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One day a
gentleman called upon an old man and during the talk the old man presented a
lock of hair from the head of some child. The gentleman said to the old man,
"I presume this is a curl cut from the head of some dear child long
since gone to God." "No," replied the old man, "it is a
lock of my own hair and it is now almost seventy years since it was cut from
my head." "But why prize it so highly?" said the man.
"Oh," said the old man, "it speaks to me of God and His care
more than does anything else I possess." Then he related the following:
"When I was a little child four years of age I was standing near my
father watching him chop wood. As he was chopping the splinters flew here and
there; some falling at my feet I picked them up, and in doing so I fell
forward and in a moment my curly head lay upon the log just under the stroke
of the axe. It was too late to stop the blow. Down came the axe. I screamed
and my father fell to the ground in terror. He thought he had killed his boy.
We soon recovered. He took me in his arms and searched my body from head to
foot for the deadly wound he was sure he had inflicted, but not a scar nor a
drop of blood could be found. He then knelt upon the ground and gave thanks
to God for His gracious care. Having done this, he took up his axe and found
a few hairs upon its blade. Then turning to the log he found the curl, which
you now see, sharply cut from my head. How great the escape. The angel of the
Lord had delivered. This lock my father kept all the days of his life, then
left it to me as a memorial of God's faithfulness and care. It tells of my
father's God and mine. I have many tokens of my heavenly Father's love
'during these many years, but somehow this speaks most plainly to my heart.
It used to speak to my father's heart. It now speaks to mine." |
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From:
EFFECTIVE ILLUSTRATIONS By William Moses Tidwell, Printed in U.S.A. 1943,
Beacon Hill Press Kansas City, Mo. |