I happened to be standing in a grocer's shop one
day in a large manufacturing town in the west of Scotland, when a poor, old,
frail widow came in to make a few purchases. There never was, perhaps, in that
town a more severe time of distress. Nearly every loom was stopped. Decent and
respectable tradesmen, who had seen better days, were obliged to subsist on
public charity. So much money per day (but a trifle at most) was allowed to the
really poor and deserving. The poor widow had received her daily pittance, and
she had now come into the shop of the grocer to lay it out to the best
advantage. She had but a few coppers in her withered hands. Carefully did she
expend her little stock— a pennyworth of this and the other necessary of life
nearly exhausted all she had. She came to the last penny, and with a singular
expression of heroic contentment and cheerful resignation on her wrinkled face,
she said, "Now I must buy oil with this, that I may see to read my Bible
during these long dark nights, for it is my only comfort now when every other
comfort has gone away." — Alexander Wallace, in "The
Bible and the Working Classes, " 1853.
Quoted in the additional notes to Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David.
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