HOW delightful it is to have a letter all for yourself, with your name on it, brought by the postman just for you, and no one else!
I suppose most of you remember the pleasure of receiving a letter for the first time. The little girl in the picture is holding her first letter tight. I do not believe she can read it herself, but she will let no one else open it, and who knows what there may not be inside? Good news about someone far away, and many loving words besides, all neatly folded up and shut into that little envelope which keeps its treasures as safely, as a strong box.
But it is when we are away from home that we value our letters most. You boys who are at school have had many a letter, but none like that first one, which came just when it seemed as if your hearts would break with the strange, lonely feeling of the new place, where the people meant to be kind, but were, with all their kindness, so different from those at home. Yet I know you prize all the home-letters, and well you may, for they come from those who would lay down their lives for you, and who long after you with tender thoughts and prayers, when you have got over your trouble, and are only thinking how you may best enjoy yourselves.
I am always sorry when I see a boy leave his mother’s letters about, because it looks as if he only cared just to read them once, and did not prize them as a mother’s letters should be prized. Let me tell you of a boy I knew, whose parents were in India. They had been gone so long, and he was so happy at school, his mind full of thoughts about cricket and fretwork, and rabbits and pigeons, that he had almost forgotten that he had a father and mother so far away. But you may be sure they had not forgotten that they had left a little boy, whom they loved with all their hearts, at school in England, and sometimes a letter, with one or two foreign stamps upon it, would come for Arthur. He seemed glad enough to receive it, but his mother’s writing was, like most grown up people’s, rather difficult for a little boy to read, and so he would put the letter, which it had cost her so much trouble to write, away in his pocket until he had time to read it, and there one letter remained, with all its loving words unread, more than two weeks.
The kind advice in that letter could do Arthur no good, for he had not read it; the good news it contained gave him no pleasure, because he had not read it; the pretty stories about his little brother Alfred, who was just beginning to say his name, and to understand that there was someone in England whom he must love very much—all were lost to Arthur while the letter lay hidden away in his pocket.
It was a sad thing for him to lose so much, was it not? It almost seemed as if he did not care for the letter since he could forget it for so long a time. But Arthur did love his mother, and did care for her letter, although he was so forgetful; and now I want to tell you of what this little story reminds me.
If I were to ask even such a little child as the one in the picture the question, “What is God’s letter to us?” I am sure she would answer, without waiting a minute to think, “The Bible.”
Yes, all who have read FAITHFUL WORDS would give that answer at once. But suppose I asked another question, “Do you ever treat God’s letter to you from heaven as Arthur treated his mother’s letter from India,” what would you say?
God, who loves us more than the dearest, fondest mother ever could, with a love which never forgets us for one moment, has sent us a letter full of good news, such as He alone can tell but of what use is it to us if we leave it unread, unheeded, perhaps now and then carelessly looking over a few lines of our letter, hardly stopping to think God is speaking to us as we read His words, and then forgetting all about it?
And yet, my child, you cannot doubt that God’s letter is for you, even though you may be almost too young to read it for yourself. Is it not written there that when the Son of God was on earth He called a little child to Him, and do we not read of other children, that the One who was so soon to give His life for them “took them up in His arms, put His hands on them, and blessed them?”
As the Lord Jesus called a child to Him long ago when He walked beside the lake of Galilee, so He calls you now. As He said “Come unto Me” then, not only to the old people who were almost tired of living in the world, but to the children who had just begun their lives, so He says “Come!” even now to you.
The child whom Jesus called heard His voice and came to Him—the children whom He blessed could never forget that they had been in His arms and heard His words of love. We think of them as happy children, and so they were, but we must not forget that it is by means of God’s letter to us that we can learn how the holy Son of God loved children when He was on earth, and how near He is now, though He is in heaven, to all who trust in Him, and the Lord Jesus can teach even a very little child to trust Him, and to know that He is a Friend to whom we can go when we are in trouble, or have done wrong, or feel that we want a friend.
It pleases God that you should not only read the Bible, but ask Him to help you to understand His letter to you. I don’t think you can understand or remember a great deal at once. A schoolboy, whose mother wished him to read a little in the beautiful Bible she had given him every day, used to send him at the beginning of the month in her letter a slip, of paper, on which she had written, as if in a little almanac, the verses for him to read each morning. Is this way Willie read that wonderful part of God’s letter, the gospel by St. Luke, all through. Sometimes he read six verses at a time—sometimes, more, stopping at the verse which his mother had marked for the end of that day’s reading, and the boys who slept in his room used to like to hear him read what they called “Willie’s mother’s portions.”
Perhaps some schoolboy who reads this may like to try the same plan. It would be a good thing if a few lines from God’s letter to us were read in every room where schoolboys sleep, and that by His goodness to them they might be able to say, “I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Thy word. I have not departed from Thy judgments: for Thou hast taught me.” Now this is almost like a letter from me to you, is it not? But I will not make it too long, for I want you to remember one part of it, and to think of this, that as Arthur’s letter from his mother in India was of no use to him while it lay, unread and unthought of, in his pocket, so God’s letter is of no use to you unless you read it and take it home to your heart as His own message sent to you. C. P.