It was time for Sunday School, and just pouring rain. Dorothy ran up the hill, opened the schoolroom door, and fairly jumped inside. She slipped off her dripping raincape and rubbers, wiped the water from her face, and then looked about her.
On week-days the schoolroom was filled with pupils, and on Lord’s Day about a dozen children usually gathered to learn of Jesus. But today there was no one there but the teacher, who laid down her Bible and smiled as Dorothy entered.
“Let’s watch from the window,” she said, “so we can open the door when we see anyone coming.”
But no one came. Dorothy felt strangely shy. She liked her teacher, but it was different to be all alone with her; and when the teacher suggested that they sing together, Dorothy made no answer.
The teacher understood. She talked a little about the hymn instead, and then asked Dorothy to say her verse.
This the little girl was always ready to do, and so she began at once, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way ... ” and then she stopped.
Dorothy always said her verse very fast, but today, even with the-teacher’s help, she could not go on. The words would not come, but the tears came instead. She just cried and cried. The teacher did not know why, but she began to talk quietly about the verse, for she knew that the Lord could help a little girl’s trouble, whatever it was.
“We have all gone astray,” she said, “just like lost sheep, and we couldn’t find our way to God at all. We chose our own way instead. God saw our sinful condition and so He took our sins, every dark sin that His searching eye could see, and He laid them all upon Jesus in those dark hours when Jesus hung upon the cross. It’s all over now—all finished—and the Lord Jesus is seated at God’s right hand in heaven. My sins are all gone, and it makes me glad. What about you, Dorothy, are your sins gone too? Can you say your verse now?”
Yes, Dorothy finished her verse,— “and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” she said, and she smiled with the tears still on her cheeks.
Many a Sunday had Dorothy run to Sunday School, and said her verse as fast as she could, without stopping to think. That one rainy Sunday she stopped for the first time to think that the true Word of God was really meant for herself, and thus she was saved that day for all eternity.
Reader, have you thought what these wonderful words mean? Have you learned that they are true for you?
ML 03/11/1951