WHAT sadness our picture this week suggests,—a home of misery and discomfort. The lighted candle, and untouched meal, tells its own sorrowful tale, no one to brighten the home. Poor little Alice had been sent out, by her mother to gather some sticks for the fire. After getting together a bundle, she sat down weeping beside a stile at the road side, regardless of the gathering gloom. How long she intended to sit there no one knows.
But soon a rustling noise was heard in the woods she had just passed through, and a girl about her own age, clambered over the stile with a heavy burden of sticks.
"Why, Alice," she cried, "how can you sit there in the cold? You'll be frozen to death."
"And who would care?" said Alice.
"I would," replied her friend, laughingly, "and you would'nt much like it yourself either, so come, cheer up, and let us see who will be home first."
The road stretched along the valley, and both the girls were making towards two cottages, which stood apart from the village, and a good way up the hill, but the difference was great between the two girls, who were thus following the same path to homes that seemed so much alike.
Both were very poor, and neither had what could be called a happy home, but the one loved the Lord Jesus, and the other knew Him not; or in other words,— the one was happy, and the other was miserable.
Alice had never felt the contrast between herself and Ellen so strongly as this night, and she was inwardly wishing she knew what Ellen's secret was, when someone who had been walking much more rapidly than herself drew near, and she was joined by a kind looking elderly gentleman.
He asked her why she was crying, and when she told him because she was cold and weary, and feared lest her mother would scold her when she reached home, and send her to bed without any supper, he looked very sorry for her, but said he did not think crying would do any good.
"I am afraid, my girl," he added, "that you don't know how to be happy. Do you see those two cottages high up on the hill side?"
"Yes, sir," said Alice, "we live in one, and Ellen Watson lives in the other."
"Well," he said, "as I came along the valley this evening, your cottages were quite bright in the beams of the setting sun, but as it went down, they grew darker and darker, till I could scarcely find them on the hill side, but now, don't you see how bright one of them is again? Can you tell me the reason of this?"
"There is a light within, sir," said Alice.
"Ah! yes, and when the true light shines into our hearts, there is peace, joy, and happiness. The only light for these dark sinful hearts of ours, is the Lord Jesus Christ."
Alice had much to contend with on reaching home, but she pondered what she had learned this night, and the glorious gospel of Christ shone into her heart, making her a new creature in Him.
Even her mother wondered at the change. Ellen rejoiced, and not a few saw that another little pilgrim had left the broad road for the narrow way, and was seeking a better country, that is an heavenly.
Messages of God’s Love 2/14/1926