MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,
Many of you, I have no doubt, have read Good News it may be for years. Let me ask — Have you received those many lessons to your spiritual good which it contains? Can you sincerely say, I have found the Saviour, or rather, he has found me? This is the first object of those truths which are found in its pages every month, namely, to point you to Christ; therefore I hope you will consider these questions, for they are very important. If you have not yet believed in Christ the Saviour, let me entreat you now, at the beginning of a new year, to beware how you trifle with this solemn subject; your time, at best, is but short in this world: many, very many, even among the young, are carried to their early graves; and even if that should not be your case, the Lord may come at any moment. Oh, let me warn you, then, to go at once to Jesus. May you have power to believe in him, and thus obtain mercy and find pardon; and then you will be happy while you tarry in this world, and fitted for that better home above.
T. H., Jun.
Plymouth.
And to those among the dear young readers of Good News who have the blessing of forgiveness and everlasting life in Christ, we would say, think seriously over the many examples and persuasions to obedience, communion, love, service, which are set before you month by month in the pages of your magazine. Yes, yours; written and printed expressly for you. Do not read merely to be amused or interested. Good News is not a toy, but a little teacher coming to you month by month to tell you glad tidings — tidings put before you in many ways and shapes to win your attention, and by God’s grace to touch your heart — tidings about the blessed Jesus, his work, his ways, his ceaseless love — tidings about many who have gone before you, or are living now, examples of his grace, and meant to be examples for your imitation in so far as they followed Christ in anything, or warnings where they erred. But if you read without thought, and especially without prayer, you will not get the good intended for you. Will you thus requite those who seek your welfare? As the little ones of the flock, you are objects of especial interest to those who love the Lord; how much more to him “who carries the lambs in his bosom!” May the thought of his love constrain you “as new-born babes to desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”