I am going to tell you about a little girl who is a Christian—I mean she is really saved and on her way to heaven. Indeed, she has been used of God in leading her own infidel father to the Lord Jesus.
Several years before Ada was born, her father, who was the captain of a vessel, and often away for several months at a time, fell in with some wicked men who did not believe the Bible to be God’s book. Previous to this, Captain Moston read the Bible on Sundays when he was at home. Now he forbade his wife to keep the Bible in the house.
Only after he had gone to sea did she venture to take out her Bible from her drawer and read it to her little girls, Ada and Mary. She was very grieved that her husband had taken such a hatred to the things of God, although she herself did not know Jesus as her Saviour. She read the Bible to her little girls and taught them to say their prayers, more as a duty than anything else, and her wearied heart often longed for that rest she had heard others say that they enjoyed. Ada and Mary were attending some children’s meetings held in the town, at which the Lord was graciously working and leading many of the little ones to Himself.
Ada, when kneeling at her mother’s knee to repeat her usual prayers before she went to bed, quietly looked into her mother’s face, and said, “I aril saved, mother dear, and I am going to thank God for giving me eternal life.” Then without further explanation she poured out her thanksgiving to God in simple childlike words. She thanked Him for sending Jesus to die for her, and for saving her that night at the children’s meeting. The mother listened with astonishment and silent awe, to the outpouring of her child’s thanksgiving to God for the salvation she had received, followed by earnest pleading that He would reach and save her father as he sailed far away on the distant seas.
The mother became so deeply concerned about her soul that she attended the meetings, and in a few nights she was saved, too. How anxiously they now awaited the father’s arrival home! Ada, who was his special favorite, declared she would tell him she was saved, as soon as he came home, and that she would not let him rest, until he came to the meetings and was saved.
Not long after, her father came home, and Ada, faithful to her promise, confessed the Lord, and urged her father to come to the meetings. He overheard her praying several times, but said to himself it was only a childish whim and would soon wear off. Yet somehow it did not wear off but continued and increased until he became annoyed and said to Ada one day,
“What do you go on praying and singing in that fashion for, child; you seem as if you were mad?”
Ada rushed into her father’s arms, locking her arms around his neck, and with a gush of affection in her tone of voice, said,
“Dear father, I pray that God would save your soul and make you to love His Bible and His people too,” and then buried her head in his bosom and sobbed as if her heart would break.
This was more than the infidel captain could stand; that earnest prayer, those heart-yearning longings for his salvation, went as an arrow from the Lord to his heart, and fairly reached it. That night Captain Moston, to the amazement of all who saw him, sat between his wife and his little Ada, listening to the story of the cross. He believed it and was saved. The next day he bought a Bible, on which, as he laid it on the table, he dropped a tear. Now with his wife and two little girls, he is a happy and decided Christian. Often he thanks the Lord for his little Ada’s prayer and words, that God in grace used to reach his hardened heart.
My dear young reader, how great a blessing you might also be to your friends and loved ones. But you must first be saved yourself. You cannot truly pray or speak to others about Jesus until you know Him for yourself; until you are able to say, “Jesus is my Saviour.” Now tell me, can you honestly say this? Is He your Saviour, the One in whom you trust? If He is, then you will be able to say, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.” Isaiah 12:22Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. (Isaiah 12:2). You will own Him as your Lord by keeping His words, and doing what pleases Him, and you will seek to bring others to Him. “Now is the day of salvation.” 2 Cor. 6:22(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) (2 Corinthians 6:2).
ML 01/17/1954