I ONCE knew a little girl who used to often wonder because she heard grownup people say so much about the happiness of childhood. She did not for a moment think that all they said was not perfectly true, but she felt sure that there must have been some grand mistake made about her; for, do what she would, she could never feel really happy.
I do not mean to say that she never enjoyed a merry game, or that she never forgot her sadness in eager efforts to win praise and prizes at school, or in “building castles in the air,” as it is called, a thing she was but too fond of doing; but when not engaged in any of these exciting occupations, and especially on Sundays, and when left alone in her bedroom, before going to sleep, this feeling of sadness was always present.
She was a city-bred child, but once she was taken for a walk in the country, when she saw a glorious sunset, a sight which made her more unhappy than she had ever been before.
“But why,” you will say, “should a beautiful sunset make anyone sad?”
It was just because it was so beautiful; for the little girl thought she beheld the glory of the city of God, the very gate of heaven, and she said to herself, “Oh what must it be to be there!” But she remembered what she had so often red in her favourite book of revelation, “There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth,” and she thought “Those angels at the gate would never let me pass in. Oh, shall I ever be clean from my sins!”
It was “a sense of sin!” that was troubling this little girl, and this spoils, as it well may, all the pleasures of life.
“Well,” I think I hear someone say, “I hope I shall never be troubled with a sense of sin.”
Ah, not so fast, dear young friend; you would not think that you are a sinner, I suppose? And if so, you surely must know that you need a Saviour. “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick,” and there is no more fatal sign in one who is very ill then to have “no pain.”
It is a terrible thing not to have “a sense of sin,” painful though the feeling be while it lasts, for if you do not know your need as a sinner, you will not be likely to seek the Saviour.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
This is how it ought to be; only “a night” of sorrow, as it were, enough to make you welcome the joy of the morning without any clouds, whose rising brightness never sets. But it was far otherwise with this little girl, for she was taught the gospel in this way— “It is true that God does for Christ’s sake forgive sin, but we must be sufficiently sorry first. It is true that He saves sinners, but we may not know whether we are saved or not till the Day of Judgment, though now and then very good people are permitted on their death beds to feel sure of going to heaven.” Is it any wonder that her night was a long one? It was years long, and although the morning broke at last, and she became truly happy, she never ceased to regret her beclouded childhood, which might have been so different. The other day a friend gave her this pretty, artless letter of a dear little girl to read
“—My dear little brother,— Papa and mamma send their love to you, and so do I. Tell Aunt that baby is one year old. Edith came with me to the Sunday school on Sunday, we all read the fifth of Luke, about a poor man who could not walk, so four, men carried him on the housetop, and let him down through the tiling, because they wanted to get him near Jesus. The men did not go down, and Jesus made him well, and forgave his sins; dear George, was it not kind? And that same Jesus forgave mine, did He forgive yours? He died on the cross for you. There is now such a beautiful rainbow, have you got one?
“I am, your loving sister,
“ELLA.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, when she had read it, “what would I not have given when I was a child to have been able to say what this little girl says! That same Jesus forgave my sins. Happy child, to have been taught the gospel in its sweet simplicity!”
Yes, that childhood must be happy from which the burden of unforgiven sin is thus re moved. And who, that has heard of what Jesus did on the cross for all who trust in Him, need bear the burden about from day to day? “He Himself bare our sins in His own body on the tree.” The forgiveness of sins, through faith in His name, is preached. Let no one deceive you. John wrote these words, “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake,” for the believers he addressed knew that their sins were forgiven. The knowledge of forgiveness of sins should mark the beginning of the believer’s course. There can be no joy till it is experienced. But man’s thoughts, are always as opposite as possible to God’s thoughts. In conclusion, I would ask you the; question the little writer asked her little, brother— “Did He forgive yours?”
E. B.—R.