A Letter to God — RBSE Class 10 English (First Flight)
A man loses everything to a freak storm, and instead of cursing his luck he sits down and writes a letter — to God — asking for a hundred pesos. What happens next is funny, touching and quietly devastating about how we see other people. This is Gregorio López y Fuentes's gentle, ironic tale of faith.
1. The story in brief
Lencho, a hardworking farmer, lives with his family on a hilltop. His ripe field of corn needs only a good shower of rain — and the rain comes. Lencho is delighted; he calls the big raindrops "new coins". But suddenly the rain turns to a violent hailstorm. Within an hour the hail destroys the entire crop, leaving the field "white, as if covered with salt." The family faces a year of hunger.
But Lencho has one hope: his deep faith that God will help. That night he writes a letter addressed "To God", asking for one hundred pesos to sow his field again and survive until the harvest.
He posts the letter. A postman finds it and, laughing, shows it to the postmaster. The postmaster — a fat, kindly man — is moved by Lencho's faith and decides it must not be shaken. He resolves to help: he collects money from his employees and his own salary, but manages only seventy pesos, which he sends to Lencho signed "God".
Lencho is not surprised to receive the money — his faith made him expect it. But on counting it he becomes angry: it is only seventy, not a hundred. Concluding that God could not have made a mistake, he decides the rest was stolen by the post-office employees. He writes a second letter to God, asking for the remaining thirty pesos — but pleads, "…don't send it to me through the mail, because the post-office employees are a bunch of crooks. — Lencho."
2. The big theme — faith, and the irony of goodness
The story turns on a sharp irony: the very people who showed real kindness (the postmaster and his staff, who gave from their own pockets) are the ones Lencho condemns as "a bunch of crooks." His faith in God is unshakeable, but his faith in human beings is non-existent.
So the story holds two ideas in tension:
- The power of faith. Lencho's faith is "firm as a mountain." It moves the postmaster to an act of real generosity — faith, in a sense, works.
- A wry view of human nature. Lencho cannot imagine that ordinary humans could be as good as God. The kindness in front of him is invisible to him.
Other themes: the hardship of the poor farmer dependent on the weather, and selfless charity done without expecting thanks.
3. The characters
- Lencho — a poor but hardworking farmer; deeply, almost stubbornly, faithful; simple, even ox-like in his confidence; ironically suspicious of the very people who help him.
- The postmaster — fat, amiable and kind; a man of conscience who acts to protect another's faith and quietly does good.
- The post-office employees — generous (they contribute) yet wrongly accused — the heart of the irony.
4. Why it still matters
Beneath the simple plot, "A Letter to God" asks a question that never dates: why do we so readily believe in distant ideals and so easily distrust the ordinary people next to us? The story doesn't mock Lencho's faith; it gently exposes how that same faith can blind him to real human goodness.
For the RBSE board, hold on to three things: the sequence of events (rain → hail → letter → seventy pesos → angry second letter), the central irony (good people called crooks), and the twin themes of faith and human nature. The line "a bunch of crooks" is the story's punchline — and a favourite exam quote.
