A preacher resident in a large city had prepared and preached, as he supposed, a most convincing sermon, for the benefit of an influential member of the congregation who was known to be of an infidel turn of mind. The sinner listened unmoved to the well-turned sentences and the earnest appeals which, however, left him unaffected. On his return from church he saw a tear trembling in the eye of his little daughter, whom he tenderly-loved, and he inquired the cause.
The child informed him that she was thinking of what her Sunday school teacher had told her of the Lord Jesus.
“And what did she tell you, child?”
“Why, she said He came down from Heaven, and died for poor me,” and in a moment the tears gushed from eyes which had looked upon the beauties of only seven summers. In the simplicity of childhood she added,
“Father, should I not love One who has so loved me?”
The proud heart of the infidel was touched. What the eloquent plea of the preacher could not accomplish, the tender sentence of his child had done.
In giving an account of his Christian experience, he remarked,
“Under God I owe my conversion to a little child who first convinced me, by her artless simplicity, that I ought to love One who had so loved me.”
ML 12/03/1939