I AM going to tell you a short story, children, of a dear little girl I met with on my journey from L. to P.
What a busy scene! There is the great long train for the north. How the frightened children cling to their mothers, and are afraid of getting into the wrong train. What patience the porters need to answer every one’s questions all in a moment. The fingers of that great clock tell us the train will be off in two or three minutes. The guard calls out, “All aboard!” and then comes the partings, the shaking of hands, the kissing of loved ones, and the good-byes. There are tearful eyes and sad partings, perhaps never to see or meet again.
What looks pass between that young boy and his sorrowful father? They are to part, it may be, for the first time in this boy’s life. He, no doubt, feels himself a real lonely stranger in the great city, and that father’s heart feels more deeply than ever before, leaving such a loved one alone!
One of you dear boys may be so left some day, and what can comfort you then and who can take care of you, then? What a blessing if you and your father, at such a time, can look up with full conference to the Lord Jesus, who Himself was once a lonely stranger, and can call Him, not only your Saviour, but your loving Friend. There goes the ringing of the bell, and off we start under no end of bridges and through dark tunnels, and soon we are in the country, dashing away at thirty or forty miles an hour, and now my story begins:
We had not passed more than one or two stations, when I discovered a happy looking girl, about ten years old, sitting in the seat with me. It was just holiday time, and supposing she had left school with a merry heart to spend her holidays at home, I looked kindly at her. and said,
“I suppose, my child, you are on your way to see your mother?”
In an instant I found my words had gone as a dagger into her heart, a cloud came over her face, a tear trickled down her cheek, her lips quivered, and at once I saw she had no mother to see. I can’t tell you how sorry I was that I had so wounded her tender heart. I looked at her with real pity, my own heart yearning over her, for well could I feel her sorrow. I too had lost a mother when just her age. Hoping to heal the wound, I said with some emotion,
“Perhaps your beloved father will meet you at the Station?”
An instant burst of grief, a flood of tears and bitter sobs, told the sad tale she was a motherless and fatherless child! I cannot tell you, dear children, the sorrow of my heart at that moment. In silence we wept together, and it was some time before I could speak a single word. How I longed to comfort her, but felt only the Lord could heal such a broken heart. In my helplessness, I lifted up my heart to Him for just the word that would soothe her troubled soul. While we were both weeping, I said to her with a trembling voice,
“There is a word in Scripture which says, ‘When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up’. Do you know anything of Him who utters these sweet words—the Lord Jesus Christ?”
I wish, beloved children, you could have seen the immediate change which came over that dear child’s face. The tears were still there, but there came over it a smile like the bright rainbow in a summer’s shower, as with a clear voice, she said,
“O, yes, sir, I do know Jesus, for He is my Saviour.” A little startled at such an unexpected reply, I added,
“But are you quite sure of that?” “Yes, sir, I have no doubt about it.” “But,” again I said, “are you not a sinner?”
“Yes, sir, I know I am a sinner, but Jesus died to put all my sins away.”
What a good confession. How sweetly it fell on my ears! I was not sorry now that I had grieved her, and very pleasant was our talk for nearly an hour longer. How happy we were together, —she, a bright-faced little girl; and I, a grey headed old man, but the One Spirit that had made us both one in Christ, had given us the same joys, and the same hopes.
Very simple and sweet was the tale she told me of how the Lord had brought her to know Himself, a little of which I will now tell you.
It was somewhere about a year before, when at school, one of her school-fellows took sick, and it was soon whispered among the children that she could never get better. This made my little friend much afraid.
“O,” she thought, “if I were to die, what would become of me? I know my sins are not forgiven,” and so she was afraid of God. But the dying girl was a dear friend of hers, and in her sickness they talked together, and she found her friend was not only not afraid to die, but was very happy, and knew for sure that she was going to Jesus who had loved her and died for her. The Lord used the testimony of this child to bring her to a knowledge of His love, and now she knew that Jesus Himself had borne all her sins in His body on the tree.
When she told me this nice story, I read to her, from the 10th of John’s Gospel, what Jesus said about His being the Good Shepherd, and laying down His life for the sheep and giving them eternal life, and that they shall never perish; also that none should be able to pluck them out of His Hands.
Then we came to my station, and we said “good bye,” and parted, perhaps not to meet again till the Lord Jesus comes and takes us all to be with Himself, and like Himself forever.
Dear children, can you say, like this little girl,
“O, yes, I do know Jesus, for He is my Saviour”?
ML 12/14/1924