I WANT to tell you about a dear little boy who lived very near the beautiful Niagara Falls, which are justly called the “thunder of waters,” for their sound is so great that they can be heard at the distance of many miles.
At the infant school there were about sixty or seventy pupils assembled each Lord’s day.
Some of these children were very unruly and disobedient, but there was one—a little fellow of eight years old—who was always a marked contrast to the others, by his attention to what was being taught. His name was Beattie. Sometimes my friend gave the children a short and simple address, speaking to them in easy words, and trying to get them to listen to the “sweet story of old”—the love of God to this world in giving His Son to die for sinners; and, while some of the scholars “cared for none of these things” little Beattie always sat with his large eyes fixed on the speaker, and a lovely expression on his face, as he heard about that blessed One who died on the cross and rose again. Little Beattie really loved the Bible, and it was a pleasure to him to learn verses correctly or to search for answers to the questions put by his teacher.
Dear child! it was God’s will that he should suffer pain. God was his Father—his loving, gracious Father, but He saw fit to make this little one pass through affliction. Those large and beautiful eyes of little Beattie’s that had looked wonderingly on the mighty waterfall, and that had often read the Bible, were struck by a disease which soon deprived them of sight, and the dear little fellow became blind.
It was after this that the brightness of his character and the depth of his faith grew rapidly, affording another proof that “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise.” (Matthew 21: 16.) Not only was he blind, but very ill, and it became plain, to all who saw him, that he would not live in this world much longer. Often when his father and mother sat in his room he would make great efforts not to show the pain from which he was suffering, because he feared to distress their tender hearts, for his own heart was so loving that he could not bear to afflict them.
“Do not cry, dear mamma,” he would say; “do not fret. Be happy. I am quite happy. I am going to my heavenly home, going to be with Jesus, and I don’t want you to fret about me. You must be happy, for I shall be so happy there.”
One day, shortly before little Beattie’s death, he heard his brother John quarreling with another brother. Now, he loved John tenderly, and he knew that his love was returned so he called him to his bedside, made him feel how much his conduct had grieved him, and told him that as he was considerably older than the other boy, he ought to set him a good example. Then he begged John to come to the Lord Jesus for the pardon of all his sins, and entreated him to become a follower of Christ. My friend said he believed that John never forgot that lesson, and the gentle, pleading voice of his dear little dying brother; and there is reason to hope that he has since really come to Christ, and found Him as willing to receive him as He was to make little Beattie His own.
Little Beattie’s sense of hearing became most acute as he lay on his sick-bed. He knew, by the step, all who came to the house before he heard their voices, and for everyone who spoke to him he always had a sweet and loving word in reply. There was no fretfulness, no murmuring; but a constant sense of the Lord’s presence with him, made him so full of joy that he seldom said a word about his pain and suffering, talking only of the love of God, and of the bright home to which he was going. My friend told me that he thought the sick chamber of that precious boy was, through God’s mercy, as the very gate of heaven to more than one poor sinner. There they learned something of what the love of God is, and that He can give joy and peace in believing to the youngest as well as to the oldest of those who trust in him.
ML 09/08/1918