Hope had a very strange doll. It was a doll that looked much like a gingerbread boy—and it was stuffed with hard dry kernels of corn. You see, Hope lived quite a long time ago, and when she coaxed her mother for a doll her mother had to sit down and make one for her, for there were no stores nearby where she might buy one.
Although it was not a beautiful doll like the ones girls have today, still Hope loved it very dearly, and played house with her and took her out for walks just as little girls do with their dollies now.
One day Hope and her brother James had a bad quarrel. James had been carving out a pretty little ship and was carefully cutting out one of the masts when Hope bumped into him, knocking the little ship to the floor. Several pieces were broken off, and James in an. angry voice cried,
“Can’t you watch where you’re going? Look what you did!”
“I don’t care if I did! answered Hope. Of course she did care—whatever made her say that? she wondered. She was so ashamed that she hurried outdoors.
“I’ll fix her, I will! —the mean thing!” thought James, and just then he noticed her little doll lying on a chair. Picking it up, he hurried out another door and made his way to the tool shed where he got a shovel. Then he ran quickly around to the garden and, away at the end of it where there was soft ground and nothing seemed to be planted, he dug a hole and buried the doll!
“There—that’s the end of that! That’ll pay her back for breaking my things,” said James to himself. “And nobody will ever know what happened to it!” But James forgot about God! God has said, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper” (Proverbs 28: 13), and again, “Be sure your sin will find you out.” Numbers 32:2323But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out. (Numbers 32:23).
Many days went by, and Hope cried many tears, but no one could find the little doll. It seemed to be a mystery that couldn’t be solved—the doll had just vanished! James was not as happy as he thought he would be either; instead he began to feel he had done a pretty mean thing. Once he even thought of digging the doll up again, but when he thought of the hard time he would have trying to explain how it happened to be so dirty he decided to leave it where it was.
A few days after a rainy spell Mother was out in the garden gathering some vegetables when she noticed a spot of fresh green down at the foot of the garden. “That’s strange,” she thought, “there is nothing planted down there.”
So she went closer to see—and there, just in the shape of a little doll were green blades of corn growing! The hidden sin was uncovered, just as God’s Word says it will be.
Sin hidden in the heart will just as surely be uncovered one day too, and oh—what a sad day it will be for all who have not trusted the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. Why not, right today, believe on Him
ML 08/06/1950