I WAS once sitting in a parlor over-looking a square, and I suppose it was between nine and ten o’clock in the morning, when I saw a number of wagons or vans going through the square laden with happy children—yes, happy children, because they were all going out for a day in the country, and you know how city children value that; you know how bright they look as the wagons go along, and how they all cheer with their merry voices. Well, I saw no more of them that day except one thing. I saw them coming back; and I will tell you what thought rose in my mind that evening as I saw them return through that same square.
I thought, “Well, their happy day is over,” and you know all happy days on earth must end. The children had, no doubt, long been looking forward to that treat-day, and perhaps even counting the days up to the time, but now it was all past and gone, and they could only look back to it, but that day could never, no never, come again! Another treat-day might come, but that would soon be over too, and one day all our happy times down here will be over and gone. And what do they leave us, dear children? Can they give you any lasting happiness or pleasure?
Would you not like to be able to look forward to a happy day that will never end? O! how, you would count the days up to that! You have heard of a “happy land”—a happy home where many children have gone in, and from which they will never come out again. They would not like to come out again even for a moment, for the happiness and joy of that land far exceeds all the happiness we can have here, and it lasts for ever and ever!
“There’s a home for little children Above the bright blue sky.”
But are you going there?
No little child can enter into that holy place with its sins. Some little ones have come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and have had all their sins washed away in His precious blood. They belong to Him, and they like to remember Him in their play, for you know we can please the Lord Jesus even in our play. I wonder how many children thought of that on the treat-day I mention, for God’s eye was looking down on them all the time.
If you have not come to Jesus, you are only running after poor passing pleasures, and they will only leave you hungry and thirsty.
ML 05/22/1927