MOST of you, dear children, have nice homes of your own, and loving parents to take care of you when you are ill; but it is not so with many other little children,—it was not so with Alice, the little girl of whom I am going to tell you, When she became ill her parents, though loving her quite as much as your parents love you, yet having a poor home, and having to work for their daily bread all day, sent her to the hospital to be properly taken care of.
Alice was placed in a nice little cot in the children's ward. There was a shelf put at the foot of her cot, and on this her kind nurse placed any pretty little toy she could get that she thought would amuse poor little Alice as she lay there day by day. They were not very pretty toys—at least you would not have thought them so—a tiny wooden doll, a little bit of blue ribbon, a piece of blue and purple delf that Alice thought very gay and pretty when the sun shone on it. These and other trifles were poor Alice's little treasures; but treasures they were to her, and very beautiful they seemed in her eyes as she lay there day after day, hour after hour, looking at them or playing with them as she was able.
I do not know if Alice's parents had ever taught her of Jesus' love in dying on the cross; I do not think they had. And as she was very silent and reserved, and seldom spoke even to her kind nurse, very little was known of what she was thinking all day, or whether it made her very sad to be ill or not.
But there was a gentleman who used to come very often to visit the children in that ward. Sometimes he spoke in a distinct voice, so that every child in the ward could hear him tell how God loved sinners and gave His Son to die to save them. Sometimes he went from one little cot to another, and spoke separately to each child. One day he stood for a moment by Alice, and said, "Jesus said, 'lam the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep,'" and then passed on. Another day he said to her, "'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son," adding”’
He knew how wicked man had been,
And knew that God must punish sin:
So out of pity Jesus said
He'd bear the punishment instead.'”
The child looked at him, but said nothing.
Another day Mr. H. said, "If I were giving you a present, I do not think I should give you the most precious thing I have; I might give you sixpence or a shilling, but I do not think I would give you my watch. Now, God does just the opposite. He saw that you, Alice, wanted life, because you are a poor lost sinner, and so He gave you what was most precious to Him; having, therefore, one Son— His well— beloved—He sent Him to die, that you might live forever with Him.”
“I never heard the sound of little Alice's voice," said Mr. H., "week after week, as she lay there. She listened to those texts of Scripture I told her every day, and the little verses of the hymns, but never got over her shyness sufficiently to speak to me till one day shortly before her death. I was then speaking to her nurse about her, in so low a tone I did not think it possible she could hear us.”
The nurse replied, "I do not think the poor little creature will live much longer.”
Without a second's pause, in a clear, distinct voice, Alice said, sitting up in her bed, and pointing with her hand to her little treasured toys, and gazing earnestly on them as she spoke—
“I do not want to live, nurse; I love, I love Jesus, and I would leave all my pretty toys, and go to Him.”
From that time till her death, some days after, Alice's heart was set upon going to Jesus, who loved her and died for her. She had given her heart to the Lord Jesus, and so death was as nothing to her, for she loved Jesus. R. B.