Number 8. Shoshi’s Work.
TODAY you shall hear of a boy who only lived nine years and yet had a very useful life.
The father and mother of this child died when he was quite a little fellow, but God cared for him, and put it into the heart of Mr. Vaughn, a missionary, to take him into his Orphanage, where he was well fed and clothed, besides being taught to read and write and do many useful things. But Mr. Vaughn did not only wish to teach the boys in his Home, to be wise and useful in this world; he knew that this life may be very short for any of us. He tried to teach them that there is one part of the boy or, girl that never dies, and he often read to them from the Bible of the beautiful place which Jesus has gone to prepare for those who are washed in His precious blood.
Little Shoshi was very young, but he listened attentively to what he was taught, and when one day Mr. Vaughn took him on his knee and began to talk to him of Jesus, the Friend of little children, he found that the little boy was really one of Jesus’ little lambs, and that he knew that all his sins were washed away in that precious blood.
It was not long after this that Shoshi began to grow pale and thin. He could not run about and play, and was always tired. So the doctor was called in, and when he had examined the child, he said to the missionary, “I am sorry to tell you bad news; but Shoshi has consumption, and he must not stay in the Orphanage.”
Kind Mr. Vaughn, was sad at heart, when he and the poor little boy started to the hospital, carrying a small bundle in which were the child’s clothes, and a Bengali Testament, which was his greatest treasure.
It was only two or three days before Mr. Vaughn went to see how Shoshi was getting on. He was in bed, very weak and suffering, but his eyes glistened with delight when he saw his friend. Presently, he pointed to a young man in a bed some distance off, and said, “Sahib, go and speak to that man. I am sure he wants to be a Christian.”
When Mr. Vaughn went to speak to the stranger he found Shoshi had been reading to him from his Testament, and telling him of the love of Jesus. “I never” said the man, “heard such words in my life; will you give me a book like it?”
“I will gladly,” said the missionary, and very soon the young man had a Testament too.
When next little Shoshi’s friend went to see him, sad news was waiting for him. The little boy had been taken suddenly much worse, and in a few hours, had gone to his heavenly home.
The missionary knew his dear little Shoshi had gone to the land where no one ever says, “I am sick,” still it was with a sorrowful heart he turned to speak to the young man, whom the dear little fellow had tried to teach about Jesus.
That bed was empty too, and on enquiry he found the man had been sent from the hospital because the doctors could do him no good. “It is well with the child,” thought Mr. Vaughn, “but how about that poor man?”
About two years after this, the same missionary was visiting the “Home for Lepers.” Suddenly a man came up to him with a beaming face. “Sahib,” he said, “do you not know me? Don’t you remember little Shoshi? Don’t you remember the man to whom he read and spoke of Jesus? I am that man, and I bless God that He brought that child to my bedside. I am now a poor leper, so have come to this home, but thank God, I have been reading the Scriptures, and now I know Jesus as my Saviour.”
This man’s name was David, and for three years he lived in this Home, always ill in bed, but no one ever saw him unhappy or cross. He used to help everyone, and there could be only peace and love where David was.
Day by day, the other lepers gathered round his bed, and he read to them the wonderful stories about Jesus, and told them of the free salvation offered to every one of them.
When at last God was pleased to call poor David to Himself, all the lepers said they had lost their friend and teacher. Do you not think that little Shoshi will hear the gracious Lord say to him, “Well done,” someday and that poor David will have some of those lepers for “A crown of rejoicing”?
ML 04/14/1912