In the city of Foochow, China, there lived a family named Wang, that had a little shop. Whenever they made a sale, the silver and the paper money was put into a cash box at the back of the shop. The pennies, hover, were not stored away so carefully, and sometimes they fell on the floor.
Those pennies were a temptation to little Lee, the shopkeeper’s son. He got to thinking one day, “If I ask for some pennies to buy candy with, Father and Mother won’t likely give them to me.” So he thought of a way to get some of them himself.
Lee put some sticky paste on the bottom of his shoes and walked about the shop where the pennies had dropped. When he came out, sure enough, some pennies were sticking to his shoes, and off he went to buy some candy.
Now Lee tried to make himself think that he did not actually steal those pennies. “I did not pick up the pennies,” he reasoned. “They stuck to my shoes as I was walking around.”
But conscience is not to be silenced that easy. Sometime later little Lee sat in the gospel mission and listened to the wonderful stories about Jesus, the sinner’s Friend. It wasn’t hard for Lee to accept that he was a sinner he had done too many bad things, and now he was unhappy.
Lee asked the Lord Jesus to come into his heart and wash all those sins away. The Lord did save him, and after that the burden was gone from his heart. He was happy in his Saviour’s love.
After that Lee felt differently about the pennies. There was no question now that he had stolen them.
“I praise the Lord Jesus for saving me from my sins,” he said afterwards. “What would have happened to me if I had kept on stealing pennies?” Then he went to his father and replaced the pennies he had stolen, and asked him to forgive him.
ML-10/22/1978