Providential Interposition

“Mr. John Craig, a distinguished minister, and colleague of Knox, having gone to reside in Bologna, in a convent of the Dominicans, found a copy of Calvin’s Institutions, which God made the means of his conversion to the reformed faith. He was seized as a heretic soon after, and carried to Rome, where he was condemned to be burnt; but on the evening preceding the day of execution, the reigning pontiff died, and, according to custom, the doors of all prisons were thrown open. All others were released; but heretics, after being permitted to go outside the walls, were reconducted to their cells. That night, however, a tumult was excited, and Craig and his companions escaped. They had entered a small inn at some distance from Rome, when they were overtaken by a party of soldiers, sent to apprehend them. On entering the house, the captain looked Craig steadfastly in the face, and asked him if he remembered having once relieved a poor wounded soldier in the neighborhood of Bologna; Craig had forgotten it. ‘But, said the captain, ‘I am the man; I shall requite your kindness; you are at liberty; your companions I must take with me; but for your sake I shall treat them with all possible lenity.’ He gave him all the money he had, and Craig escaped. But his money soon failed him; yet God, who feedeth the ravens, did not. Lying at the side of a wood, full of gloomy apprehensions, a dog came running up to him with a purse in his teeth. Suspecting some evil, he attempted to drive the animal away, but in vain. He at length took the purse, and found in it a sum of money which carried him to Vienna.—Anecdotes of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism, by John Whitecross, Edinburgh, pp. 170, 171.MIRP 109.1