CECIL H—attended the Sunday-school but he was not always attentive to what the teacher said. Although his mother wished him to be regular in his attendance, he would sometimes make excuses and would stay away. His sister, who is younger, has learned to love the Lord, and is always in her place in the school, with a bright, happy face, unless kept at home by illness; for, young as she is, she has known much of suffering. One day when she came into school the teacher asked her if her brother would be there that afternoon. She said she did not know, but her mamma had said he must come and if he did not she would shut him up when he got home.
I want to tell you how God shut Cecil up, and for a much longer time than his mother would have done.
It was a pleasant afternoon—an afternoon to make boys think it would be nicer to stay outside, maybe, than to go to Sunday-school; so when Cecil met some boys who wished him to go with them to the river bank, which was not far off, and have a play, he was easily persuaded, and they were soon running along together.
But the Lord was looking upon Cecil and was displeased with his ways, and He did not allow the afternoon to pass without giving him a lesson which he will, likely, never forget.
There were steep hills where the boys were playing, on their way to the river, and as Cecil was running down one of these he stumbled, and fell on a piece of barbed wire that was lying on the ground. In the fall he gashed his leg badly, tearing it wide open and taking out a piece of flesh. Poor boy! that was an end to his Sunday play. The other boys helped him home, and his frightened mother, who had not the courage to look a second time at the mangled leg, hastily a summoned doctor.
When the doctor came he found the poor limb in a bad condition; it was so badly torn he had to cut away part of the flesh, and he had many stitches to put in in order to hold the torn places together. But Cecil bore it all very bravely, and made no complaint. He knew that he had done wrong and that the Lord was punishing him for it; this he owned to his teacher when she went to see him. For weeks, Cecil was shut in, and time was thus given him to think about his ways.
Do you not think, dear children, that Cecil would have been wiser, and better off, if he had gone to the Sunday-school and not listened to boys who had no love for such things? He turned aside in a wrong path and the Lord allowed him to suffer for it. God tells us, “The way of transgressors is hard.” Do you know what a transgressor is? It is one who does what is wrong, and Cecil was a transgressor on that Lord’s day. He found the way hard, for he had to suffer much. It is always best to do what is right, and pleasing to the Lord, even if it cost us a little self-denial at the time. R.
ML 12/24/1899