Barbara sometimes drew comfort and support from the volume, but also used it as an oracle, for when undecided how to act she opened it and pointed with her finger to a certain passage.

This usually had a definite meaning and she generally, though not always, acted as it directed.

To-day she had been disobedient, for in response to her question whether she might venture to send a bag of all sorts of dainties to her son, a Beggar of the Sea, in spite of the Spaniards encircling the city, she had received the words of Jeremiah: "Their tents and their flocks shall they take away: they shall take to themselves their curtains and all their vessels and their camels," and yet the bag had been entrusted early that morning to a widow, who intended to make her escape to Delft with her young daughter, according to the request of the magistrates.

The gift might perhaps reach Rotterdam; a mother always hopes for a miracle in behalf of her child.
Before Maria restored the bible to its old place, she opened it at the thirteenth chapter of the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, which speaks of love, and was specially dear to her.

There were the words: "Charity suffereth long and is kind, charity is not easily provoked;" and "Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." To be kind and patient, to hope and endure all things, was the duty love imposed upon her.
When she had closed the bible and was preparing to go to Henrica, Barbara ushered Janus Dousa into the room.