A LITTLE boy had done something wrong and had been hiding it all day. Some children might do the same thing and not feel uneasy afterwards. But Arthur could not forget it. He had taken something which did not belong to him, a piece of sugar. He ate it and went back to his play as if nothing had happened, before his grandmother returned to the room.
All that day Arthur was unhappy, and conscience, like a voice within him, seemed to remind him of what he had done. It was like darkness in his heart which he could not shake off.
At last, when bedtime came, and he had said good-night to his grandmother, upstairs in his little room his aunt knelt down beside him and began to pray.
Presently she found that Arthur was really praying for himself, while she said the words. He looked up for a moment and said,
“Tell God about the sugar, Auntie.”
He went to bed feeling so much happier than he had been all day, before he had told the truth about what only God and he himself knew.
When anything wrong has been done the only way to get forgiveness, and be relieved from the sorrow it brings, is to confess it to God; and if we have wronged any one, to confess it to that person also.
There is one thing people often forget. Although they may not know of wrong acts they have done, like Arthur’s sin, yet in God’s sight all are sinners by nature. Nothing but the death of Christ could meet our sinful state. By faith in Him as our Saviour, we are brought into a new state, that is, from death unto life.
ML 07/16/1933