A LITTLE girl seven years old, was sitting by her mamma’s side in a drawing room, and her mamma looked up at her, and saw that she looked very sorry about something almost as if she were going to cry. So her mamma (a nice, kind mother she was), asked her what was the matter; and this was what she said: “O, ma, I was thinking what a lot of naughty things I’ve done; and if I were to die, and had to go before God, I don’t know whatever I should say.”
Now, little Lizzie was only seven years old, and everybody thought what a good girl she was; but Lizzie knew that, however good she seemed, she had a naughty heart, and had often done what was wrong. Do you not think she was right, and that you have done what is wrong sometimes, too? But before mamma could answer, a small voice from down on the hearth-rug said, “I know what I should answer, mamma. “It was Lizzie’s little sister, Bessie; she was only three and a half years old, and could not speak quite plainly, but there she was lying down all alone on the hearth-rug. She had heard what Lizzie said and lifted up her little head quite in a hurry to speak.
“Well, Bessie, what should you say,” said mamma.
“Remember all the dying pains
That my Redeemer felt:
And let His blood wash out my stains,
And answer for my guilt.”
“And then,” said Bessie, “God wouldn’t have a word to say, would He?”
Young as little Bessie was, she knew how we had all done something wrong and how God must punish people for being naughty. But she knew, too, how much God loved us—so much that He gave His only Son to die for us. And then you know Jesus loved us too, and so He came down here and lived as a baby and a little boy and a big man.
But it was such a sorrowful life. He had nowhere to go to bed at night, no one to take care of Him, and very few to love Him. And then when He had done good to everybody, some wicked men took Him, and fastened Him up to a great cross of wood, till He died. And then little Bessie knew that He need not have died if He had not liked, but He came to die, so that God might not have to punish us.
ML 02/17/1918