Mrs Hazard

There is not much left of the walls and gates of old Bristol save a few ruinous stretches like crooked teeth in an old man’s mouth. During the civil wars when royalist troops were about to breach them, the wonderfully named Mrs Hazard, wife of a puritan minister, rose to the challenge. She led 200 women in stopping the damaged gate with woolsacks and bags of soil. We too, like Mrs hazard, and like the people at the time of Nehemiah, are called to hold the fort, stop the gaps and defend the gates, especially in these days in which the church is feeble and the enemies of truth appear triumphant.

Then I said to them, “You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.” Neh 2:17

May we learn from Mrs Hazard.