Exodus 23:4-5 If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him again.… In one of my temperance pilgrimages through Illinois I met a gentleman who was the companion of a dreary ride which Mr. Lincoln made in a light waggon, going the rounds of a circuit court where he had clients to look after. The weather was rainy, the road "heavy" with mud. Lincoln enlivened the way with anecdotes and recital, for few indeed were the incidents that relieved the tedium of the trip. At last, in wallowing through a slough, they came upon a poor hog, which was literally fast in the mud. The lawyers commented on the poor creature's pitiful condition and drove on. About half a mile was laboriously gone over, when Lincoln suddenly exclaimed, "I don't know how you feel about it, but I've got to go back and pull that pig out of the slough." His comrade laughed, thinking it merely a joke; but what was his surprise when Lincoln dismounted, left him to his reflections, and striding slowly back, like a man on stilts picking his way as his long walking implements permitted, he grappled with the drowning swine, dragged him out of the ditch, left him on its edge to recover his strength, slowly measured off the distance back to his waggon, and the two men drove on as if nothing had happened. The grand and brotherly nature which could not consent to see the lowest of animals suffer without coming to its rescue at great personal discomfort was nurtured by years of self-abnegation for the great struggle, when he should be strong enough to "put a shoulder to the wheel," that should lift the chariot of State out of the mire and set a subject race upon its feet. (Frances E. Willard.) Parallel Verses KJV: If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. |
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