"No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."

When my father and his brothers travelled about the country, all their families accompanied them. By this time my father had prayed my sisters Emily and Lovinia and my brother Ezekiel into the kingdom. They came in in the order of their ages. I was the next, and in my heart I too was longing for God. My father used to pray continually in my hearing, "Lord, save my Rodney!"

All this time my father was very poor, and one winter at Cambridge we were in the hardest straits. My father was sitting in his van, looking solemn and sad. That day one of my aunts, I knew, had been buying provisions for the Christmas feast on the morrow. This had excited my interest, and, boy-like, I wanted to know what we were going to have for Christmas, and I asked my father. "I do not know, my dear," he said quietly. There was nothing in the house and he had no money. Then the devil came and tempted him. His fiddle was hanging on the wall, and he looked at it desperately and thought to himself, "If I just take down my fiddle and go to a public-house and play to the people there, my children too will have a good Christmas dinner." But the temptation was very soon overcome. My father fell on his knees and began to pray. He thanked God for all His goodness to him, and when he arose from his knees he said to his children, "I don't know quite what we shall have for Christmas, but we will sing." He began to sing with a merry heart –

"In some way or other

The Lord will provide:

It may not be my way,

It may not be thy way;

But yet in His own way

The Lord will provide."

Just then, while we were singing, there was a knock at the door of the van.

"Who is there?" cried my father. It was the old Cambridge town missionary, Mr. Sykes.

"It is I, Brother Smith. God is good, is He not? I have come to tell you how the Lord will provide. In a shop in this town there are three legs of mutton and groceries waiting for you and your brothers."

A wheelbarrow was needed to bring home the store. The brothers never knew who gave them these goods. But the Word of God was verified:

"No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."

From: Gypsy Smith (1860-1947) His Life & Work By Himself

First Printed in 1901 in London as a 363-page book.

From: http://www.biblebelievers.com/

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