“SHALL I tum in and sing zoo a pity ‘ittle hymn?”
I do not remember ever opening my cottage door in answer to Ruth’s little knock, without hearing this pretty petition; and, unless very much engaged, I would say, “Yes, Ruth, come in!” which she would do on tiptoe, for fear of soiling the matting, and, with a sigh for very pleasure, seat herself on a footstool. “And what are you going to sing, Ruth?” I would ask, and the invariable reply was, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” which she would sing quite prettily.
Nothing delights the school children more than to go for a walk in the flowery meadows. One day I went with them for a stroll in the dinner hour. The little girls ran hither and thither, plucking flowers to put in the basket I had brought. When we came to what we call “the singing stile,” we perched on it and sang a song. Then we jumped down into another field, where the children wandered about singing merrily, each one, like the birds, singing his and her own song. This field led into another, in which a flock of sheep and lambs was feeding. Here little Ruth met with an accident, and she did not come to school that afternoon, and next day word was brought that she was “very bad” — “had something coming under her knee.”
Little Mary went to play with her in the dinner hour next day, and when she came to school in the afternoon she said to me, “Oh gov’ness!” Ruth said to her mother, “Would Jesus see she if He was to come?” When went to see Ruth, the mother told me that when she had lifted her into the armchair Ruth said, “If Jesus was to come, mother would He see me? would He see me in the armchair?” “I thought it such a knowledgeable thing for a child like that to say,” the mother added.
But I thought, “Yes; but Thou, Father hast hid these things, from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes for so it seemeth good unto Thee.” And I thanked Him in my heart that He had taught this “little one” to wish, like the dying thief to be remembered at the coming of His Son from heaven.
Yes, Ruth, He who calleth His own sheep by name, is not likely to care less for the lambs of that flock, He who gathers the lambs with His arms, and carries them in His bosom, is not likely to forget even one of them. No “none of them is lost.” And what a beautiful sight it will be for the angel, in that day, “when He cometh,” to see all the children, “the little children who love their Redeemer,” flying upwards to Him like doves in clouds to their windows, from many a lowly home, and many an unmarked grave.
Poor Ruth was crying sore with the pain when I went in, and neither her mother no: I could soothe her; but after a little she spoke, and this was the first thing she said “I used to sing zoo a pity hymn, gov’ness.”
“Yes, Ruth,” I said, “and you shall come and sing me one again the very first time you are able to be out. But don’t you think you could say me one now?” Then she said two of her own choosing, and chatted quite brightly for a long time.
The pain got worse and worse, however, and after a few days the doctor came and lanced the knee. What a relief it was to poor Ruth! As soon as her leg was bound up, and the doctor gone, she began to sing her hymns, and sang herself into a sweet sleep, which lasted all through the night, and far into the morning, when her father’s kiss awoke her. E. B—R.