IS there nothing I can do for Jesus, teacher?” wistfully questioned a little girl.
“Do for Jesus, Annie dear? I think you do many things for Him,” her teacher answered. “You take care of baby for mother, and help her in the house, and bring little Tommie to Sunday-school; and I am sure you do much more that I don’t know of,” and she stroked the little earnest face lovingly.
“But that is not what I mean,” urged Annie. “I want to do something to help other people to know Jesus. I am so small, and I can’t say much, and it makes me sad to think that I am bringing no one to Jesus.”
“I will tell you of something that you might do, dear child—small and weak though you are,” answered the teacher, kindly; “you could give some tracts away among your neighbors, or along the street, and pray to God to bless the little, silent messengers to those who take them.”
“O, yes, I could do that,” said Annie, her face flushing with pleasure; “but how shall I get the tracts?” she added.
“I will bring you some very nice ones, dear, next Sunday, when you come to school, and you shall give them away just as God guides you,” replied the kind teacher, who loved Annie dearly, having been the means of leading her to the Saviour. She was now very glad to see her little scholar eager to serve Him, and she was most willing to help her to do so.
Thus the bargain was made, and the next Sunday Annie was ever so happy when a packet of tracts and books was put into her hand.
It was not without an effort that the little girl carried on her new work for the Master. She was but thirteen, small for her age, and not at all strong. She was very shy, too, and her heart beat terribly when, with a trembling hand, she would hold out the tracts to the passers-by. But then Annie did so want to bring others to the knowledge of her precious Saviour, that she would not think of herself.
On her knees, by her bedside, she prayed for courage before she went out, and when she reached home again, she once more knelt down, and earnestly prayed for blessing on the papers she had given away.
One day, as Annie was going down a street, asking the Lord to help her in her little service for Him, she saw, on the opposite side of the road, a rough man, whose character she well knew. He did not live far from her house, and it was no secret to her that in Bill’s home there was no fear of God, that he was often drunk, that his poor children had not enough to eat, and were clothed in rags, and that his wife looked sad, and thin, and careworn.
When Annie saw Bill coming down the street her heart beat high. Could she summon up enough courage to offer him a tract? O! how badly he needed to be saved, and what a mercy it would be, if through it, he saw himself lost and came to Jesus! What joy there would be in heaven over him, and now happy that dismal home might become!
With these thoughts filling her heart, Annie chose out of her bag a pretty-looking little book, which she knew told out God’s way of salvation very plainly; then, with a very short prayer for blessing, forgetting all about herself, she darted across the busy, crowded thoroughfare towards Bill. Poor little Annie, in her eagerness to reach him, looked neither this way nor that, and alas! alas! before any warning shout could reach her, she was thrown down by the horse of a heavy wagon, that was coming down the cross-road, and was in an instant beneath its wheels. It was so quickly done that very few saw the fragile little figure as it fell, or in the noisy street, heard the sharp cry of pain and fear. Bill was the first to run forward, to turn aside the horses, and to lift the poor little crushed form.
“Do you know this little maid?” asked a policeman.
“Yes, I do,” said Bill; “she is the child of one of my neighbors; and I fear it’s a bad job with her,” he added, as he looked at the white, unconscious face.
“Well, help me with her to the hospital:” said the policeman; “they’ll do what they can for her there.”
And thither poor little Annie was carried, and laid as tenderly as possible in one of the narrow beds in a long ward. Bill stood over her, strangely stirred at the sight of the pale, sweet face, while kind, skillful hands did their best to restore consciousness. At last the blue eyes opened wearily, and then as they rested upon Bill, the white face flushed. and the little trembling hand held out the tract, which it had tightly clutched through all. “It is for you,” she gasped; “will you take it? Will you read it?”
“That I will,” replied Bill huskily. Then, as it struck him that this little one had brought all this upon herself for his sake, he turned away with tears in his eyes.
Annie did not live long, for she had been too badly hurt. A week or two she lingered on in the hospital—very patient, earnest, and gentle. Bill came to see her more than once, and always found her earnestly praying for his conversion. And God heard her prayers, and touched his poor. hard heart, and opened his blind eyes, so that he saw himself a lost sinner, and cried to the Saviour to have mercy on him.
Jesus is always quick to hear, and ready to save any who call upon Him; so He did not refuse poor Bill, but brought him from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.
Thus little Annie did not die in vain. Her work on earth for Jesus was soon ended, but Bill, for whom she had laid down her life took up the Master’s service, and in the busy town where she died, he toils on, an earnest, active, devoted Christian man.
ML 08/06/1922