NOT long since, in one of the schools in New York, a teacher found Mary, twelve years old, in tears.
“Why, what’s the matter, Mary?”
Little Mary burst into tears again. As soon as she could answer, she said, “My little sister Rosa is dead.” “Why, I did not know you had a little sister,” said the teacher.
“Yes, ma’am; she was a very little girl, only six years old.”
“I hope she has gone to heaven,” said the teacher.
“O, yes,” said Mary; “we know she has.”
“Mary, what makes you say that Rosa has gone to heaven?”
“Teacher, if you had seen her you would have thought so too.”
“Why, what did she do?”
“The last day she lived, she sang just as long as her breath lasted.” “What did she sing?”
“It was, ‘I think when I read that sweet story of old,’” replied Mary; “and ‘There is a happy land.’ And then she prayed for father and mother, and next she prayed for us all.”
“What did little Rosa pray about?” said the teacher.
“It was something about Jesus Christ; about His precious blood, about His righteousness.”
“What Sunday school did little Rosa go to?” for the teacher knew she had never come there.
“O, she never went to any Sunday school.”
“What day school, then, did she learn these little hymns in?”
“She never went to any day school, ma’am.”
“Why, where did she learn these things, then?”
“The little girls who live upstairs in our house used to go to Sunday school, and they would come down into the back yard, and ‘play’ at Sunday school!”
Thus had little Rosa learned the truths, which the Holy Spirit had blessed to her soul.
“O, do not be discouraged,
For Jesus is your friend.”
ML-11/03/1935