Betty, Joan and Walter were having dinner with their governess, when their older brother, Fred, walked into the room. He laid his hand on the head of his little five-year-old sister, Joan, saying,
“Thus do your sins lie heavy upon you.”
“Is there any cure for this?” asked the governess, “Is there anything that can take away sins?”
Little Joan looked up at her and said. “The blood.”
Whose blood is that, dear reader? When your sins lie heavy upon you, remember that “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
Ten years later, Joan was dying in the hospital. The kind Christian governess came in to see her, longing to know whether the child was resting for her salvation on the blood of Jesus Christ. She found Joan in tears, grieving to part from her older sister, Betty. As Betty went out of the room, she handed the governess a story book, and asked her to read to Joan.
The story was about an. Eastern king. He had commanded one of his nobles to build him a wonderful palace; and had given him a large sum of money for this purpose. On the way to the place where the palace was to be built, the nobleman came to a village where the people were starving, and he used the money to feed them. The king, enraged at thus losing his palace, ordered the nobleman to be executed. But that night in a dream he saw a very beautiful palace.
“This is my palace!” he exclaimed, “only it is even more beautiful than I had planned.”
But a voice replied, “This is the heavenly palace. Your portion is the blackness of darkness forever.”
The sick girl had stopped crying and was listening intently.
“Joan,” said the governess, “Do you remember that, when you were a little girl, your brother Fred laid his hand on your head, saying, ‘Thus do your sins lie heavy upon you?’ You told me then that it was the blood that removes sin. Do you think that your good works can prepare you a place in heaven?”
A look of joyful trust came into the girl’s face. “I am still trusting in the blood,” she replied.
We do not need to build ourselves a palace in the heavens, nor could we do it if we tried. Some boys and girls believe that their good deeds and their prayers will admit them to heaven. But the Lord Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions ... .I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14:22In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2). And our only title to that place is the “precious blood of Christ.”
ML 03/12/1950