Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/386

 I pay much attention to such directions of the Lord:—this has done me a great deal of good in business. With much surprise I saw that the wife of Shawlman belongs to a respectable family; the letter at least was signed by a relation whose name in Holland is respected, and I was indeed in ecstasies with the beautiful contents of these lines. It appeared to be from a person who laboured zealously for the Lord; for he wrote that the wife of Shawlman ought to be divorced from such a wretch, who made her suffer poverty,—who could not earn his livelihood, who was, moreover, a rascal, because he had debts. That the writer of the letter pitied her condition, though that condition was her own fault, because she had forsaken the Lord, and stuck to Shawlman;—that she ought to return to the Lord, and that in that case her family would all of them assist her, and furnish her with needlework, but before all things she ought to put away this Shawlman, who was a disgrace to the family.

In a, word, you could not get in church itself more piety than was to be found in this letter.

I knew enough, and was grateful to have been warned in such a miraculous way. Without this warning I should certainly have become a victim of my own good heart. I resolved, therefore, again to keep Bastianus till I could find a fitter person to take his place; for I do not like to turn any one to the streets.

The reader will be curious to know how I got on at the