By
Adam Clarke
HEBREWS 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Reader, permit me to relate an anecdote which I have heard from that most eminent man of God, the reverend John Wesley; it may put thee in mind to entertain strangers.
At Epworth, in Lincolnshire, where (says he) I was born, a poor woman came to a house in the market-place and begged a morsel of bread, saying, I am very hungry. The master of the house called her a lazy jade, and bade her be gone. She went forward, called at another house, and asked for a little small-beer, saying, I am very thirsty. Here she was refused, and told to go to the workhouse.
She struggled on to a third door and begged a little water, saying, I am faint. The owner drove her away, saying, He would encourage no common beggars. It was winter, and the snow lay upon the ground. The boys, seeing a poor ragged creature driven away from door to door, began to throw snow-balls at her. She went to a little distance, sat down on the ground, lifted up her eyes to heaven, reclined on the earth, and expired!
Here was a stranger; had the first to whom she applied relieved her with a morsel of bread, he would have saved her life, and not been guilty of blood. As the case stood, the woman was murdered; and those three householders will stand arraigned at the bar of God for her death.
Reader, fear to send any person empty away. If you know him to be an impostor, why then give him nothing.
But if you only suspect it, let not your suspicion be the rule of your conduct; give something, however little; because that little may be sufficient to preserve him, if in real want, from present death.
If you know him not to be a knave, to you he may be an angel. God may have sent him to exercise your charity, and try your faith.
It can never be a matter of regret to you that you gave an alms for God’s sake, though you should afterwards find that the person to whom you gave it was both a hypocrite and impostor.
Better to be imposed on by ninety-nine hypocrites out of a hundred applicants, than send one, like the poor Epworth woman, empty away.
ADAM CLARKE WROTE THIS IN HIS COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF HEBREWS THAT HE FINISHED WORKING UPON ON DEC. 30, 1831
