Faithfulness Rewarded

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The son of a widow in difficult financial circumstances was on his last journey to Oxford. His mother had made a great, and a last effort, as she hoped it might be, to raise the money to enable her son to take his degree. The coach was within two stages of Oxford, when a little before it reached the inn where they stopped, the young scholar missed the money which his mother had given him. He had been a good and careful son, and such a sickness of heart as he felt at that moment some can guess. He tried to recollect whether he had taken out his purse, and remembered that he had done so a few miles back. Almost without hope, and yet feeling it to be his duty to try and recover this large sum that he had lost, he told the coachman to let his luggage be sent on as directed, and walked back towards the place where he thought it possible that he might have dropped the note. He had gone about three miles, when there met him, working his way slowly and wearily, a poor creature whose appearance arrested his attention. He had often read of leprosy, but had never seen a leper. This poor man was one. Shall he stop to speak to him? If the lost note is on the road, some passenger may see and take it up, and he may lose it. Yet conscience told him to speak a word of comfort to the poor sufferer before him, and he obeyed. Learning the man’s sad history, and his vague hope of getting some advice in Oxford, the student remembered a gentleman in the University whose residence in the East had brought him into contact with lepers, who was well qualified to do any possible good in such a case, besides being ever ready to assist distress. He offered to write a line for the leper, who thankfully accepted the proposal. The student searched his pocket for a piece of paper, but could not find any. Suddenly the poor leper stooped, picked up from the road a piece of paper, and asked if he could not write on that? It was his lost note, given into his own hand by the very man towards whom he was endeavoring to do what he felt to be present duty.

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