A CERTAIN little girl suffered at times with the toothache; she was but a child and found pain hard to bear. One day an aged Christian came to the house where this child lived, and it happened that while the family dined together, the child cried out with pain.
“Do you know what I do when I am in pain?” the aged Christian gently said; “I say, God, I thank thee for this pain.”
“And I,” answered she, “say, Please, God, take the pain away; but God has been a very long time taking my toothache away.”
“God always gives us what we like,” chimed in a younger brother.
“Does He?” asked the aged Christian. “Think, now, does your mother always give you what you like?”
“Always, yes, always,” was the answer, and given with great emphasis, for the little fellow’s love to his mother was unbounded.
“Does she never punish?”
Here the little ones hung their heads, and said no more.
And, beloved Christian reader, to us it is written, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: for whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” Heb. 12: 5, 6.
ML 05/26/1918