THERE was once a little girl who used to think a great deal about the coming of the Lord and the succeeding judgments. She heard the book of Revelation read at family prayers, and though she sometimes tried to stop her ears, she could not shut out the fear and anxiety she felt. At night she would carefully close her blind for f ear the moonlight would shine through, for it made her think of the verse which says, “The moon shall be turned into blood.”
As she lay in her little bed, many were the resolutions that she made, that, come what might, she would never worship the beast or his image, never have his mark impressed upon her; and often did she in imagination go through the tortures and the death which she vainly thought would lead her into the presence of God; and about the present she never thought at all. Often as she had heard it, it never came into her mind, that God was ready to receive her now; to make her His child, and take all her future into His keeping. So she went on day after day and night after night, making herself miserable, when God was wanting to make her happy.
One day it flashed upon her, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” How simple it was: saved from judgment, whether in this world or in another. How foolish she had been. As her mother bent over her to say good-night, she whispered, “Mamma, do you think I am a Christian?” And when her mother answered:
“If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are, for He died to save us from our sins,” she knew that she did believe and that nothing need frighten her any more. Was she not a happy little girl?
And now she is waiting for the One who said,
“I go to prepare a place for you.
ML 07/15/1917