LITTLE Emma is very poor, she has few playthings, is seldom able to go down the lanes flower-gathering, and is very delicate. But little Emma loves Jesus and Jesus loves her, and she is bright and happy.
I will tell you how it was that Emma first came to know the Saviour’s love. One day she was taken very ill, and she thought, perhaps, she might die. The naughty things which she had done came before little Emma’s mind, and she said,
“Father, how dreadful it would be for me to die, and never to go to the beautiful House above Jesus will not forgive my sins, I fear. I am a bad and naughty child, what shall I do?”
“None are too bad for Jesus, my child,” said her father, “He loves sinners. He loves to wash away their sins, and to make them fit to live with Him in His beautiful House.”
Emma believed what her good father told her, she trusted to God’s word, and became happy in the knowledge that Jesus loved her, and had washed her from her sins in His own blood. Emma would now often say, “I wish Jesus would come and get me, and dear father and mother also, so that we might be all together at Home with Him.” What a change this was in Emma’s heart from that time when she said, “Jesus will not forgive my sins, I fear.”
When the child became well again she would sit in a corner of the room in her little wicker chair, and, rocking herself to and fro, would speak of the love of the Lord Jesus, and she would tell the people who came to see her father of the good kind Saviour.
One day, hearing a number of persons merry-making together, Emma slipped in among them.
“I want you to love Jesus,” said she to one of them in a quiet little voice, and then to another,
“I want you to pray to Jesus,” and so she spoke to one and another until the people clustered around her and stopped their music and dancing. And the people said in astonishment to the little girl’s father, “Your child has learned such beautiful things.”
Yes, God’s Spirit has taught the child beautiful things indeed, and now, dear little reader, let me ask you whether you love the Lord Jesus. I want you to know how kind He is, how He pities little children, how He forgives their sins and makes them His Lambs forever.
Think how He suffered and how He died upon the cross for us. And He is calling little children to Himself still. “Come unto Me,” are the words of the Lord to you my young reader. “Come unto Me.” Come in your heart; come with your sins; come, as you are, come even now. When you call to baby, come, and he stretches out his little arms to you it is just as if he really came; his heart comes to you, though his feet cannot bring him, for he is too young to walk. Now it is the heart’s coming which the Lord Jesus asks for, and none of you are too small or too young to come thus. I have seen baby turn away his little face from the word “Come,” and though he cannot say words, yet we all know what that turning away means. So it is with those who turn their hearts from the “Come” of the Lord Jesus, for it is not in a loud voice children say, “No, I will not come,” the heart can say, “No,” to Him.
“I want you to love Jesus.” Why? Because then you will be happy for ever; because, too, the Lord Himself is longing to have your heart.
ML 04/07/1918