CHARLIE was a little boy who went to a Sunday school in Philadelphia. One day he met his Sunday school teacher in the street, and told him he was going into the country to spend the summer.
“Well, Charlie,” said the teacher, “and what are you going to do there?”
“Oh, I’ll run around and play in the fields, and have good fun.” “Very well for you,” said the Teacher; “but what else do you expect to do?”
“Why, I’ll try and help the farmers, perhaps.”
“Very good for the farmers,” replied the teacher, “but what are you going to do for your heavenly Father?”
“What, me?” said he, “Why, what can a boy like me do for God?”
“You may do a great deal if you only try. Here is a bundle of tracts; suppose you take them, and give them away in the country.”
“Oh, I can do that,” said Charlie, and he took the tracts.
Well, he went to the country, and after he had been there some days, a boy living in the neighborhood asked Charlie if he would help him to gather the cows together and drive them home.
He said he would, thinking at the same time that this would be a good chance to give away one of his tracts.
On their way down the meadow he said to the cow-boy, “Here’s something for you,” at the same time handing him a tract.
“What is it?” said he, looking it carefully over.
“It’s something good to read,” said Charlie.
“But I can’t read,” replied the boy, “yet I’ll take it home; they can read it there.”
It was a week or more after this before Charlie met the boy again. The first time he saw him, he said, “Well, Charlie, that little book you gave me made quite a stir at our house.”
“Did it though,” said Charlie, “how was that?”
“Why,” he replied, “Dad and Mother read the tract, and then they got out the Bible and started to read it. Then when Sunday came they decided that we should all go to the preaching.”
Charlie told his teacher about it when he got back home. Sometime later he learned that some of those folks in the country had found the Lord as their Saviour and were going happily on their way to heaven. And all through the gospel message in that little tract!
ML-12/16/1962