_W.A._--My dear, I bow my knees in token of my submission to Him that
made me: I said O to Him, as you call it, and as your old men do to their
idol Benamuckee; that is, I prayed to Him.
_Wife_.--What say you O to Him for?
_W.A._--I prayed to Him to open your eyes and your understanding, that
you may know Him, and be accepted by Him.
_Wife_.--Can He do that too?
_W.A._--Yes, He can: He can do all things.
_Wife_.--But now He hear what you say?
_W.A._--Yes, He has bid us pray to Him, and promised to hear us.
_Wife_.--Bid you pray? When He bid you? How He bid you? What you hear
Him speak?
_W.A._--No, we do not hear Him speak; but He has revealed Himself many
ways to us.
[Here he was at a great loss to make her understand that God has revealed
Himself to us by His word, and what His word was; but at last he told it
to her thus.]
_W.A._--God has spoken to some good men in former days, even from heaven,
by plain words; and God has inspired good men by His Spirit; and they
have written all His laws down in a book.
_Wife_.--Me no understand that; where is book?
_W.A._--Alas! my poor creature, I have not this book; but I hope I shall
one time or other get it for you, and help you to read it.
[Here he embraced her with great affection, but with inexpressible grief
that he had not a Bible.]
_Wife_.--But how you makee me know that God teachee them to write that
book?
_W.A._--By the same rule that we know Him to be God.
_Wife_.--What rule? What way you know Him?
_W.A._--Because He teaches and commands nothing but what is good,
righteous, and holy, and tends to make us perfectly good, as well as
perfectly happy; and because He forbids and commands us to avoid all that
is wicked, that is evil in itself, or evil in its consequence.
_Wife_.--That me would understand, that me fain see; if He teachee all
good thing, He makee all good thing, He give all thing, He hear me when I
say O to Him, as you do just now; He makee me good if I wish to be good;
He spare me, no makee kill me, when I no be good: all this you say He do,
yet He be great God; me take, think, believe Him to be great God; me say
O to Him with you, my dear.
Here the poor man could forbear no longer, but raised her up, made her
kneel by him, and he prayed to God aloud to instruct her in the knowledge
of Himself, by His Spirit; and that by some good providence, if possible,
she might, some time or other, come to have a Bible, that she might read
the word of God, and be taught by it to know Him. This was the time that
we saw him lift her up by the hand, and saw him kneel down by her, as
above.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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