IS ANY little boy or girl who reads this magazine wondering how a child can do good?
I will tell you one way, which I learned from a story of a little girl whom I knew. A friend of mine told me that while he was once preaching in a certain place, he was struck by the attention of a lovely child whose eye was all the time fixed upon his lips, except now and then, when she looked up to her mother’s face with a smile, as if something pleased her.
The next Lord’s day he saw her in the same position, ready to catch every word of his discourse; and he was so delighted with her apparent desire “to hear of heaven and learn the way,” that, at the close, he waited to tell her mother how it gratified him to have such an interested listener. From the mother he learned that the little girl had no pleasure equal to that of listening to the preaching, and treasuring up what she heard for an old and infirm grandmother, to whom she carried so much instruction that the poor woman would say it was almost as good as hearing the preacher herself.
Was not this a very pleasant and a very easy way of doing good? Is there any child who cannot do as much good? Has not each of you some sick, blind, or old friend deprived of the privilege of hearing the word of God preached, to whom you might carry what is said, if you would only take the pains to remember? If you will hear all the preacher says, you will find, as that attentive girl did, a great deal to do the young good, as well as an old grandmother. You will not only be in the way of doing good, but you will be getting good. You will not only be making others happy, but increasing your own happiness. It is the privilege of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ to comfort others by the comfort wherewith they themselves are comforted of God. 2 Cor. 1:44Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. (2 Corinthians 1:4). And they will find, if they do so, how true it is that the liberal soul shall be made fat; and that he that watereth shall be watered also himself. Prov. 11:2525The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself. (Proverbs 11:25).
ML 11/27/1904