LAST Christmas morning, I had greatly enjoyed a walk with some friends in the crisp, frosty air, the clear sunshine brightening the faces of all whom we met; and gladdening our hearts. On reaching home, however, a sad message awaited me “A little boy has been here, whose mother is very ill, and she wants to see you,” so, leaving our friendly gathering, I at once hastened to her house.
When I saw the poor woman, I remembered having spoken to her about her soul, as she was leaving our little mission room, a few months before. She then had with her a bright-eyed little girl, a cripple, so afflicted that she could not stand or walk alone, or even raise her hands to her head. As I spoke to the mother, this little one had said, “I love Jesus, and, mother, do not cry, for Jesus loves you.” The mother said that she knew well that she was a sinner, and that Jesus died to save sinners; she hoped that He had died for her, but she thought it impossible for anyone to know it down here, and that it was not right of me to say that, through mercy, I knew that I was saved. She left, however, that night with the promise that she would accept God’s own word. “He that believeth hath everlasting life.”
For many years this poor woman had been living in her own way a religious life, and telling her little girl of Jesus and His love, yet she herself had never known the blessedness of sins forgiven. On this Christmas morning, Satan had tried to fill her soul with doubts and fears, but, praise the Lord, He soon took away all her doubts, for she at last said, “I am so weak and ill, I cannot do any more: I will just trust Him, and rest on Him. I am so weary; do pray with me, and for my husband, that he may meet me in heaven.” It was a touching sight; the husband, a tall and very powerfully— built man, holding in his arms feeble little Jessie, who was trying her best, in her artless way, to comfort him, as the big man’s tears fell fast on the child’s head. Cripple though she were, and helpless in her weakness, she was the strongest in that room. She said, “Don’t cry so, mother dear, for you are going to be with Jesus. You won’t have a lot of pain, nor nobody to scold you anymore, and don’t you know Jesus said, ‘Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’ He said He would prepare a place for you, and He has; and now He is coming to take you to it. I should like to come with you, only Jesus wants me down here for a little while, to comfort poor father and my brothers. Father will take me to chapel, won’t you, father? Do promise mother you will, before she goes, father, will you?” So the promise was made beside the dying bed.
On the day of the funeral, little Jessie was carried to our house. Then, and always, when asked how she was, her answer was the same: “A little better, thank you, only a bad cough, and that will be better soon.” She said, “My little brother has been crying so, today, because they have gone to put poor mother in the grave, but I tell him not to cry, but to be brave, for you know our mother is not really in the coffin; only her body is there, she is with Jesus. She cannot come down here to us, but we can go up to her.” And so she tried in her childish way to comfort all around.
Yes, “A little child shall lead them.” Many eyes were wet with glad tears on the Lord’s day after the funeral, as we saw the father, for the first time, himself carrying motherless Jessie upstairs to the mission room she loved so well. Long years had passed since his unaccustomed feet had trodden such a path, but the child had brought him.
Her favorite brother was only two years older than herself; they loved each other dearly, and, before the mother’s illness, the three had spent many happy hours together, reading the Scriptures and singing hymns, Jessie being the preacher. The rest of the family were grown men, some of them very rough, and none caring for Jessie’s Saviour. The little cripple girl did not only witness for Jesus in her uncongenial home, but in the summer, sitting propped up in her chair in the tiny garden, she would talk and sing to the neighbors. It did not matter to Jessie who her listeners were children or “grownups,” as she called them. A neighbor said to me, one day, “That child cannot live long; she is always talking about Jesus and about heaven being her home.”
Leaving the neighborhood soon afterward, we lost sight of Jessie, but our confidence is strong that the faith of the little child has been, or will be answered, and that, before she joins her mother in the glory, others in that family will have been brought to the feet of Jesus. E. B.