From the time that she was a child of three, Hetty was fond of birds. She lived in a farmhouse, surrounded by woods and green fields, where many pretty songsters flitted among the trees. One day, while she was a school girl of eight years old, she was in the garden and saw a young robin not quite able to fly. Going forward, she caught it, and running into the house, and upstairs where an old-cage was hid away among some rubbish, she put her little captive robin into it, banging it up on the wall. Hetty was very proud of her robin, but was not so sure whether her mother would be pleased. She began her lessons, watching the little captive robin as it fluttered about in the cage seeking its liberty, but unable to break the bars of wire that were bwtween it and its native woods just outside the open window. Two or three robins hopped on the window-sill, chirping their sympathy for the captive robin, but unable to give it liberty.
Do you know anyone whom this helpless bird in the cage resembles? I think he is not unlike a sinner in Satan’s bondage, unable to deliver himself, whom neither friends or fellows can set free, and who must remain in Satan’s bondage forever, unless a stronger than he comes to deliver, Hetty’s brother came home from his office in town, a bright Christian young man, and Hetty called him to see her little captive robin,.
“Let it go free” said he, but Hetty would not consent.
“Sell it to me then,” said her brother, and to this Hetty agreed for a penny, The redemption-price of a permy was paid, the cage door was opened, and the captive robin flew out at the window, and joined the rest among the trees.
Hetty’s lesson the following Lord’s day was on “Redemption,” and she understood it better than ever she had done, by the teacher giving an illustration of a captive bird being redeemed and set free.
Hetty is now herself a teacher in the Sunday school, saved and set free through the redemption of Christ, and she often tells her little scholars the simple story of the captive robin of her early days, which was redeemed and set free.
Have you, dear boys and girls, been set free from the bondage of sin and Satan, into the liberty of the children of God?
ML 06/15/1941