I SHOULD like to tell you of a dear little boy in America, at a place where they have a class every Saturday at four o’clock, conducted by Christians, who tell the dear little ones about the love of God, and through the truth taught in that way hundreds of children have been brought to the knowledge of Jesus. One little boy in this way was brought to Christ, who had a drunken father, for whom he often prayed; and one day, as he knelt down, and poured out his heart in prayer to God for his conversion, who should come in but the father? He took him by the collar, pulled him up from his knees, and said, “Let me have no more of such praying, let me never catch you on your knees, praying like that again.”
The boy looked up and said, “Oh, dear papa, I love you very much, and I love dear mamma, too, but I love that dear Jesus who died for me better still, and I cannot help praying to Him, but I will not pray in the house, if you wish me not.”
And so that dear child, away among the trees of the garden, prayed fervently for the conversion of his father and mother; and often was he kept without food because he loved that blessed Saviour, who had become so dear to his soul. At length he became ill, and as he lay upon his dying bed, he called his mother, and said, “Dear mamma, I am going away from this cold, cold room to my home, where there shall be no night, and no need of a candle. I shall not be long down here. I am going to have all my tears wiped away, and be forever with the Lord; and I would like to see my dear papa once more before I go.” She sent for her husband (he was in a drinking house), and when he came in, he rested his elbow on the mantelpiece, and looked vacantly at his dying child.
“Do come near the bed, dear papa,” the little fellow said.
He came over, and bending his head down, said, “So you are dying, my child.”
“Oh, no, papa, not dying, but I am going to my home above, where we shall die no more. Will you help me to sing that sweet hymn, papa?”
“I am going home to die no more.”
“I cannot, I do not know it,” the father said.
“Will you join in the chorus?”
He promised to try; and there stood the father and mother, weeping bitterly, and the dear child comforting them, saying, “Do not cry for me, I am going to that place where tears shall be all wiped away.” And then raising his sweet voice, he sang―
“We go the way that leads to God,
The path that saints have ever trod:
So let us leave this sinful shore,
For realms where we shall die no more.
The ways of God are ways of bliss
And all His paths are happiness;
Then, weeping souls, your griefs give o’er,
We are going home to weep no more.
“Come, sinner, come, O come along,
And join our happy pilgrim throng;
Farewell, vain world, and all your store
We are going home to die no more.”
The father and mother promised to give their hearts to the same Saviour whom he loved, and go where they should die no more. And, dear little children, may that precious Saviour be yours too; so that if death comes, you may be able to go home to that blessed place where WE shall “die no more.”