“WHEN I WAS a little boy,” said Dr. Todd, “my father was very ill. One day he sent me to the druggist to get some particular kind of medicine. I did not want to go, though I didn’t realize then how really bad my father was. Before getting halfway to the druggist’s, I stopped and made up my mind to go back and tell a lie about it. So I went home and told my father that the druggist had none of that medicine left.
“My father was nearing his end then, and he said to me, ‘My dear boy, I am suffering very much for want of that medicine.’ That made me feel very badly and slipping quietly out of the door, I ran to the druggist’s and got some of the medicine. But when I came back it was too late. My father was dying. He had only time to say to me, ‘Love God, Johnnie, and always speak the truth. Now kiss me once more. Farewell!’
“In all my after life,” said Dr. Todd, “I never was able to forget that act of disobedience to my dying father, and that lie I told him. I bitterly repented of that sin, and I know God has forgiven it, and washed it all away in the blood of Jesus. But the sorrow of it has followed me all the days of my life.”
Dear children, may this be a warning against disobeying and dishonoring our parents.
ML-01/06/1963