ON a cold winter’s day a kind, friendly lady entered the room where Anna lived. She found the child sitting on a chair with her doll in her arms, singing one of her favorite hymns. The room was scarcely warm, and there was no sign of food, and still the child looked contented and happy, and there was such an expression of joy in her face, that the lady asked:
“Little Anna! what makes you so happy?”
“Because Jesus loves me, and I’m going to Him to the beautiful ‘Father’s house,’ where he has a place ready for the little ones too.”
“But, Anna! you are a little sinner; you have a very bad heart; and from that wicked heart many bad things have come. You have often been disobedient and cross, and sometimes told a lie. Sin cannot exist in God’s sight, for God is holy; how then can you go to heaven?”
“I know it,” said little Anna with a serious expression on her dear little face, “I was a bad, a very bad child; but the Lord Jesus died on the cross, just for little girls like me. His precious blood has washed away my sins.”
“How long is it, since you have known this, dearie.”
“Just a week I read in a little book that little children are also sinners; but that God loved us so, that He sent His Beloved Son, and let Him die on the cross, and that Jesus loves little children, and took them in His arms, and blessed them when He was on earth, and that He will make us His lambs, if we will come to Him. I then knelt down by my chair, and said:
‘Dear Lord Jesus! please make me one of your lambs!’
At the same moment, I believed that His blood washed my sins away, and I cannot say how happy I felt, I love now to sing those beautiful hymns to Him; and when I think that He will soon come, and take us to the beautiful ‘Father’s House’ above the blue sky, O, how I love Him!”
Now, dear little reader! when you read a little book, or, for instance, this number of “Messages of Love”, that tells you that you are a sinner, but that the Lord Jesus, in spite of your sins, loves you, and died for you on the cross, and longs to make you one of His lambs, will you go at once to Him, as little Anna did? or will you lay it down, and think no more about it?
O, dear children! give yourselves to the Lord, while you are young. There is a beautiful verse in the Bible for children:
“I love them that love Me; and they that seek Me early, shall find Me.” Prov. 8:1717I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. (Proverbs 8:17). And the Lord Jesus says of His sheep:
ML 07/02/1922