During the “cotton famine” in Lancashire, England, in 1865,
just after our civil war, one of the mill-owners called his
operatives together and told them he must close the mills. It
meant poverty to him and ruin to them. Flickering hope sank in
black despair. Presently a delicate, sweet girl, thin and pale
with suffering--she was a Sunday-school teacher--started and
sang two stanzas of this hymn:
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread,
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.
A sunburst of hope came over the despairing company when the
touching and comforting strain was ended. It proved a prophecy.
The proprietor determined to struggle on a while longer, and
soon the mill was running again at full work.
(3118)
See CHEER, SIGNALS OF.
=Sunstroke, Warding Off=--See PROTECTION.