I know what sled-riding is. We each have a sled and slide down from the top of a hill ever so fast; and O, my, isn’t it fun!”
Well that is just what I want to tell you a story about.
In a certain town the main street runs into the valley, and other streets come down the sides of the hills across this main street. These side streets offer great temptations to the little boys that are fond of this kind of sled-riding, and though they are forbidden by the authorities of the city to sled-ride on these streets, and policemen are told to take up little boys that they find doing so, because many accidents have occurred through it, still some naughty little, willful boys, in spite of the police, and the forbiddings of their parents, will do so.
A few weeks since, one of these willful little boys, scarcely five years old, took his sled, and was sliding down “ever so fast,” one of these forbidden streets, when just as he came to the cross street, a sleigh was driving rapidly past. The houses on either side had hidden the sleigh from the little boy, and before he had time even to turn his sled he was under the horse’s feet, the horse fell, fell on the little boy, and killed him on the spot. His little lifeless body was carried borne to his sorrowing pants, but his little soul went, I trust, to the dear Saviour who came “to seek and save the lost:” still it was solemn and dreadful, to be killed in a moment, while in the act of disobedience.
Dear children, I want you to be warned by this sad story, to let your pleasures be always in the path of obedience, and not dangerous in their character. I will give you two verses to think of in connection with it.
“Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right,” Ephesians 6:11Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. (Ephesians 6:1), remembering that if you don’t,
ML-02/10/1935