They were all in the same class in the Sunday school, and the four of them had been brought to Christ about the same time, and through the instrumentality of the same godly teacher. She had sought from the very day of their spiritual birth to be a “nursing mother” to them, and to press upon them the importance of desiring the “sincere milk of the word, that they might grow thereby.”
The girls had little time to spare being at work in the factory from morning to night. But during the dinner hours they would gather together in a quiet corner by themselves, and one would read a chapter of the Word of God. How sweet and precious was that little Bible reading to their hungry souls. They went to work strengthened after their mid-day meal.
By-and-by, others who had cared but little for a handful of the freshly-gathered manna, got to hear of the young believers’ Bible reading in the factory during the dinner hour, and they joined them, and shared the blessing. God blessed that quiet half-hour over His Word, and many of them were there nourished and fed, to become useful and active workers in the Lord’s vineyard. Many young believers are in similar circumstances, and might embrace a like opportunity to feed their souls.
My dear young believer, are you in the habit of doing so or do you spend your spare half-hours in gossip and idleness, and go on, day after day, with a famished soul, and, as a consequence, an unsteady testimony for your Lord? The outward walk and life is intimately connected with the inward spiritual condition, and a healthy condition of soul can only be maintained by constant feeding on Christ, the Bread of Life, through the pages of the written Word.