A little boy, who loved the Lord Jesus Christ, having had some gospel tracts given to him, left his Sunday School one Lord’s Day afternoon to give them away. He met a very tall soldier, and going up to him said: “Please have a tract, sir.” The title of the tract was, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” The soldier took the tract, and said some-ding in such a gruff voice, that the little boy was so frightened that he ran away. The soldier, amused with the boy, walked rapidly after him, and keeping him in sight, saw him enter his home. Thither also the soldier followed him, and knocking at the door, was asked in by the child’s father, who had some talk with him about the tract. Before leaving, he was kindly asked to come again and take tea, which he did, and this time his little friend got over his dread of the tall soldier, and sat on his knee, and answered many questions which the soldier put to him about the Lord Jesus Christ.
At last the soldier said: “Do you recollect the question which was on the tract you gave me?” “Yes,” said the boy, “it was ‘Dost thou believe on the Son of God?’” “Well” said the soldier, “I wanted to tell you, on the day that you met me I did not believe, for I knew nothing of Jesus Christ the Son of God. But now I do trust Him, and have eternal life.” As he spoke, the tears came into the soldier’s eyes, and you may guess how happy it made the little boy to hear that the tract he had given the soldier had been the means through God’s grace of bringing him to a knowledge of Christ.
The soldier after this left the town, but the little boy’s friends heard afterward that, “constrained by the love of Christ,” he preached to his comrades that message of grace which had been so blest to himself; thus becoming, we trust, an instrument in the Lord’s hand of bringing others to know His as their Saviour. The little boy has since grown up to be a man, and still preaches the gospel of the grace of God in the very town where he gave the tract to the soldier. What power there is in one tract! Let us use this power, and scatter abroad the good tidings, knowing that “it shall prosper,” as God says.