MRS. W. was going out to spend the day with a friend, but just before she started she called her little girl, whose name was Alice, to her side.
“Alice” she said, “I shall not be home till seven or eight o’clock tonight, and I want you to promise me that you will be very good indoors today. I do not wish you to go beyond the play house; you may amuse yourself there if you are well wrapped up. Mary is ill and cannot attend to you when you are out of the nursery, so be a good girl, and mind me, and I know you will be glad when the evening comes.”
Alice kissed her mother, and she went away.
The first hour or two passed, and she was very happy; then she said,
“Nurse, may I go into the play house for a little while?”
“Yes, dear, if you don’t go further.
Off ran the little girl into a large outhouse which her papa and mamma had fitted up for her amusement, and there she had nice toys to play with, besides a seesaw and a rocking-horse. This afternoon she played contentedly for a little while but after a time she grew tired, and began to wonder why she might not run in the garden.
Presently as she was looking and longing to go, she saw her hoop lying on the gravel path some distance off.
“I am sure mamma would not wish that to stay there all night, for it might get spoiled if the rain should come; it could not be wrong to pick it up,” so she ran quickly down the path after it. When she reached the place where it lay, she caught sight of her swing under the trees.
“I must have two or three swings now I am here,” she said; and in a moment she had jumped upon it, and was passing backwards and forwards in the air.
Having so far disobeyed her mamma, it was easy to go further and though something told her she was doing wrong, she still went on and swung higher and higher, to keep her thoughts away from her mother’s last words.
No one could see her as she swung. for the trees and shrubs hid her from the sight of the house, so she spent half an hour in this way, feeling quite afraid to go in. But at last Alice grew so cold (for the wind was sharp and keen, and a mist was rising) that she was obliged to go, and you may imagine how frightened she felt when she caught sight of a servant who had come out to look for her.
Of course they scolded and told her she was a naughty girl, and little Alice had a miserable ending to what might have been a happy day. At eight o’clock her mamma was not home, so she was put to bed, but from the time she came in, she showed symptoms of a severe cold.
When her mamma returned, late in the evening, she went to her little girl’s bedside; there she found nurse in quite a frightened state. She said the child had been making such a dreadful noise in her throat, and seemed as if she would be choked.
“It is the croup,” said Mrs. Wells. “O, nurse, have you let her go out in this cold east wind?”
Then nurse was obliged to tell of what Alice had done, and how disobedient she had been.
Her mamma was very grieved and alarmed too, and sent off directly for the doctor. After a little while he came, and said it was a very bad attack, and for some little while they thought she would not get better; but at last she began to improve, and in three or four days after, was sitting on her mamma’s lap by the fire.
“O, Alice,” she said, “how grieved I am to hear of what you have done, and how you disobeyed me; it shows me, and show you too, what a naughty heart you have. You had everything to make you happy, and yet you longed after the one thing I denied. Are you sorry for what you have done?”
“I am, dear mamma,” sobbed Alice; “do forgive me.”
“I will, dear; but you have offended God, and He will not, cannot pardon you, unless your sin is put away from His sight. Can you do anything to wipe away the stain, this sin, and all your sins have made? For every sin you ever committed must be put away, or you can never get to heaven and be with Jesus.”
“No, mamma, I don’t think I can.”
“What did I do when I came home and found you ill?”
“You sent for the doctor, and he did me good.”
“Quite right; through God’s blessing it was so, and God says that you, and all in this world, have the disease of sin, and that it can only be taken away by going to the Great Physician. He alone can cure the sin-sick soul, and can you tell me who this is?”
“You mean Jesus Christ, do you not, mamma?”
“I do, dear; and if you go to Him and own what a sad state you are in—that you are stained with sin, and are not fit for God’s presence, He will save you, and wash you from your sins in His precious blood, and you will be blessed for evermore. So, I hope, dear Alice, you will go to Jesus today, own your sin before Him who loves you, and died for you, and you may be happier than you ever were in your life before.”
Children who read this, have you ever been disobedient or untruthful? I am afraid so. Then confess your sin before God, and come to Jesus, who is waiting to pardon you and to bless you, because He took the sinner’s place on the cross, and died that you might live.
“He loves to wash poor sinners clean
In His most precious blood,
And make them fit to stand again
Before a holy God.”
“And these shall spend eternity
Beneath their Saviour’s smile,
A brighter home than Eden’s theirs,
Where nothing can defile.”
ML 08/30/1925