MANY YEARS ago, a boy named John, saw on his way to Sunday school a number of ragged boys of his own age, playing in the street. He begged them to come to Sunday school with him. But only one agreed to do so, a boy without a hat or coat. When they arrived at the door, and the boy saw all the children inside were well dressed, he wanted to run away again, saying: “I won’t go in there, I haven’t even a coat on!”
“Here is my coat,” said John, and quickly pulling off his coat, he helped the other put it on. So both of them went in.
After pausing a little while, the teacher added: “I know that incident very well, for I was that boy who once had no coat; and Dr. John Paton, that famous missionary of the New Hebrides, of whom you surely have heard before, was the one who gave me his!”
In this way that devoted soul winner, who in later years was used to bring in so many people from heathendom with the net of the gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, began even as a boy to lead souls to the Lord Jesus. He sought out such in his immediate neighborhood who knew nothing of the Lord.
ML-10/06/1963