ONE Lord’s Day in winter, four years ago, I thought I would go and see the father and mother of a little boy and girl belonging to our school. I was very much interested in the father, an intelligent man, who always seemed to listen with interest to what one had to say about the soul and God, but who could hardly ever be got to attend the preaching, his excuse usually being the want of clothes, or this, “It aint no good to begin if you can’t stick to’t.” He was ashamed to say in so many words what it was that kept him from “sticking to’t,” and from having as decent a suit of Sunday clothes as any other working man; but he knew well that I was quite aware of the reason, which―as I daresay you have already guessed―was simply the love of drink.
He was one of the few men in our hamlet who could read, and when not spending Sunday evening in the ale house, was usually to be found at home, reading the newspaper or some book, not infrequently the Bible; and thus employed I hoped to find him that evening. But when I reached his home, which was situated in a very unattractive row of cottages, no light was to be seen streaming through any of its cracked and rag-stuffed windows, and I began to think that no one was in; and that I had denied myself going to the preaching for nothing. However, I did not like to go back without knocking, which was no sooner done than I heard someone get up to open the door. The footsteps were those of Jamie, my little scholar, at that time an extremely bright and interesting boy of eight. Though brimful of fun, Jamie seemed to be quite harmless and inoffensive to every creature, excepting, indeed, in the bird-nesting, season, when, to tell the truth about him, he robbed so many nests that the wonder was, there were any birds left to sing in the parish.
“We always likes Jamie to go wi’ us when we goes birds’-nestin’; he do know for a’ the birds’ nestes,” said a boy to me one day. I have myself several times robbed him of whole pocketsful of poor little yellow-beaked, half-naked birds, which I knew to be in his keeping, either by their faint chirp or by the boy’s irresistible desire to look at his prey, yet on these occasions, dear as we know young birds to be to the British boy’s heart, or what is called his heart, Jamie never seemed either cross at the time or sulky afterwards. I think the unfeigned sorrow and concern which I could not help showing for his little captives, used to awe and puzzle him too much for that The best birds’-nester, he was also the best cricketer among the small boys of the place, the best singer in the school, and the best scholar in his class, and when I heard his footsteps on the floor of the cottage that evening, I felt that my visit would not be quite in vain; for a chat with Jamie was always worth having when it could be got. It was so dark when the child opened the door that I could not see him, but being sure it was he, I said, “Well, Jamie, are you all alone in the dark?”
“No, Gov’ness” (the name in this part of the country for a schoolmistress); “Sarah Ann’s in.”
“Are not your father and mother at home?”
“No, Gov’ness! Father’s been gone to B―ever sin’ last night, and mother’s gone to seek after him.”
“Would you like me to come in with you for a little while?” I then asked.
“If you likes, Gov’ness,” he said, in a half sad tone, and as I did like, I stepped inside.
Bidding him poke the dull fire which smoldered in the grate, I found my way as well as I could to the chair upon which little Sarah Ann, only four years old, was resting her sleepy little head, and sitting down beside her, I set myself to restore her to a state of complete wide-awakeness; this, with the help of something out of my pocket, was soon accomplished. After a chat with Jamie, who had seated himself on the fender by the now flickering fire, I proposed to her that we should sing a hymn together. Sarah Ann was allowed to choose the hymn, and she chose the one I felt quite sure she would:
“Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so, at that time the favorite hymn of the school. When we had done singing I talked to them about it, and especially about those two lines:
“He will wash away my sin,
Let a little child come in.”
“Into where?” I said.
“Heaven,” said little Sarah Ann, quite promptly.
Then I told them as well as I could how beautiful the Bible says heaven is; of its jasper walls and pearly gates; its golden street, where walk the white-robed saints; and of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Around that throne I told them thousands of children will stand, who were once poor and sinful like them, but with their sins now washed away in the blood of Jesus. I told them too of the beautiful river which makes glad that city of God, and of the beautiful trees bearing twelve manner of fruit, and yielding their fruit every month, which grow in the midst of the street, and on either side of the river, and how the Lamb leads His people to living fountains of water.
“And do you know, Jamie,” I asked when I had done, “what gives them light in that glorious place?”
I expected him to say “no,” or “the sun,” or at best “God,” and was prepared to explain to him those beautiful words― “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light (or rather lamp) thereof.” “And there shall be no night there: and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light.”
But to my surprise he gave me at once this beautiful answer, “God’s face.”
“Yes, Jamie,” I said, “You are quite right; it is God’s face, the face of Jesus Christ that lightens all that holy place. And wouldn’t you like to go there?”
His answer again surprised me, but it pained me as well; for it was “No, Gov’ness.”
“Why would you not, Jamie?”
“Because my sins isn’t washed away,” he replied.
Poor Jamie there was such a tone of sober conviction of the truth of what he was saying in his voice, that I felt quite toughed, and pitying him from my heart, I did my best to show him how true those lines of the hymn we had sung together are:
“He will wash away my sin,
Let a little child come in.”
I pitied him, yet I felt glad that he had been brought to feel that an unwashed sinner cannot stand the light of God’s face, nor ever be happy in heaven.
I stayed as long as I could with the two lonely little things; and when at last I had to go, it was with a sad heart I did it. They were of tender years to sit up for a drunken father (for it was only too certain he would come home in that state). I heard, however, the next day, that neither father, nor mother, nor brother came home at all that night, and that by and by the little things dragged themselves up to bed somehow, and were all the night alone in the unlocked-up house. But “their angels,” who always behold God’s face, were there, and no harm came nigh the dwelling.
Jamie’s father has taken him away from school lately to work with him at his own occupation of stone breaking. As he sits by the roadside or in the quarry breaking stones for the highways of this world, may his heart not be suffered to become hard as the stones he breaks, and may he find no rest till he has been cleansed from his sins by our Lord Jesus, and been made fit to walk the streets of the heavenly city, which are paved, not with painful sweat of the sons of toil, but with pure gold, like unto transparent glass.