Nehemiah 9:17 And refused to obey, neither were mindful of your wonders that you did among them; but hardened their necks… — A man named John Welsh lay in prison in Chicago under sentence of death. His friends tried to get his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life. The day before that fixed for the execution arrived without any favourable reply being received. The prisoner sat in his cell listening and longing earnestly for a respite. Presently he heard the rumbling of the wheels of a car. It brought the materials for his scaffold, and soon he heard the strokes of the hammers, and pictured himself hanging on the scaffold which he could hear them raising. The sound almost drove him frantic, and he sent for the governor, and begged that he might be taken away anywhere from that dreadful noise. He was taken to a distant cell, and there he sat on the edge of his bed, haunted with gloomy thoughts, all hope gone. He was startled from his rom, erie by a hurried step along the corridor. The key was thrust into the lock, and one of the officers of the prison stood before him. He held a paper in his hand signed by the Governor of the State of Illinois. It was a commutation of his sentence .... How the truth burst on his mind! When the paper was handed to him he could not read it for tears; but it was a paper bringing him his life, and he hugged it, and clasped it, and kissed it. (H. W. Taylor.) Parallel Verses KJV: And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage: but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not. |
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