Two-Week Hideout

     Also in Reformation days, a protestant named Johannes Brenz was taking refuge in the home of Duke Ulric at Stuttgart.  But the emperor learned of his whereabouts and commissioned a colonel to produce him dead or alive.  The Duke learning of this, sent Brenz away, saying, “If God is pleased with you, He will deliver you.

     In the seclusion of his room Brenz fell on his knees and prayed for guidance.  And he seemed to hear a voice saying: “Take a loaf of bread, and go up through the Birkenwald [the upper part of the city]; and where you find an open front door, go in and hide yourself under the roof.”

     He found all the doors closed in that part of the city until he came to the Landhouse (later the Reformed church).  Here the door was open.  He entered and hid himself behind a large pile of wood under the roof.

     The next day soldiers arrived in Stuttgart and searched every house in the city.  They came to the Landhouse and searched every room.  They even thrust their spears through the woodpile behind which he lay, but they did not find him.  Two weeks later they left Stuttgart.

     How did Brenz manage during those two weeks?  On the very first day of his concealment, along towards noon, a hen came and laid an egg behind the woodpile.  This she did each day.  The egg quenched his thirst, and the loaf of bread satisfied his hunger.  The hen stopped coming on the day the soldiers left the city.

     A thousand ways to provide.  Remember?

M. L. Lloyd