THERE is a very pretty story in the eleventh chapter of the gospel of Mark which makes me think of you, dear little girls and boys. You will laugh when I add that the story is about a young donkey, and that it is because of this that I think of you when I read it.
When the Lord Jesus Christ was here upon earth, He one day sent two of His disciples on an errand to a village called Bethphage. It was rather a strange errand, you will think, but those who serve the Lord are glad to do anything for Him, and servants do not have to question their master as to the work he gives them to do. Now these disciples were to go to a certain cottage in that village, which stood where two ways met, and there, outside the door, they would find a young ass tethered; they were to undo the cord and to bring it to Jesus. And these men did just as they were told.
Now when they were loosing the colt the people it belonged to came out of the cottage, and asked them what they were about, and the disciples said that Jesus wanted their little ass; "the Lord hath need of him!" and at once they let him go, for they loved the Lord, and were glad to give their donkey to Him.
There is not much more than that in my story, but whenever I read it I think of some dear village lads whom I love to speak to of Jesus—little fellows who come to me on Sundays, and it seems to me they are at present just like this donkey, tied where two roads meet; but the day will come, before very long, when they can no longer be tied to village homes, and then the question will be, which one of the two ways will they take when they are let loose?
It will be the same with you, too, dear children. Perhaps you think it rather hard to be tied up so much as you are, and to have to do as your parents tell you, and you are doubtless looking forward to the time when you are older, and will be, as you think, your "own master."
I long to catch you while you are still young; still standing where the two ways meet; and to persuade you to come with me at once to the loving Savior, so that you may only know those ways of peace and paths of pleasantness in which those walk who walk with Him.
In Matthew we read that there were two asses, and Mark and Luke tell us that Jesus sent for the young one of the two. I asked a number of little village lads once which of the two they would have chosen, and some called out " The young 'un!” “Why would you have taken the young one?” I asked. "Because it would live longest," they answered quickly.
And I thought that there was a good deal in what they had said. Jesus sends for you, young children, because, perhaps, you may have longer to live than your elders; although we know that children may die as well as grown-up people, so that it is indeed not safe to be unsaved. But it is so sweet to give one's whole life to Him; to come to Him, just at once, and then to be at His service for as long as ever He leaves one down here. A. P. G.