Little Marian lived with her pious grandmother and she asked the above question of a gentleman used to visit at her home. This Mr. P. in his youth had not been a professing Christian. Whether he had really been a true child of God, we cannot decide; but at the time in which we write, he was a rich prosperous man. Like the thorny ground hearer in the parable (see Mark 4:1818And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, (Mark 4:18)).
“The care of this world and deceitfulness of riches, choke the Word and he becometh unfruitful,” so it was with him, and he did not look happy.
Perhaps it was by his looks Marian judged of his thoughts. Whatever the reason was, she seemed, to shrink from him, and all his efforts to win the friendship of this engaging girl were quite in vain.
At last one day he took her hand and said gently, “Marian, dear, how is it that yet always seem afraid of me? I was a friend of your father and mother, and I know your grandmother quite well and none of them have ever been afraid of me, why are you?”
Marian reddened, and looked confused at first; and then said very seriously,
“Mr. P., you do not pray to God and you do not love Jesus.”
A tear fell from her blue eyes as and her listener sat dumb she as spoke, before her.
So she went on,
“Why don’t you love Jesus, Mr. P.? When dear papa was dying, he said he would not for all the world part with the love of Jesus. And grandma teaches me every day to pray to Jesus, because He loves me, and loves everybody. If Jesus loves you, why, don’t you love Him?”
All the answer that Mr. P. could give was this,
“Well, well, Marian, I understand you now. I must talk with you about it some other time. I am not such a bad man, darling, as you seem to think.”
He could not forget her words, and they led to his taking from its shelf his long-neglected Bible, and reading it carefully. Presently he went down on his knees, and confessed his sins to God; and He who says,
“Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out,” received and blessed the repentant man, and he became a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He always said that the short sermon of his true little friend, Marian, had been blessed to his soul.
ML 06/30/1946