THERE was a boy who lived in a cottage in the country. At the bottom of his garden there was an orchard belonging to a farmer, in which were some fine fruit trees, and the boy often used to look longingly at an apple tree that had some beautiful red, rosy-cheeked apples on it. He ought to have resisted this temptation, but he let it grow stronger and stronger.
Till one day he climbed through the hedge, and, looking all around to see if anybody was looking at him, he climbed up the tree like a squirrel, and, saying to himself the farmer will never notice a few, he pulled about six apples and put them in his pocket. But when he got them in his pocket they had lost their charm, he wished he had never taken them, he hated them.
Poor boy, he was very miserable for many days after that; but one day he thought he would go to the farmer and confess that he had stolen the apples, and pay the farmer for the value of them, and the farmer received the money very quietly, saying it was all right.
But paying for the apples, while quite right foe the boy to do, did not blot out the sin, ah no, the sin still remained, and it was not till after the boy went to God and confessed it, and had the joy of being forgiven.
And this is what our young friends must do if they do not—let them go straight to God and Len Him the sin with shame-facedness, and, the sin will be forgiven, for the "blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin,"
Messages of God’s Love 9/16/1934