IN the house where a lady was staying with some friends was a little girl also on a visit. More than once the lady thought, “Shall I tell that dear child of Jesus’ low for children? shall I ask her if she love: Jesus?” But she kept silence. At last the time came for the little girl to go home, and again the lady thought, “Shall I not speak to her before she leaves? I may never have so good an opportunity.” But once more her cowardice overcame her, and she let the child go without a word, saying to herself, “Well, I shall often see her again at her own home, then I will speak to her of Jesus.”
About a month passed, and there came a letter, saying the little girl was very ill; soon after another, to say she was dying; and not many days after, the sad news of her death. Then what sorrow and remorse filled that lady’s heart while she earnestly prayed for grace to overcome her cowardice.
Christian reader, do you shrink from speaking a word for your Master? Are there not friends around you to whom you might speak of
“That wonderful redemption,
God’s remedy for sin.”
But you keep silence, thinking that they will not like the message, and laugh at you; yet, maybe, all the time those whom you fear may he longing for someone to tell them of Jesus and His love, and wondering why you do not speak of Him.
Some years ago a young girl was in great anxiety about her soul. She was timid and reserved, and there being no Christian in the house where she was living, she kept her distress to herself. She often longed greatly for someone to talk to her of the Lord. One day she was invited to spend the evening at the house of a friend whom she knew to be a Christian. She thought, “Now I shall be told how I am to be saved. Mr. G. is such a good man, I hear, he will never let me leave his house without speaking to me of vital religion.” When she arrived at her friend’s house, she found there another gentleman of whom she had often heard as an earnest Christian. But all that evening the two gentlemen conversed together, but neither said one personal word to the visitor, who longed to hear the way of salvation; so at last she took her leave and went home, crying bitterly all the way with her disappointment. And during her grief the tempter suggested that there was no such thing as real religion; that it was an invention, and that she had better give up thinking about her soul and enjoy herself.
Dear Christian readers, may these simple facts be a warning to us never to let an opportunity pass of speaking for Jesus.
H. A. I. S. M.