A beautiful young mother in New York City returning to the building in which her little infant lay asleep was appalled to see the building in flames. The firemen could not restrain her and she dashed through the flames and rescued her child, but in doing so, she was so severely burned that her face was horribly disfigured for life. When she looked at her face in the glass after it was healed, she was shocked at her disfigurement, but was comforted by the thought that when her little daughter grew up she would appreciate the sacrifice that her mother had made to rescue her. The little child did grow up to be a young woman of uncommon beauty. She was much admired and petted.
One day there was an excursion up the river and both mother and daughter went. The beautiful daughter was on the front deck surrounded by a host of admirers, laughing and talking. The disfigured mother was on the rear deck looking after the wraps and other things. The mother had occasion to go to the front deck to speak to her daughter. As she drew near, a gay young man asked the beautiful young girl, “Who is that hideous looking woman coming?” In a low tone, the beautiful daughter said, “I don’t know.” But the words were not so low but what the mother caught them and that loving heart was broken by the gross ingratitude of the daughter for whom she had sacrificed so much.
How we shudder at the thought of such awful ingratitude, but are we not guilty of a grosser ingratitude towards our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? His visage was more marred than any man’s and His form more than the sons of men, and yet how many today are ashamed of Him and say, “I do not know Him.”