NOT LONG AGO, little Emily, about ten years of age, was coming home from the Sunday School. She walked along slowly, her young heart heavy at the thought of the miserable home to which she was going; for she felt as if she had left all the sunshine of her life behind her when she said good-bye to her class and her beloved teacher. She was wondering, poor child, whether, when she reached home, she should find her father there, grumbling and swearing, as was too often the case.
It was not only poverty which made Emily’s home wretched. Her father was a drunkard, and her sick mother was heartbroken, as she saw her children going about hungry and barefoot, while the money which her husband earned was spent on drink.
As little Emily entered the front room of a poor house in one of the back streets, she found her father sitting beside the fire in silence. For a wonder, he was sober. She touched him on the shoulder, and said, “Daddy!”
“Well!” he said roughly.
“Shall I sing to you? We sang such a sweet little hymn this afternoon at Sunday School; I am so fond of it.”
“If you like,” replied her father, his face softening a little; for Emily was his eldest child, and had once been his pet. He knew that she was a brave little girl, and a great help to her poor sick mother. Degraded as he was, he loved his wile and children, and often cursed the enemy from whose cruel bondage he had no power to free himself. Some such thoughts were in his mind as the child stood beside him, and sang in her clear young voice this hymn, which is such a favorite with children:
“If I come to Jesus, He will make me glad;
He will give me pleasure when my heart is sad;
If I come to Jesus happy I shall be,
He is gently calling little ones like me.”
Emily sang this first verse, and then said gently, “Daddy, wouldn’t you like the Lord Jesus to call you too?”
“Call me?” he said, looking at her in surprise. “No fear, Em. The Lord won’t call a wicked drunkard like me. He might call a little girl like you, but not such a one as me. No, I’m too bad for Him!”
“But, Daddy,” said the child, “the Lord Jesus just came for that — to die and save wicked sinners: besides, look here,” and she pulled out of her pocket a little text card, “just you read what it says here, Daddy; read it with me.”
Father and child read slowly tether the blessed words: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).
“See,” said Emily, eagerly pointing to the words, “It’s ‘whosoever,” Day, ‘whosoever'! Do you see what it says?”
“Yes, I see, Emmie.”
“But what does ‘whosoever’ mean, Daddy?”
“It means anybody, of course.”
“Then it’s not only a little girl like me that the Lord Jesus is calling, is it?”
“You are right,” said her father, slowly; “yes, you are right, and I am wrong, Em. But then I never saw those words before — let’s look at them again.” And once more they went over the text together.
Here the child felt puzzled. What should she say next? She could not tell, though in her heart she knew what she longed for for her poor father — even that he too should “come to Jesus,” and be “made glad.”
Many a time had the poor drunkard tried to drown any feelings of remorse which might come to him by drinking more deeply than bore; but now his heart was touched by the thought of God’s love, his conscience was awakened to the sense of his sin and misery, and, as he went about from day to day, a depressed and unhappy but a sober man, his little daughter wondered at the change, and whispered to her mother that she believed God was going to make her father good. At last Emily told her teacher how unhappy her father looked. She came to see him, and found him in deep anxiety of soul, asking from the depths of his heart, “What must I do to be saved?”
At last, simply as a little child, he came to the blessed Saviour of the lost. Not only did he find forgiveness, but he was delivered from the slavery of sin. He found that the Lord Jesus is “able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him.”
ML-04/11/1971