A Real Occurrence.
SEVERAL years ago, on one summer afternoon, a little girl about nine years of age was walking along one of the beautiful terraces in the western part of the metropolis. The day had been intensely hot and sultry, and in accordance with the weather she was clad in simple white. She tripped lightly and joyously along, for as yet she knew nothing of “the world’s vain joys, its temptations, toils, and tears;” every sunset gave her a promise, and every sunrise brought a blessing. Well, we must not pause in our little story to reflect on the happy innocence of childhood, too soon marred by the world; or to think how soon the young heart is sickened with the deceit and treachery it has to encounter; how soon the “not far from the kingdom of heaven” is made “of the earth, earthy.” Leaving all this, we must go on, and relate how the thunder clouds, which had for some time been gathering, presently burst and discharged, as it were, a continuous sheet of water, while the flashing lightning and roaring thunder added terror to the scene. The little girl’s thin attire could but ill resist all this. What was she to do? She bethought herself, there was no shelter near, nothing on the one side but a large garden; on the other, fine houses. “Well,” thought she, “I must not stay hesitating, I must go up to one of these large houses, although I dare say very rich people live here, and I must ask them to let me come in till the storm is past.” So she summoned up all her courage, and mounting a flight of steps rapped at one of the doors. It was instantly opened by a gentleman, who she thought looked like a clergyman. He had seen her from the windows, and asked her very kindly to come in and sit down. She did so, and he began to talk. She stayed till the heavy shower had quite abated, and was thanking him as well as she could for the shelter he had afforded her with such politeness, when he said, “he was very much pleased to see that she was not afraid to come up and ask admittance, and his prayer for her should be, that she might be led to take refuge from the storms of eternity in the blood of Jesus Christ.” Much else that he said has since passed from her memory, but those words have remained indelibly fixed upon it through many years of mingled joy and sorrow, and have been blessed of God to her eternal good. “A word spoken in due season, how good is it!”
If we believe in Christ, how watchful we should be, and how careful that, as far as possible, in everything we do, and in every word we speak, we endeavor to promote his glory and the good of souls! Many a little passing admonition in the street has been remembered, as those words will be, during a whole life, —the benefit derived from them eternity alone can disclose. And let none of my young readers despise such kind admonitions. Rather “let them not depart from them, but keep them in the midst of their heart, for they are life to those that find them.”