‘Nancy,’ he said, one morning, ‘all night long I’ve had a text ringing in my head, ‘You cannot serve God and mammon,’ ‘You cannot serve God and mammon!’ Why, I used to think I was doing God a service when I put on my Sunday clothes and went to church of a Sunday morning with you. As if He’d think that were serving Him! And then all the week I was worshipping that old waistcoat of mine hanging behind the door, as much as any poor heathen worships blocks of wood and stone. I begin to think it was God who put it in your heart to sell it to the old-clothesman. But how can I serve Him now, Nancy, my girl? I can’t do anything save lie in this bed and be a burden to you.’ Ann Franklin stooped down and kissed her husband, whispering, ‘I don’t mind a bit about you being a burden, as you call it;’ and after that she opened a Bible and read these words: ‘Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom he hath sent.’ ‘Ay! I see it,’ he said, after a long pause, ‘that’s a work I can begin better here, perhaps, than in the yard at my work. I can work for God that way, lying here on my back as helpless as a baby. And now I come to think of it, Jesus Christ never served mammon anyway, and if I believe in Him I shall try to be like Him. It’s no use praying to God on Sundays and doing contrary all the week, wailing after money and such like.’ ‘Sam,’ answered his wife, ‘I’ve not been believing in him as I ought, for I’ve been fretting after that old waistcoat ever so, thinking how useful the money would be now; but if you’ll help me I’ll help you, and we’ll try to believe in Him just the same as if we could see him coming into the room and talking to us.’ ‘But that would be seeing, not believing.’ ‘So it would,’ she answered, ‘and he said himself, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” We must trust in Him without seeing Him.’ But it was a hard trial to trust in God whilst all their possessions were disappearing one after another. Sam was a long while in fully recovering his strength; and when he was fit to go back to the yard they were pretty deeply in debt. Yet never had they been so happy in former days. Their simple faith in the Saviour gave them a peace different from anything they had ever felt before; and Sam, who had now no secret care or pleasure to brood over in his own mind, grew frank and open with his wife. They pinched and denied themselves to get out of debt; and when the next winter came they were again in the comfortable circumstances which had been theirs when Ann sold the valuable old waistcoat.