I SUPPOSE, dear children, that most of you have spent happy summer days in woods or forests. What fun it is swinging on the low branches of the great trees, or playing hide and seek among the tall bracken, or trying to catch wee rabbits before they disappear with a hop, skip and a jump into their little dark homes at the foot of the mighty oaks!
Not long ago, on a bright summer’s morning, a merry party started for just such a day in the old Sherwood Forest. There was the father, who did not often take a holiday, and therefore enjoyed it all the more, and the often wearied mother, and three little children. During the past week the weather had been very stormy, so that the sweet sunshine seemed doubly sweet as the bright beams glinted through the leafy branches and fell on many crimson foxgloves in the green dells.
The children were in high spirits, as you can fancy, and laughed with glee as they caught sight of the bushy-tailed squirrels springing from bough to bough, and shouted, clapping their hands to make the rabbits run the quicker into their holes. Having driven some way into the forest, they alighted, and while the father fastened the pony to a tree, the mother unpacked a basket of good things, and laid out a tempting picnic beneath the spreading branches of one of the mighty giants of the forest. When this had been done ample justice to, the father took the two elder children for a ramble through the woods, while the mother, seating herself on one of the great gnarled roots of the old tree, took out her needle-work.
The youngest of the party played contentedly at her feet for a time, but presently began trotting round the great tree, pretending that he was going quite away, and then coming round to the other side to hide his face with a merry laugh in his mother’s lap.
“I’m going home,” the little fellow sang each time as he left her side, and the monotonous chant only ended as he reappeared round the tree. He had started again on his little tour, and the mother was listening smilingly to the young, happy voice still shouting cheerily, “I’m going home! I’m going home!” when suddenly a terrible crash was heard, and a piercing shriek. The mother flew round the tree to find her darling boy lying crushed beneath a great limb of the mighty oak, which had been loosened by the late storm. At her agonized cry the poor father hurried to the spot with others who were within call, and they quickly removed the heavy branch, but, alas! the child was beyond the reach of human skill. The spirit had returned to God who gave it — the little one had indeed gone home.
You say, “Oh, what a sad story!” Yes, indeed, dear children, so it is; but I have not told it you only to make you sorrowful; I want it to make you thoughtful. Do not think I want to spoil your childish fun. Far from it! What I want is that you should have that which will make you really and forever happy, even in days when sorrow or death may come to you. You know Jesus came into the world to bear our sins in His own body on the cross; will you not then take Him at once as your Saviour, believe on Him with all your heart that you may have now everlasting life through Him, and be able to sing a sweeter song than did the dear little child I have been telling you about — a song that only the redeemed can raise, as they journey along towards heaven?
D. & A. C.