FOUR feet trotting along under merry June sunshine, two heads peeping over a low garden paling, four eyes admiring and covetous.
“I say, look at the roses!” says Tom to Ethel.
“The gate is open,” whispers Ethel, the tempter.
“No, come away. Mother said we weren’t to go into Mr. Giles’ garden at all.” This from Tom, but with a yearning look at the garden gate.
“Mr. Giles is out; I saw him go down the avenue. Just let us smell them; it’s no harm,” pleads the tempter again.
Tom’s resolutions vanish. The looking ends in smelling, and the smelling in picking. Presently the children are going homeward with hands full, but hearts a wee bit heavy.
“We’ve been awful naughty,” says Tom.
“We needn’t tell mother—at least, I mean not now,” adds Ethel hastily. “Supposing we were to be very good for a week, and then tell her, she mightn’t mind so much.”
“It doesn’t seem right,” Tom answers, slowly. “And, besides, I don’t think I could keep good unless I told her. Let’s tell first, and be good afterwards.”
Little readers, I want you to apply this in another direction. There may be among you one who would like to come to the Lord Jesus, but all the disobedience, the temper, the untruthfulness, perhaps, of the past rises before you, and you think it’s better to try and be good first. But, dear child, you cannot keep on being good until you have told Him about these sins, and rest upon His words that forgiveness for them is offered to you through “His Name.”
“Then come to His feet, and lay open your story,
Of suffering and sorrow, of guilt and of shame;
For the pardon of sin is the crown of His glory,
And the joy of our Lord, to be true to His Name.”
ML 06/11/1916