THE following incident was communicated to me by a City missionary, respecting a little girl of three years of age, whose name I shall call Mary Kay.
Mary Kay was, I believe, the youngest but one of a family of four. Her mother, who had been brought up in easy circumstances, had been deserted by her husband, which made it hard work to get food and clothing for the little ones. Poor children, what an unkind father, to leave them and their mother to get on as best they could! Little Mary thus had no kind father to pray with her, to direct her mind to Him above, who was willing to become her Father in heaven. He cared neither for them nor their mother, and if it had not been for the kind missionary, their case perhaps would never have been known.
How thankful, my dear young readers, you ought to be who have loving fathers and mothers to look after you, and to care for the wants of your bodies. But how very far more important to have fond parents who love and care also about your souls, and are anxious you should know our good and gracious God, who lives in heaven, whose love is far beyond that of the kindest father or mother on earth.
When the missionary had found out this family, and heard their tale of sorrow, his heart bled for them, and he proceeded to talk to them of Jesus.
Mary listened to him while he talked with her mother about her soul, urging her to cast herself, with her sins and sorrows, on Jesus. He then read about the love of Jesus, how he bore our sins on the cross; and then he told them all that God had thought on them, and sent his dear Son to suffer and to die for them.
Little Mary was very attentive, and listened earnestly to what the missionary said: and the thought that although she hadn’t an earthly father to care about her, she might have one in heaven, who would love and care for her, attracted her greatly. The kind missionary then took each of the little ones on his knee (for he loved children), and sang beautiful hymns to them about heaven, and of Jesus, how he left his home above to seek and win their love, and how, by believing in him, sinners may be saved, and become the children of God. Amongst the hymns sung, one which Mary wanted to have sung again was,
“I have a Father in the promised land.”
The missionary was thankful to hear her want to have this hymn repeated, and he sang it over and over again, so that she never forgot it. The Lord blessed the missionary’s conversation to this little child, and particularly that hymn. Perhaps her little heart was mourning the loss of a father’s love, and this hymn met her need. However that may be, when on the day following Mary was taken ill, she kept singing, all day long, “I have a Farder in the p’omised land,” and asked her mother to fetch the kind gentleman to help her to sing; but from some neglect, or not knowing where he lived, her mother did not fetch him. Day after day her cry was for the kind friend who taught her to sing, “I have a Farder in the p’omised land,” After two or three weeks’ suffering, disease gradually wore away her tender and delicate frame, but still did she ask for the missionary, and sing the hymn he had taught her: “I have a Farder in the p’omised land.”
At the end of the month it was evident that she was soon to leave all here below. Young as she was, she felt she was safe in Christ who died for her, and was going to that Father in heaven, and to that blessed Saviour who had loved her on earth. Previous to her death she called her mother, and in a faint, dying whisper said,
“I have a Farder in the p’omised land,
When my Lord talls me I must doe,
To meet him in the p’omised land.
I have a Saviour in the p’omised land,” &c.
“Dood-bye, mother; I am doin’ to be with Jesu s, and sing in the p’omised land.”
And then she quietly breathed her happy spirit into the bosom of that blessed Saviour who had so loved her, and whose precious blood had saved her forever.
And now, my dear children, would you not like to go thus to Jesus? Would you not love, like Mary, to sing in heaven of a Father’s and a Saviour’s love? Well, if you desire it, you must come to him now, believe on him now, trust in him now. Then you will be able to sing, with dear little Mary, from your heart,
“I have a Father in the promised land,
When my Lord calls me I must go,
To meet him in the promised land.
I have a Saviour in the promised land,
When my Saviour calls me I must go,
To meet him in the promised land.”
J. F.