I SHOULD like to tell my young friends about a very little boy who knew and loved the Lord Jesus very dearly. This little boy was too young to be trusted to put out his candle when he went to bed at night, and his mother was, I am sorry to say, one who did not know and love the Lord Jesus; she was often displeased when she went to his room for the light to find him still on his knees in prayer. But prayer was of so much value to him that he lingered at the throne of grace “to obtain mercy and find, grace to help in time of need.” Perhaps, also, he prayed for his mother, for I need not say that, as he was a believer in Jesus, he loved his mother although she did not love his dear Lord. Now, if he prayed for her, lie would have all the more to talk to Jesus about, and, thinking of her never-dying soul, and full of earnest supplication, he often forgot about the light. This displeased his mother, as I have said, and one night, when she came upstairs and found him still in prayer, she was so irritated that she snatched the light away, and, saying something very angrily, left him just as he, was on his knees in the dark. How long he continued thus none on earth can ever tell. Whether or not he found in his mother’s harshness only further cause to be “instant in prayer” I know not; but, to his mother’s anguish and dismay, when she entered his room in the morning, she found her little boy stiff and cold, with his hands clasped as in prayer, in the same place and attitude as she had left him on the previous night. We will not dwell upon the bitter sorrow and remorse of that poor woman as she clasped in her arms the cold figure of her boy. What would she not have given to have had him back again, even to keep her waiting while he prayed, and, it may be, while he prayed for her! But it was too late to bemoan her unkindness to her poor little boy. His happy spirit was in Paradise, in heaven, in the presence of that precious Lord Jesus whom he loved so dearly! He had taken him home to Himself. His mother had in anger snatched away the candle he would never need again, but the Lord had taken him where “they need no candle, neither light of the sun.” She had left her little boy all alone in the dark, hut Jesus had brought him where “there shall be no night, for the Lord God giveth light;” into that wondrous scene where darkness shall never enter, for “the Lamb is the light thereof.” In the meantime his little body waits in the dust for the moment when “the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,” and raise all His own from their graves. Then they, and “those that are alive and remain unto the corning of the Lord,” shall reign with Him for ever and ever. Would you like to be with them? If so, go to Jesus now at once, believe in Him as your own dear Saviour, just as this little boy did; then you will be saved, and will love Him because He first loved you. Then you will be able to sing—
“Of all the gifts Thy love bestows,
Thou Giver of all good,
Not heaven itself a richer knows,
Than the Redeemers blood.”
Then you will learn to trust Him with all your little cares and sorrows, and to plead with Him especially for the salvation of those you love on earth.
ML 10/23/1904