The Lords Providenti

The Lord's Providential Mercy To Me
by Sylvester Hassell

THE GOSPEL  MESSENGER
Devoted to the Primitive Baptist Cause
Sylvester Hassell,  Editor



Williamston N. C., December 1913

REMARKABLE PROVIDENCES
  'Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!'
'Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord.'
Psalm 107:8, 43.
  THE LORD'S SPECIAL PROVIDENTIAL MERCY TO ME Through the unmerited and great mercy of the Lord, for which I try to thank Him every day, I was saved from injury when I was run away with by a mule in 1862, and by a horse in 1898, in my own county; and,together with Elders W. T. Everitt and G. W. Stewart, by a horse, near Dawson, Georgia, in May, 1909; and, with a young man named Arthur Hand,near Mauk, Georgia, Sept. 11, 1913, when, on going down a hill, the harness broke, and his horse ran away, while, on the very next day a young Brother Matthews, returning from the Ocmulgee Association at Mt.Pleasant Church, near Gray, Ga., was run away with, and so severely injured, as I was very sorry to learn, that he died about a week afterwards. The ways of the Lord are indeed unsearchable. Although traveling very extensively in the United States, I have never been in a railroad or steamboat disaster. And I desire most thankfully to testify that the Lord has mercifully healed me of what I feared would be fatal diseases of the lungs, bowels, kidneys, heart, prostate gland, liver, and brain, and what seemed to be a cancerous tumor on my face; and that he has, in mercy, healed my four living children of what are often fatal diseases. He has compassionately spared us from thousands of diseases that afflict our poor fallen humanity. He has preserved for us the use of our reason, senses, and limbs. I have never had to use spectacles. I am now older (71 years of age) than I have known any of my near relatives to live to be, except my father's mother, Mrs. Martha Biggs Hassell, who died in her 77th year. Thousands of years would be too short a time forme to praise the Lord for His special providential mercies to me; and eternity would end before I could sufficiently thank Him for the unspeakable gift, as I believe, of His Son to die for me, and of His Spirit to renew me and conform me to the image of His Son. My experience has been such that, by the grace of the living God, I could no more doubt His being, His Written Word, His sole eternity, His infinity, His sovereignty, His holiness, mercy, wisdom, truth, and power, although all other creatures should deny them, than I could doubt my own existence. SYLVESTER HASSELL
  
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