SOME YEARS ago a young lady had a great desire to go to India as a missionary. She wanted to tell the children there about the Lord Jesus, the Saviour of sinners, and the best Friend they could ever have.
She was all ready to go when suddenly she took seriously ill. She recovered from her illness, but the doctors told her that she could never go to a land like India now. So instead she became a school teacher in the village.
One day while she was driving alone along the country road, she wrote two verses of a hymn on the back of an envelope. Afterward she taught them to the children in the Sunday school where her father was the superintendent. It was his custom to ask the children to choose a hymn, and so on this particular day they called for this new one. He was surprised and asked who had written it. “Oh,” replied his youngest daughter casually, “Jem wrote it.” This hymn is one which many children know and love
“I think, when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men,
How He called little children, as lambs, to His told;
I should like to have been with Him then.”
The author of this little hymn became Mrs. Luke some time later, and she added the third verse which made it a missionary hymn:
“But thousands and thousands who wander and fall,
Never heard of that heavenly home;
I should like them to know there is room for them all,
And that Jesus has bid them to come.”
So although Mrs. Luke never became a missionary, she has inspired many others to go forth and tell of the love of Jesus.
Mr. Harold Copping, a famous artist years ago, once painted a picture of Jesus in the midst of five little boys and girls, representing the different races of the world. There they were, red and yellow, black and white, for all are precious in His sight. It was a happy little group, with the hills beyond, and the blue sea in the distance.
One day in India a missionary showed this picture to some little children. It was so real to one little girl that she walked to the front and pointing to the picture with her little finger, she said, “I want that Man to put His hand on my head.” And many dear boys and girls on hearing about Jesus and His love have felt the same.
“I wish that His hands had been placed on my head,
That His arms had been thrown around me,
And that I might have seen His kind look when He said,
Let the little ones come unto Me.”
How sweet it is to be able to tell you, dear boys and girls, that the Lord Jesus is the same now as He was when He was upon the earth, for He is “the same yesterday, and today and forever.” He loves little children now as much as He did then and longs to have them come to Him and have their sins forgiven. He has died for them and shed His precious blood to wash their sins away.
Little ones, and older folks too, who trust Him as their Saviour, will one day gaze upon His kind and loving face, shining in all His glory, and be with Him forever. But in the meanwhile, we can show others by our lives that the Lord Jesus is the best of all friends.
“I long for the joy of that glorious time—
The sweetest and brightest and best—
When the dear little children of every clime
Shall crowd to His arms and be blest.”
ML-01/14/1973