A STORY is told of that wonderful preacher, D. L. Moody of America.
Returning from a service he had conducted, he was asked, “How many converts were there tonight?”
He replied, “Two-and-a-half.”
“You mean then that two grown-ups and a child confessed the Lord.”
“No,” he answered, “there were two children and one grown-up.”
What a wise reply! His questioner was left to think out the answer. Two children converted means two whole adult lives for Christ. A grown-up person converted, say in middle life, means half a life for Christ.
Mr. Moody’s reply was truly sagacious, and should be a very great cheer and incentive to all who labor in our Sunday Schools, and other agencies for teaching the young. It makes a child convert to be of special importance.
At the beginning of the Great War a man saw some lads being drilled. He looked at the lads, despised them and sneered saying, “Britain’s last line of defense!” Often the truth is expressed by one out of sympathy. When the Pharisees murmured “This Man receiveth sinners and eateth with them,” they never uttered a sublimer truth, though they thought they were saying what was derogatory to our Lord. Far otherwise: though their hands were filled with hatred, in reality they were weaving a veritable crown of glory for our Saviour’s brow, when they murmured, “This Man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.”
“Britain’s last line of defense,” sneered the critic. But these lads of 8 and 10 years in 1914, in 1935 are men of 29 and 31, in their full powers of manhood—in the very first line of defense, if needed. If they had not been in the last line, they never could have been found in the first line; indeed there would have been no first line at all.
So with these bairns who get converted. A few years roll by, and often they have developed into stalwart Christian preachers, Sunday School workers, and helpers in a hundred ways in service of the Lord. Let us work then for the future. Let us value the young increasingly. Let us seek to win them for Christ.
The following table speaks for itself. Out of 1,000 Christians it was found that
And all this becomes increasingly important as we realize that the coming of the Lord draws nigh. If He came this year, and well He might, these young ones must be converted young or not converted at all. Indeed one would not be surprised to see a mighty work of God break out in Sunday Schools, where the Gospel is faithfully and lovingly presented in view of the coming of the Lord.
A. J. Pollock.