IT is night-time, and dark and dreary it is outside the house, where lives a little girl whom I know. Dark and quiet, too, it is in the bedrooms, where she and her brothers and sisters are supposed to be asleep, while the father and mother are staying a little while downstairs after the bustle of the long day. They are enjoying a quiet half-hour over the Bible, which they both love.
Let us take a peep upstairs. Why, what is that on the landing? Something white! Surely it is a child standing leaning over the banisters! Yes; it is my little friend M., and very much frightened she looks as she listens eagerly for the sound of voices below. Why is she standing out there, instead of being tucked up warmly in her cozy bed? This is the reason. M. has very often heard, what most likely you have often heard, that the Lord is coming to take all who love Him up to His own beautiful home, to make them bright and glorious, like Himself, and give them everything that can make them happy. M. knows this is true; she knows that the Lord may come at any moment, and then her mother and father, she is sure, would go up to meet Him in the air, and she thinks, "Shall I be left behind?”
Such thoughts have kept little M. awake, and as she thinks of the Lord's coming she feels that she does not really love Him. She has been listening if she can hear her mother's voice, but all is quiet downstairs. At last she can bear it no longer, and so she creeps quietly out of her little bed and on to the landing to try and find out whether the Lord had really come, taken her father and mother away, and left her behind. And, oh! how glad she is when she hears them at last talking together, and then she knows that she is not left alone!
I am glad to tell you that some time after this M. gave her heart to the loving Saviour, and now she knows that, whenever He may come for His people, she is ready, and will be amongst those who will hear the voice that calls them up to their beautiful home above.
Dear children, I have not told you this just to amuse you. I want you to think whether you are ready if the Lord Jesus were to come just now. He may come, you know. Do you remember the verses in the New Testament that tell us about the Lord's coming for all His people—for every tiny little boy or girl who loves and trusts in Jesus the Lord. Now will every one of you look out the first epistle to the Thessalonians and find the fourth chapter and read the last three verses. You will see now that the Lord Himself is coming, and that those who love Him, but have died, will hear His call first. Just think of the graveyards and cemeteries near you; well, everyone in them who loved the Lord will come out, and we who love Him and are still living in this world, will be caught up to meet Him in the air, and be always with Him in the glory.
All the little children who often suffer pain here will lose the pain then, and those who are hungry now will never be hungry then. It will be all brightness forever for everyone who knew that the Lord Jesus was his or her own Saviour.
Perhaps some girl or boy will say, "How am I to know that?" Well, you know you often say and do naughty things, and God sees all that, but He loved you so that He gave His own dear Son to come down into this world and tell us that He loved us, but that He hated naughtiness, and must punish it too. His Son took the punishment for us, and will wash away the naughtiness from everyone who believes what He says-that is what the Lord Jesus did. He died on the cross, and bore all our sins or naughtiness there. And I am sure if you believe He died there for you, you will begin to love Him and try to please Him, and you will be ready when He comes. L. T.