I WAS asked to take a Bible class of very rough girls in the absence of the regular teacher. Although feeling quite unable to take such a class, I thought it would be a pity to let them go drifting about all the Sunday afternoon, so I decided to take it.
As I was interested in a little girl who was a child of wealthy but worldly parents, I invited her to come with me and sing “Jesus bids us shine,” a hymn I had recently taught her.
We sang two hymns, and after prayer the little girl sang her hymn, her sweet childish voice sounding clear and distinct. The girls were very quiet, and we read 1 John 4:19,19We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19) “We love Him because He first loved us.” I made the lesson as simple as possible. I noticed the little girl, whom we will call Daisy, was just drinking in the words, as were also the other girls, many of whom hardly knew the meaning of love.
We repeated the verse all together, substituting the word “me” for “us.” “I love Him because He first loved me.” I asked, “Do we love Him? How have we shown our love to Him? Have we come to Him for forgiveness for all our sins?” Then 1 enlarged upon the wonderful love of Christ, His sufferings and death on the Cross for us. I closed with an earnest appeal to them to come to Christ.
We separated, and when all the girls were gone, little Daisy came up to me and said, “I did not know Jesus loved me so much. I thought He only lived to punish naughty people.”
And looking up into my face with her pure blue eyes, she said, “I should so like to thank Him for His love, and to love Him in return.”
I took her to my room, and after talking and praying with her, Daisy’s voice rose in prayer. “Jesus, You have been so very kind to love me all these years. I did not know it, but now I do know. I will love You with all my might if You will kindly help me, and teach me how to shine for Thee. Amen.”
She lived quite near, and I took her home. She went into the drawing-room, where her mother was sitting, very fashionably and extravagantly dressed, reading a novel. Daisy went up to her and said, “Mother dear, I find that Jesus has loved me ever since I was a tiny baby, and I didn’t know it, but I have given my heart and self to Him now.”
The mother looked surprised and sent the child to the nursery. After tea Daisy and the other children came to the drawing-room as usual, and Daisy asked her mother if she knew that Jesus loved them all so much. The mother replied, “Oh yes dear, I knew that when I was quite little.” “Then why did you not tell us all about it?” said Daisy. “Will you read it to me from the Bible?” But there was no Bible in the house.
When I called for her in the evening to take her to the service, she told me that they had no Bible, and she did not think she would know how to serve Jesus unless she could read it. I gave her the one I had with me, and I also gave her the Children’s Scripture Union Card, and told her always to pray before reading.
She often spoke to her mother about God’s love, and it was noticed how wonderfully sweet and obedient she became. About six or seven weeks had elapsed when I called on the mother. I could see she had softened, and I ventured to speak of Daisy’s conversion, and at once she opened up her heart to me, and said she had wasted her whole life in pleasure and it had not satisfied her.
After some talk she yielded herself to Christ, and when I was about to leave she said, “What will my husband say? He won’t like it, and I never can go to the theater with him again; I could not now.”
I told her to tell her husband that Christ had died for her and that she had let Him have that for which He died. She asked me to stay to dinner as she felt she would have more courage to tell him. We prayed for him, and when we were halfway through dinner she told him she had given herself to the Lord, and intended serving Him in future. He sat perfectly quiet for a few seconds, while I inwardly prayed for them both, when he looked up and said, “I am very glad, dear. By the grace of God you shall not serve Him alone. I will do the same.”
Instead of finishing with dessert, we had prayer and praise together. Thus the seed sown in the young heart had borne fruit, and I had the joy of seeing two of the other children won for Christ, and Daisy has a desire to go to the foreign mission field when she is old enough.