DR. CHAMBERLAIN, who for many years worked for the Lord among the Hindus, told this story about “Jesus Loves Me", probably the best-known children’s song in the world.
“Many years ago I translated into Telugu the children’s hymn “Jesus Loves Me” and taught it to the children of our day school. Scarcely a week later, as I was going through the narrow streets of the native town, I heard singing down a side street. I stopped to look and listen. There was a little Hindu boy, singing away at the top of his voice, a group of native men and women standing around him:
“Jesus loves me! this I know,
For the Bible tells me so...
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so!”
As he completed the verse, someone asked: “Sonny, where did you learn that song?”
“Over at the missionary school", was his answer.
“Who is that Jesus, and what is the Bible?”
“Oh! the Bible is the Book from God, they say, to teach us how to get to heaven, and Jesus is the name of the divine Redeemer that came into the world to save us from our sins; that is what the missionaries say!
" ‘Well, the song is a nice one.
Come, sing us some more!’ And so the little boy went on singing to these natives about Jesus and His love.”
The sweetest song — the sweetest story ever told, is that of Jesus and His love. Sweeter still it is for one to know Him as his very own Saviour.
We can only hope that the little singer and preacher, and his hearers, learned to truly trust Jesus for themselves.
Have you?
ML-04/28/1974