THESE words were spoken last month by a little boy of nine years of age, as he returned home from a cottage meeting, conducted by the town missionaries in a back street in one of our large towns in the north of England. Let me tell you how this boy began by being a home-missionary.
“Sir,” said his mother to me, “I could not help crying as I listened to the conversation between him and his little sister, only five years old. ‘Lily,’ he said, ‘I am quite sure it’s time you began to pray. You ought to begin now.’”
A few evenings after the mother had told me of this conversation, at the close of a cottage service, an invitation was given to any present, who felt drawn by the Holy Spirit, to offer a few words of prayer. Somewhat to my surprise, a little girl kneeling before me, with a devout and earnest manner, began thus: “O Lord Jesus! be merciful to me, a sinner, and save me. Amen.” Then followed her little brother in earnest and affectionate entreaty that God would bless his father and mother, and lead them to Himself through Jesus.
Dear children, I tell you this short story that you may see that this dear little boy not only felt a strong desire to be useful, but sought for strength, and began at once to work for Jesus, and began at home, trying to point his little sister to the Saviour, and so proved that it was a real purpose of his young heart, not a mere idle wish, forgotten as soon as uttered, that made him say, “Oh, mother, I mean to be a missionary.”
X. X.