He Redeemed Me

The tears of a slave girl just going to be put up for sale drew the attention of a gentleman as he passed through the auction mart of a Southern slave state. The other slaves of the same group, standing in line for sale like herself, did not seem to care about it, while each knock of the hammer made her shake. The kind man stopped to ask why she alone wept, and was told that the others were used to such things, and might be glad of a change from the hard, harsh homes they came from, but that she had been brought up with much care by a good owner, and she was terrified to think who might buy her. “Her price?” the stranger asked. He thought a little when he heard the great ransom, but after a little paid it down. Yet no joy came to the poor slave’s face when he told her that she was free. She had been born a slave, and knew not what freedom meant. Her tears fell thick and fast on the signed parchment, which her deliverer brought to prove it to her. But she only looked at him with fear. At last he was ready to go his way, and as he told her what she must do when he was gone, it began to dawn on her what freedom was. With the first breath she said, “I will follow him! I will serve him all my days.” And to every reason against it she only cried, “He redeemed me! He redeemed me! He redeemed me!” When strangers used to visit that mas­ter’s house, and noticed, as all did, the loving constant service of the glad-hearted girl, and asked her why she was so eager with unbidden service night by night and day by day, she had but one answer, and she loved to give it—“He redeemed me! He redeemed me! He redeemed me!”

And so let it be with us. Let us serve Jesus as sin­ners bought back with his blood; and when men take notice of the way you serve him, the joy that is in your looks, the love that is in your tone, the freedom of your service, have one answer to give—“He Redeemed Me!”

Written by B. J. Danhof in the September 1925 issue of the Standard Bearer.