Do the children know that they all went through this lesson? I suppose none of you remember it, but one of the first delights of your life, was to have the little feet bare, and then mamma to catch hold of the toes, one by one, with the old story of the pigs. I guess you all know it. What joyful times they were! As long as there are babies to listen to the story, and mammas to tell it, it will be told. Yes, and what patience the dear mother shows, in going over and over again, the same thing, happy in the child’s glee. It sums as if a mother’s love is without limit. How many of the dear boys and girls who read this paper think of that? If you really do, you Would never conceal anything, even your badness, from her. Love that is right-eons, can always be trusted.
It is a grand thing when a child so learns his father and mother, as to say, when he does wrong, “I am going to tell them all about it, to be forgiven.” That is counting on love that is just, and that can find the reason and occasion to bless.
There are plenty of other people in the world to resent an evil thing, to kick or cuff the child; but a mother’s heart can take up the case in tenderness, because she is a mother, and feels more deeply the wrong that her child does, than any body else can. Always trust your mother.
Now, it is this love that you may look for from God. He gave His Son to die, for our evil deeds and our evil natures, which shows that He could not endure them, and that He loved us beyond any measure that we could name.
Christ says: God so loved us to give Him. That tells how much it was. Do believe that, and take the salvation that God gives through that death. And then when you sin, remember that you may do a worse thing by covering it up.
Tell it all out to God, who forgives abundantly. It is not by doing something to atone for our sins, that we find peace; but by believing in His Son He delights to do all for us. The cross of Christ gives Him a reason and a place for doing all things for us.
Do you think those dear little feet, fondled so tenderly and lovingly by the mother, could ever spurn her? And yet that has been done, and many a poor broken-hearted mother has been kicked in anger by an ungrateful and wicked son. There is no telling what dreadful evil there is in our nature, and what a child may grow to do. There is none good but Jesus Christ; and only “In Him” can we be kept from unkindness and cruelty.
May your little feet not run to evil, but may you believe in Christ and use them to walk in His ways and carry His messages of love to all. God says “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation.” Isaiah 52:77How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! (Isaiah 52:7).
ML 05/14/1899