LITTLE Minnie's mother earned a scanty living by trading in a small way. She was too poor to buy Minnie the nice things many of my little readers so much enjoy. When Minnie was about eleven years old, she began to look very unwell. The child's sickness increased, and at last she was forced to give up going to school. I often visited her mother's cottage, and read the word of God to her, and as I noticed that little Minnie's face was looking paler and paler, and that the little strength she had was fast declining, I could not but yearn over the child, that the Lord would in mercy reveal His great love to her.
One day, after I had been reading and speaking of the love of Jesus, I asked her if she knew that Jesus loved her. Bursting into tears, she replied, “I don't know what to say.”
Now Minnie's mother and her grandmother were both of them children of God, and they longed that Minnie might become a child of God, that she might know her sins were all forgiven her, for Christ's sake. As the child grew weaker, her little playthings had to be laid aside; but the Lord had begun to speak to Minnie's heart.
Young as little Minnie was, she knew that she needed a Saviour. And so she cried aloud with great earnestness, but with childlike simplicity, “Lord, save me! Lord save me!”
When the Lord was upon earth, we all know how He loved little children, how He took them up in His arms and blessed them, and said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God." Also when the voices of men appear to have ceased to shout, "Hosannah to the son of David," and the children kept up the strain, even in the very temple itself, and the chief priests and scribes said to the Lord, "Hearest Thou what these say?" He replied, "Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise?" for not one of those childish voices was unnoticed by Him, and to-day in heaven He takes notice of the voices of children calling upon Him on earth.
The Lord Jesus heard little Minnie's voice when she cried, "Lord, save me! Lord, save me!" and it was but a very little while after she had called upon Him that He spoke peace to her heart, and she exclaimed with joy, "Grandmother, I am saved, Jesus has saved me, grandmother. I am going to heaven." Then there was joy in heaven. Yea, there was joy in her poor mother's heart, too, even as the hot tears rolled down her cheeks, as she thought how sick and ill her little Minnie was.
Little Minnie was now full of joy; she delighted to talk of heaven and of Jesus; and when her mother asked her one day, "But would you not like to stay here a little while, along with your poor mother?" "No, mother," was the quick response, "I want to go to heaven, where Jesus is." “But what will poor mother do when her dear Minnie is gone?" Then she replied, "You can come, too, mother.”
Thus with joy and in peace little Minnie fell asleep in Jesus. “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:33And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3).) A. J.