IN a town in one of our western states, there lived a family, consisting of the father and mother, and a little girl named Mary who was about seven years old. Neither the father nor mother attended a church, but Mary was allowed to go to Sunday school. One day the father was taken very sick.
Thinking he was going to die, and knowing he was not prepared, he became very much troubled about his sins. One night he awoke, and was in such great distress that he begged his wife to pray for him. She said she had never prayed for herself, and didn't know how to pray.
"Oh, what shall I do for my poor soul?" cried the sick man.
"Perhaps," said his wife, "our little Mary can pray; for she has been going to the Sunday school a good while."
"Go and call her at once," he said.
Her mother went upstairs to her room where Mary was fast asleep. She woke her, wrapped a shawl round her, and carried her downstairs, and seated her on her father's bed.
"Mary, my child, can you pray?" asked her father with great earnestness. "Oh, yes, Father, I can," she said. "Will you kneel down and pray for your poor father?"
"Yes, I will pray for you."
So she knelt down, and putting up her little hands, she said, "Our Father, which art in heaven . . ."; then she prayed in her own simple words. She asked God to have mercy on her father, to pardon his sins, and teach him to love Jesus, and to make him well again for Jesus' sake.
When she had finished, her father asked, "Mary, will you read me some verses from the Bible?"
"Yes, I will, Father," she said.
Then she got her Bible, and began to read the third chapter of St. John. She read on till she came to these words:
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."
When her father heard this verse he said, "Oh, Mary, is that there?"
"Yes, Father, it is here; and it is just what Jesus said."
"Well, that is just what I want."
"Yes, Father, but hear the rest of it. '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.' "
"Oh! that is for me, a poor sinner like me — 'Whosoever believeth in Him' I can believe in Him; I do believe in Him."
From then on Mary's father began to get better; and he lived to be a happy, useful Christian.
Messages of the Love of God 8/10/1958