments, that we can carry in our pockets, just to read out of at odd times; you, while you’re in the woods, and I, while I’m about my work.”
“Grand idea, Kitty,” said the husband, “And I must bring a few bits of ribbon for markers. That there Bible has got at least twenty pages turned down at the corners, where I’ve found verses to study out again.”
Mrs. M— said thoughtfully,
“The good man who brought it here, said that he would ask God the Holy Spirit to make it a blessing to us.”
“So he did,” answered her husband. “I was too angry to remember much that he said; but I’m sure God has answered his prayer.”
For many years John and Katherine M—’s lives and the lives of those about them were richly blessed by the truths learned out of the Bible that was chopped in two by an axe.
You who have read the story above have never dared think of cutting into a Bible. Yet if unsaved you are guilty before God of the worst sin of all, the rejection of Christ. Do this very moment recognize your lost condition, and find in the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son a full, free and immediate salvation.
ML 09/10/1933