WHEN I was a very little child, my grandmother, who was a Roman Catholic, gave me my first lessons on religion out of a large French pictorial Bible, which was given to my mother, and which she made good use of, by God’s grace, as, some time before my lessons began, she died in peace, trusting in Jesus only. As I could not then read, my grandmother explained the pictures, and told me the stories of the Bible so beautifully, that I was delighted with them. After some years one of my grand-aunts, who was a very devout Roman Catholic, asked me, as a favor, to lend her my pictorial Bible for the rest of her life. She read it constantly, and to such purpose, that when she came to die, she also, to the astonishment of her friends, left this world joyfully and triumphantly, saying she was going to a better land, to be with Jesus.
The Bible then lay comparatively useless for a few years; but one day I received a letter from my cousin in Canada, saying that his children had begged of him to lend them my Bible, which he had charge of, and that they were so interested in its contents, that he hoped I would not object to their having it. I wrote at once, to say that I begged he would accept it as a remembrance from me, and that I trusted the old pictorial Bible might be blessed to all their souls, and bring them to a true and saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus. As my cousin was a devout Roman Catholic, I felt it a privilege and duty to offer it to him.
The lessons I was taught as a child out of that old book were the first that interested me in the things of God. When I grew older, I began to search for myself, and afterward, by His grace, I was induced to try and make known to the Italian navvies and soldiers the blessed truths which are able to make wise unto salvation, through faith which in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:1515And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:15)).