I was holding a series of meetings in Aberdeen, Scotland. At the close of the meeting one evening I noticed that I was being closely followed by a little girl who kept at my heels like a little puppy. Finally I turned to her and asked a little sharply, "Lassie, what do you want? Why are you not away home with the rest of the folk?”
Then, for the first time, I scanned her a little more carefully, and I saw that tears had been running down her cheeks. Her eyes were large and wistful, and still filled with tears. She was barefooted, and her clothes were of the poorest. When I asked her what she wanted, I fully expected that she was wanting money.
"Lassie, what do you want?" I repeated.
The little lassie stood up on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear, "I want to be saved.”
"You want to be saved?”
"Aye, sir, I do" still in a whisper, and oh, so pathetically.
"And why do you want to get saved?”
Again on her tiptoes she reached up and whispered in my ear, "Because I'm a sinner.”
I drew her to one side. "How do you know you are a sinner? Who told you so?”
"Because God says so in the Book, and I feel it right here," laying her hand on her breast as the publican did.
"Well," I said, "do you think I can save you?”
She had only spoken in a whisper before, but now, drawing away from me, her words rang out short and clear: "Na, na, man! You canna save me. No man can save a sinner; only Jesus can save me.”
"Yes, my dear, you are right. Only Jesus can save. What has He done to save you?”
Again her lips to my ear: "Oh, sir, He died for me.”
I do not know why I made answer as I did. "Then He is dead, is He? How can He save you if He is dead?”
The little thing sprang from her seat. No whisper now—no timid putting of her lips to my ear—but her voice ringing out as before. "Man, Jesus is no deid! He died for me, but He is no a deid man—He is God's Son. Did you no tell us this Vera nicht that God raised Him from the dead? He was died, but He's no deid noo. Oh, man, I want to get saved," and her voice dropped back into the old pathetic tones. "Do but tell me a' aboot it, and how I can get saved.”
I had spoken that night from the text, "Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.” Here was a little girl who had grasped the whole blessed gospel clearly. She knew that she was a sinner; she knew that only Jesus could save her. He had died, but God had raised Him from the dead, and now He was able to save.
I need not say that the little one soon went away saved and happy.
"He's no died. He died for me; but He is no died." How often these words have come back to me, presenting to me as they do a living, loving Savior who is able to save to the uttermost those that come unto God by Him.