LESS than a year ago, there lived away across the ocean in Japan, a little boy named Hiromasa.
Hiromasa was only five and a half years old, but he had learned to obey his parents, and he played peaceably with his little friends.
Every Lord’s Day he went to the Sunday-school with his brothers and sisters, even when it was raining or snowing and blowing.
He liked nothing better than to hear from his teacher the Bible stories about Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Joseph, Elijah and the ravens, David and Goliath, Naaman the leper, Moses, Daniel, and others.
He was also very fond of singing “Jesus Loves Me,” and other hymns. And he never forgot the stories and hymns that he learned at the Sunday-school.
Young as he was, Hiromasa believed that the Lord Jesus died for our sins. He loved his Saviour and had a precious joy in Him, which knowledge, wealth, and the honors of this world cannot give.
But the middle of June, 1926, Hiromasa was taken sick. The doctor wanted him to eat nothing for two weeks, and to drink only a little water or tea. He grew very hungry and wanted so much to eat something. But he asked the Lord to help him to be patient, and to be brave when he had to take his bitter medicine, and he was comforted in knowing that the Lord loved him and sympathized with him in his sufferings.
However, the fasting and the medicine did not help Hiromasa. He grew weaker and weaker. But the weaker his body, the happier this dear little boy was in his soul.
July 10th, Hiromasa’s mother, holding him in her arms, said to him,
“Get well, my dear child, for you must go to school next year.”
“No, mamma,” he replied, “I’m going to heaven, I cannot go to school.” “Where is heaven?” asked mother. “Higher than the sun or the moon or the stars,” he replied.
“Dear Hiromasa, do you want to go to heaven?”
“Yes, mamma.”
“Why?”
“There is no trouble or sickness in heaven, and I shall not need to drink the bitter medicine. And above all, I shall see my Lord Jesus face to face up there.”
“If so, let me go with you, my child.” “No mamma, I shall go first and wait until you and papa come.”
How lovely and beautiful his words! Many times he asked us to sing the hymns, and we all sang his favorite songs all day.
About eleven o’clock that night his little heart stopped beating. The end came very peacefully, and his spirit went to be with the Lord. There, in his Saviour’s presence, he awaits the happy day when,
Dear boys and girls, the Christian need not fear death, for it means, absent from the body, with all its pain and sorrow, and present with the Lord forever, where all is peace and joy (See 2 Cor. 5:88We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:8)).
Are you, like little Hiromasa, trusting in Jesus? If not, turn to Him before it is too late. For the Lord often takes even the little ones, and sometimes very suddenly, —not after a long illness like that of the little Japanese boy.
Jesus is calling, “Come to Me.”
O, dear children, why stand still?
Run to the Saviour’s loving arms,
Let His love your young hearts fill.
ML 05/29/1927