Enoch Roden's Training

by Hesba Stretton
Available from Lamplighter Publishing and Amazon
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This is another searching story by Hesba Stretton. Everything I’ve read that she has written has touched my spirit, and caused me to look at my character and my relationship with Christ, and to see if it is what it should be.

Enoch Roden lived with his mother, grandmother, and older brother. They were poor, but his mother Susan managed to bring in enough for their subsistence with her washing. Things were looking up, however. Enoch was apprenticed to a printer, and the young boy expected to be able to take care of his family. This printer had employed Susan as his daughters’ nurse when they were little. However, though the printer trusted in God, he neglected to provide for his family, and went bankrupt, dying shortly afterward. His older daughter became a governess, though bitterly resenting her father’s lack of care, and the younger girl went to live with the Rodens. Enoch’s older brother saw Lucy’s entrance into their family as the last straw, and ran off to the sea. Through it all, Susan showed a dependence on God, and joy lit her life from her trust in Him.

Enoch looked for work, but could not find any. He was trusting in himself to provide for his family, and was angry with God for not providing a job. Susan suffered an injury and was confined to bed, and in her time of healing lost all her customers. They could not afford to live, so Susan’s mother-in-law went to live in the workhouse. This was a struggle for everyone, as the grandmother had had too much pride do live there before, Susan and Enoch considered it a disgrace to themselves that she should have to, and everyone would miss her. Lucy encouraged everyone to look to their heavenly Father, and to trust that He would still care for them all. Enoch finally found work, but he did not make much, and was bitter that God did not take better care of His own, since they were trusting in Him.

Enoch eventually came to see that he was not trusting the Lord, and that He was providing, if not in the way Enoch desired and expected. In the end, everything is pulled together. The lost son at sea returns home with a changed heart, Enoch learns lessons in trusting, and even Esther, Lucy’s older sister, comes to know that the Lord does indeed love and care for His own. After the surprise at the end, Enoch tells his mother and Lucy how he compared himself to the Israelites who murmured against God. God had provided manna for their sustenance, but they were ungrateful because it was not what they wanted and complained, “What is this?” I cried when I read his words: how true they are! When he finished speaking, he found that he had a larger audience than he had thought, who considered it his first sermon.

The last chapter tells of the same characters many years later. As Enoch began to preach to an “official” congregation, they reflected on their past, and on Enoch Roden’s training for service.