EDITH, Mabel, and Connie Stephenson were roaming through the pleasant wildwood in search of spring flowers. Already the elder sister had her apron filled with these fresh treasures, and amongst them a bunch of some healing herb for old Dame Gibson, who lived in the village, and who regarded it as a certain cure for rheumatic pains. They were returning home, and were about to issue from the wood, when Connie stumbled against an object that lay right across their path. It was a dead lamb.
Now, I don’t think these children had ever seen death before, and it is a solemn thing even for the oldest to look upon. Little Connie got down upon the ground and began to rub the snow-white fleece, as if that could restore the lamb.
“What is the matter with it, Edith?” asked Mabel, looking up with troubled eyes into the face of her elder sister.
But that face told her nothing. Edith gazed down with a gravity very unusual to her, and pressed her flowers tightly to her little breast as if knowing they too must fade and leave her.
“Poor thing!” she murmured. “Is it cold, Connie?”
“Quite cold,” lisped the little one, placing her hands around the lifeless form, and trying in vain to raise it up. “It won’t stir. Come home with me, lambie; my own little lambie, do; and I will love you so.”
But there was no response; the lamb was dead, and no amount of affection could win it back to life. How it came there, they knew not; but they knew it had gamboled in their father’s fields, and had heard that it was missing. The lost one was found, but how found! Whether it had been sick, or wandered into and got tangled in the thicket, they knew not. Perhaps it had been dragged thither by cruel dogs, who were frightened and so forbore to tear it further; we cannot tell.
But though these mourning children could not restore departed power, there is One who can raise the drooping soul, and give life to the dead body. Children are by nature stray lambs, and as soon as they begin to act for themselves they too often wander away from the place of safety in which the dear Lord Jesus would keep them. How dreadful to be lost! How dreadful to be alone, surrounded by danger! Will you not put your little hands into the one pierced on the cross for sin, and say, “Jesus, tender Shepherd, keep me for time and for eternity, safe and happy in Thy love”?
ML 04/16/1916