YOU all like when the season comes for packing up for a holiday at the coast. To have no lessons, no school bell to call you in from play, but for the long, summer day to walk by the shore gathering shells, and building castles on the sands. I am going to tell you about two little girls who spent a very happy summer at the sea-side together, and who I am sure will ever look back on the happy days they spent by the sea-shore, and thank God for them. Do you know why? Because it was one of those days they both trusted Jesus as their Savior and became the lambs of His flock.
Clara and Susie were school-mates and companions. Their parents were well-to-do people, but very worldly. I fear the two little girls seldom heard the name of Jesus mentioned in their homes. I do not think they even went to the Sunday School, only to the Church once a day with their parents, and what they heard there was by far to "high up" for them to understand. But you know that God who loves the souls of boys and girls so orders events, that His gospel may reach the ears of those who do not hear it at home, and He did so in the case of Clara and Susie. A Christian gentleman who was down at the coast with his family for a few weeks, was in the habit of gathering all the boys and girls he could get to come together on a corner of the beach for a Children's Service. They sat in circles on the sand, and sang many of the sweet gospel hymns that tell of Jesus and His love. Clara and Susie were there, and perhaps for the first time heard the gospel plainly and simply spoken. The meetings on the sands were a great attraction to
them, and they came day after day; the Holy Spirit using the Word spoken to awaken their interest and show them their need.
Sometimes at the close, little groups of children remained to speak with the gentleman who held the services, and often to tell him that they had trusted Jesus. Clara and Susie waited one day among the rest. They had both been thinking much about the matter of their salvation all that week, and only the day before, in walking together on the beach they had arranged to wait behind and be "spoken to" after the Children's Service. They had no particular "difficulty" to inquire about, but they lacked decision. They knew it was by believing on the Lord Jesus that they could be saved, but whether they them-selves had thus believed in Him or not they did not quite know. A few words made it all plain to them. Jesus says― “He that heareth My word and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life" (John 5:24). To hear, to believe and to have go together, and all who hear and believe must have the life eternal. So Jesus says, and His words are truth. Clara and Susie accepted them as such in their hearts that day, and became two of the lambs of the Good Shepherd's flock. Reader, have you like these two girls trusted Jesus? Is He your Savior?