I was holding a series of meetings in Aberdeen, Scotland. After dismissing the large audience one night I noticed that I was being followed by a little girl who kept at my heels like a little dog. 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 was attracted by her face. There were evidences that tears had been running down her cheeks. Her eyes were large and hungry looking, and still filled with tears. She was barefooted and barelegged halfway up to the knees, and her clothes were of the poorest. When I asked her what she wanted, I had fully expected that she was wanting money.
"Lassie, what do you want?" I repeated gently.
Then the little girl reached up on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear: "I want to be saved.”
Surprised and startled at the intensity of her words, I drew back. "You want to get saved?”
"Aye, sir, I do!"—oh, so pathetically, still in a whisper. "And why do you want to get saved?”
Again on her tiptoes she reached up and whispered in my ear: "Because I am a sinner.”
This was so satisfactory a reason, and by this time the child had so interested me, that 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?”
Hitherto she had spoken in a whisper, 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 quite right. Only Jesus can save. What has He done to save you?”
"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 me. No whisper now—no timid putting of her lips to my ear—but her voice rang out as before: "Man, Jesus is no deid. He died for me, but He is no a deid man—He is God's Son. Man, did you no tell us this vera nicht that God raised Him from the deid? He was deid, but He's no deid noo. Oh, man, I want to get saved!" Her voice dropped into the old pathetic tones. "Do not fash me. Tell me a' aboot it, and how I can get saved.”
I had preached that night from the text: "He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." Here was a little theologian who had grasped the whole blessed gospel with a clearness that I have often seen among Scotch children. All of them, however poor, have been taught the Scriptures all their lives. 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 is no deid. He died for me; but He is no deid." How often these words have come back to me, presenting as they do a living, loving Savior for every sin-sick soul. Will you not believe on Him, dear reader, as simply and trust Him as fully as did the little Scotch lassie?