“AN infant preacher” the young reader will exclaim, “how can an infant ever preach? “Well, I will tell you, for it’s all true, that not only did an infant — a little creature of twenty months old — preach, but she preached such a sermon that it was the means of converting her own father, a man who had heard many sermons from many grown-up preachers to no purpose. This man name was John Dickson, a Scotch farmer, who lived, many years ago, near Edinburgh. He was, like too many, a man who cared nothing for the things that concerned his everlasting peace. Some, even unconverted people, are religious, as it is called; that is, they go to church or chapel, and say prayers, and do many good things, and say no naughty words, and seem very kind to people about them, yet for all that they know nothing of JESUS, nothing of God, and are so foolish as to think that if they go on in this way to the end of their lives they will be saved at last, because they are not so bad as other people in their words and actions. “Well,” you will say, “they must be very foolish,” for I have read over and over again, that God has said, “There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we MUST be saved,” how then can any one be saved who does not know, Jesus?
How, indeed! Do they really think that God doesn’t mean what he says? Are they so wicked as to suppose that God does not speak the truth? Yes, they must think so, if they hope to be saved by their prayers and their religiousness, because God has said again, “Without shedding of blood” (the blood of Christ) “is no remission,” no forgiveness of sins. Yet they hope to be forgiven when they don’t know anything about the blood of Christ. And besides, God has said, “He that BELIEVETH NOT THE SON shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” They do not believe the Son of God, they know nothing about him. God tells them that his wrath abides upon them, yet they say that they hope to be saved.
“Well,” you will say, “it’s quite clear that such people can’t believe what God says, for if they did they would be so frightened at the thought of being under the wrath of God, that they would come to Jesus to escape while there is time.” Very true, so they would. Have you done so? If not, go at once. The Lord Jesus Christ says, “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” And he not only says that, but he asks you to come, for he says again, “Come unto me... and I will give you rest;” as if he said, “Do come, come now; I will give you all you want, all you need, rest from all your fear, rest from all the burden of your sins.” You know how God has said that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us (who believe) from all sin. Well, then, only believe in Jesus, believe what God says about Him, and you will be at once cleansed from all your sin. How wonderful! How kind it was of Jesus to bear “our sins in his own body on the tree.” God says he did; won’t you believe him? Ah! I hope you will, and then you will be saved forever; but if you won’t, you can never be saved at all.
But I must tell you more about this farmer. He was not even religious. If he had been, you know it would not have saved him; but he was not even that, he was a careless, good-for-nothing sort of man, getting on very well in this world’s goods, eating and drinking, and working and sleeping, enjoying the good things God so kindly gave him, without even thanking him for them, or caring to do so.
Well, at last God took away his wife, and there he was, left alone, with no kind wife to look after his house, and to take care of his little baby; for he had a baby girl, and what to do with her he did not know. Somebody must take care of the poor baby, you know, and as he did not know how to do it himself, he was obliged to have a nurse. Now this nurse was a real believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. She knew very well what it was that had brought her to believe. She was quite sure it was not her own heart that had made her love Jesus, for God has told us “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Therefore she knew that she would never have come to Christ of her own accord, if it had not been for the grace of God. So, as she felt that she owed everything to the grace of God, she was always talking about it; and sometimes her heart was so full that she could not help exclaiming, “Oh the grace of God!” Now the little baby-girl was always with her kind nurse, day and night; and though we don’t know how soon a baby begins to hear and to understand what is said to it, it is pretty certain that almost the first thing this little one heard when she could hear at all, was something about the grace of God. One day, when she was about twenty months old, and could run about, she was in the parlour with her father, who, as she was his only child, was very fond of her. Several of his ungodly friends were there, too, and they were drinking and smoking, and enjoying themselves in the way that such people do. All at once, just when there was a pause in the conversation, a tiny baby voice exclaimed, “Oh the drace of Dod! Oh the drace of Dod!”
You may guess how astonished everybody in the room was to hear such words in such company, and from such a very little creature; and not knowing how the baby-girl had learned such language, their astonishment was the greater. It seemed as if God had spoken by that infant voice; and so indeed he had. Nor did he speak in vain. Perhaps the tiny preacher hardly knew as yet the meaning of her own words, and most certainly she did not know their power. That little sermon, by that smallest of all preachers, went right home to her father’s heart. Not another word was said. The company was hushed, and soon separated, and the father went away to ponder what he had so strangely heard. The grace of God followed him; nor did it leave him anymore, until it had brought him to Christ. He had been a life-long rebel against “the grace of God.” The words of his little child rang in his ears; grace convinced him of his sin: grace showed him the great Sin-bearer; grace constrained him to flee to Jesus grace gave him power to believe in that precious blood which cleanseth from all sin; “by grace he was saved;” sin no more had dominion over him, “because he was not under law but under grace:” and as long as eternity shall last he will have cause to echo, from an overflowing heart, the words of his baby-girl,
“Oh the grace of God!”