PART 2
The next Sunday dawned clear and bright, the sun shone in a sky without a cloud. As we read in Psalms 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” for who else could make that glorious sun to rise, day by day, giving light and heat to those upon the earth. When Charley awoke that bright morning, he longed to be out in the sunshine.
“It is a shame,” he said to himself, “for a boy to be shut up in the house a day like this. My Father is not using any of the ponies today, I will catch one„ and have a good long gallop,”
“AH, Charley, is not that Satan tempting you? But even as Eve was deceived by the serpent 6000 years ago, so little Charley was deceived that Sunday morning. He was not on the watch; he only thought of his own pleasure and cared nothing for disobeying his good mother or grieving his kind teacher.
Have you ever done the same, I wonder, thought only of self, and your own pleasures, and cared nothing about the wishes or even commands of those whom God has put over you? Remember this verse,
“Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” Just think of it, “well pleasing”—a little child to be able to please the Lord well.
It took Charley a long time to catch one of those frisky little Indian ponies. Just as he thought he had his hand on one, it would toss up its head and kick up its heels, and away it would go like the wind. At last he caught one, and slipped the bridle he held in his hand over its head. No need of a saddle for him—he is off, as fast as his pony’s nimble little feet can carry him. He is soon long past the village, past the little wood to the right, past the pretty pond in the hollow where the wild ducks gather in autumn days. No fear of father or mother or teacher finding him here. Sunday school is dull, he says to himself, he will not go today, it cannot matter for once, and no one need know he is out riding.
Did you, dear boy, ever make that great mistake and think no one knows? Then, remember, that there is One who always knows. One to whom the darkness is even as the day, and remember, too, that He never forgets, that He has a book in which all your sins are written down, and by and by, when He sits upon His Great White Throne, those books will he brought out and small as well as great, will be judged out of them.
O, dear children, will you not come now, before it is too late and confessing your sins to God, ask Him to forgive you for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore the punishment of sin upon the dreadful cross!
The afternoon was closing in before Charley thought of turning his pony’s head towards home. The boy and his steed were both tired, and perhaps neither were heeding the holes on the prairie, dug by the in mischievous gophers, or prairie dogs, as they are sometimes called. Be it as it may; the pony stumbled, and away went poor Charley over its head, falling with great force on the hard ground. At first he was conscious of nothing, but before long he came to himself, and tried to rise and catch the pony, who was quietly grazing nearby; but with a groan, the boy went back in an almost fainting condition, from the terrible pain he felt in his leg. Again and again he tried to get up, but each time fell back screaming with agony.
“It is of no use,” he moaned at last “my leg must be broken. He was right, it was broken and very badly, in more than one place.
For many hours he lay there faint and exhausted, but quite conscious, and as he lay there his mind went back to the last Sunday, and the story he had heard of Alexander, and as he thought it all over, he said to himself, “I am just like him, and Satan said to me, ‘Charley, come out and break your leg.’ Why was I not warned, why did I listen to him.”
But it was too late now, we can never undo what we have once done, we may weep bitter tears of repentance and we may know the rest of being forgiven, by the God we have sinned against, because the punishment of the sin has been borne by Another, even God’s own Son, but we cannot undo the deed, and we cannot get away from its consequences.
Charley was found by friends after several hours of great suffering, and carried home, to be upon a sick bed for many, many months. I am sure he repented of his sin, for he told his Sunday school teacher when she came to visit him, how often he had thought about Alexander, and how like his own conduct had been to his.
Yes, he repented of his sin, and that is the first step, but I do not know whether he ever got to the second step. What is that? you ask. Well, it is,
“Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Charley knew himself to be a sinner, but I am not sure, though I very much hope, that he learned as he lay and suffered for so long, that there is forgiveness of sin, because Jesus has been punished instead of the sinner.
Have you, my dear boys, for whom have especially written these stories, taken either or both of these steps?
None can to glory go,
Or dwell with God above,
Save they who Jesus know,
And taste a Saviour’s love;
The holy words of truth declare
No other grounds of entrance there.
ML 06/26/1938