FOOD FOR LAMBS;

or,

Leading Children To Christ.

A Series of Lessons Illustrated by Stories and Incidents,

For the Use of Parents and Teachers in Bringing Children to Jesus,

And Preparing Them for Church Membership.

By Aaron Merritt Hills,

Author of:

Holiness and Power

Pentecostal Light

The Whosoever Gospel

Life of Mary A. Woodbridge

God's Revivalist Office,

Mount of Blessings,

Cincinnati, Ohio

Printed Book: Copyright 1899

by M. W. Knapp

DEDICATION

To the ministers of the gospel who long for the conversion of the children in their congregations, that they may escape the hardness of heart that comes with later years; to the Christian parents who have a deep concern for the spiritual well-being of their loved sons and daughters, and to the Sabbath-school teachers, leaders of "Junior Endeavor Societies" and "Junior Leagues," who earnestly desire to lead those committed to their care and training to an intelligent and saving faith in Jesus, this book is lovingly dedicated by

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE

This book is not designed by the author as a storybook to be put carelessly into the hands of the young. It is intended for the parent or teacher, who is expected to read it to the child or children at stated intervals, one chapter at a time. The reading should be accompanied by comments, questions, songs and prayer. In this way the young can easily be led to an intelligent, conscious acceptance of Jesus as their personal Savior.

Most of the hymns we have recommended can be found in "Tears and Triumphs Combined," published by The Revivalist office, Cincinnati, O. Other hymns can be substituted in place of these, but they were selected because of their appropriateness. They precede the chapters with which they are to be sung.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Table Of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Why God Calls Little Children Early

Chapter 2

Why God Calls Little Children Early-Continued

Chapter 3

Why God Calls Little Children Early-Continued

Chapter 4

Two Other Reasons Why God Calls Little Children to Remember Him and Seek Him

Chapter 5

First Condition of Salvation -- Repentance

Chapter 6

The Second Condition of Salvation -- Faith

Chapter 7

The Third Condition of Salvation -- Surrender of Self to God's Service

Chapter 8

Coming to Christ

Chapter 9

Ten Evidences of Conversion

Chapter 10

Prayer

Chapter 11

The Bible

Chapter 12

Obedience

Chapter 13

A Life of Love

Chapter 14

A Life of Service

Chapter 15

Joining the Church

Chapter 16

Religion Made Easy by the Holy Spirit

Chapter 17

The River of Death

INTRODUCTION

Three years ago the writer was conducting a series of meetings in the First Presbyterian Church of Cleveland, O. Riding home with, the pastor, Rev. H. C. Haydn, after an evening service, he asked me: "Do you know of a really good text-book for the training of these children?" I did not; neither did he. The Spirit seemed to say to me: "Write one." I was just then finishing the biography of my beloved friend, Mrs. Woodbridge; but I began at once to revolve in my mind the plan of some such a book as is now given to the public. Had not my mind and heart become filled with the subject of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and its blessed consequences, which resulted in my volume, "Holiness and Power for the Church and the Ministry," this book would have been issued a year ago, and less perfectly than now.

While going about the country from church to church as an evangelist, I have been profoundly impressed with the fact that a vast deal of the strength and energy of the churches is spent in misdirected effort. A great deal of attention -- none too much in fact and probably not enough, but relatively too much is given to the conversion of a comparatively few old, hardened sinners, while the great mass of children are passed by and quite neglected on the ground that they are too young to be subjects of saving grace. The most promising, and by far the most fruitful, part of the vineyard of the church is thus neglected. The first command of Jesus is to feed his lambs -- the children of his flock. The church that succeeds best is the one that cares most for the training of the children. "Children are the preface to the book of life." "An adult converted is a unit; a child is a multiplication table." Rev. Tyng, of New York, used to say that if he had to choose between one child and two adults, he would choose the child every time; yet long experience teaches me that it is easier to secure the hopeful conversion of ten children than of one adult. Rev. Thomas Guthrie says: "Youth is the critical period of man's life. An infant is a bud unblown. Early childhood corresponds to the next stage -- the bud is now blown out into a lovely, fragrant flower; but whether, as the bud has changed into the flower, the flower will change into fruit, who can tell? I have seen the blast strew the ground with the hopes of the garden, and trees stand barren in autumn that had been white with blossoms as with a shower of snow. However genial the spring, or cloudless and warm the skies of summer, there is a critical period when the two seasons shade into each other. This which holds the fruits of autumn in its hand lies in those few days and nights when the fruit is setting. Such a period is youth in human life. Then impressions are received which remain forever; then the character, like the color made in the cloth by the mordant, is fixed; then the die is struck; then a life of virtue or vice is begun; then the turn is taken either for God or the world; then the road is entered which leads either to heaven or to hell." Dr. Cuyler says: "The most important ten years of life are from five to fifteen years of age. The great majority of those who pass twenty irreligious are never converted at all. I have been permitted, during my ministry, to receive nearly one thousand persons into the church on confession of their faith, and not one dozen of these had outlived their fiftieth year."

Rev. Amos Chesebrough says: "Somewhere between the ages of seven and ten occurs a transition from the impressional period to that of completed conscious personality. The child learns to reflect and to reason out difficulties for himself. Here, then, and now, is the pastor's golden opportunity . . . to mold with the trowel of truth the plastic material of their character into fabrics of beauty and strength. But let him remember that his grandest opportunity is passing by, to be succeeded by a period of less promise. The tongue of time strikes nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Now has come the high moon of hopefulness. The year following the twelfth birthday is the acme of hopefulness in the lives of children who have had a Christian nurture; and even in respect to those whose early training has been defective it holds forth a larger promise of success in labors for their salvation than any subsequent age. The tongue of time is not long silent. It strikes thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. The sun is on the descending grade; and, while the beautiful light may long linger, the brightest hours have passed. I am not to be understood as handing over the years of young manhood and womanhood to hopelessness, or saying anything to discourage earnest efforts in their behalf. It is the. silver age, this from sixteen to twenty-five. having in it much of beauty and promise. But it is plain that the golden hours of the pastor's privilege lie in the preceding period. To have lost them is an irreparable calamity. To have neglected them, is it not a crime?"

Some five years ago, a prominent evangelist, speaking in Chicago, said: "In a very large proportion of the churches in this country that are successful, filled with the Spirit of God and the power to save souls, more than half of the membership have joined the church before they were fifteen years old, many of them before they were twelve years old, some before they were ten, and not a few beautiful members of the church joined at six years of age, who lived as Christians during the remainder of their days. We need to remember Jesus' words about little children. You can hang a boy in one of our States when he is eight years old, and it is an awful thing if there be in any of our homes a child even approaching that age who is not a faithful, consecrated follower of the Lord Jesus Christ."

This may start the question, How early may a child be converted? In the Advance for October 6, 1892, seventy-one corporate members of the American Board Of Foreign Missions gave their testimony as to their religious experience. Of these, nineteen were converted so early in childhood that they could not tell when it was, and thirty-four were converted somewhere between infancy and fourteen years of age. Rev. Hastings, of New York, was converted at the age of eight, and so was Bishop McCabe. But thousands are converted as early as that. The great Jonathan Edwards was converted at seven, and so was the mother of Bishop Fitzgerald. The leading business man in a Massachusetts town, and a deacon in the Congregational church, testified publicly in my presence that he was converted at seven. The wife of a Presbyterian pastor whose church is on Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, O., told me that she was converted at seven, her daughter at four, and her daughter's daughter was converted at six and joined the church. The famous temperance worker, Jennie F. Willing, testifies that she was converted at five. The wife of the evangelist, Rev. H. H. Wells, gave me the account of the conversion of her little daughter (Charlotte Lucena) at the age of four and a half years. From that time until her triumphant death at the age of four years, nine months and twenty-seven days, she gave the clearest evidence of a changed heart. Jonathan Edwards tells of. one Phoebe Bartlett, who at four years of age was a suitable candidate for church membership, and from her sprang Rev. Justin Edwards. Hannah Whitall Smith tells us in the beautiful biography of her son Frank, who died at eighteen, that he w as clearly converted at four years of age, when his nature met with a most decided change. He certainly after that lived a life of remarkable purity and spiritual earnestness. Two mothers in Oberlin have recently confided the fact that a son of each was converted at three years of age. One of them is today one of the noblest Christian young men in the college.

I can not tell how early a child may be converted. I stand in awe before the inmates of the nursery. I know from experience as a parent and a pastor that children can very early be successfully taught to love Jesus, and exercise saving faith in him. It is said of Voltaire that he became an infidel at five years of age; and he is reported to have said: "Give me the first five years of a child's life, and I will cause that child to disbelieve in the immortality of the soul, to reject Jesus as a Redeemer, and to doubt the very existence of a Creator and God." All this means that God has graciously arranged that the religious faculty has early development and may be easily and early perverted, and that the conditions and saving truths of salvation are few and simple and easily apprehended. Jesus prayed: "I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." The old and the learned and the wise get so hardened and conceited and self-sufficient that they miss the way, while the children and the childlike, with their teachable spirit, enter in and find Christ.

Mirabeau, when asked how he would inculcate the principles of national liberty, replied that he would begin with the infant in the cradle, and let its first lisping utterance be the name of Washington. The wise believer will rise higher than this, and say: Would you have a nation free indeed, politically, socially, morally, blessedly free? would you witness the spread of principles that must inevitably, if they have free play, overturn all despotisms, and crush out more than half the sorrows of human nature? Would you have the children become clean and pure and holy? -- then begin with the infant in the cradle, and let the first name it lisps be the all-prevailing name of Jesus -- the divine Redeemer of humanity.

"But," some will ask, "is not that giving the child a prejudice in favor of religion?" Very likely it is, and could he have a more helpful or healthful inclination? When some one said to Coleridge that children ought not to be prejudiced in favor of religion, he took him out into a garden full of weeds and pointed to it as a garden not prejudiced in the spring in favor of fruits and flowers. As for himself, he said, he preferred a garden prejudiced in favor of strawberries and roses. The child's mind ought to be prejudiced in favor of God, and all that is good and pure and true and holy. There is no neutrality. It is either that or a prejudice toward sin and the devil. Which shall it be?

The importance of the conversion of children can not be overestimated. Modern life is like a hot-house, producing early moral development, either for good or evil. Most people are converted young or never, as the following facts will show: A prominent evangelist tested an audience in Portland. * Eleven hundred were converted under twenty. One hundred and eighty were converted between twenty and thirty; thirty-five between thirty and forty; fourteen between forty and fifty; eight between fifty and sixty; over sixty, only two. A year and a half ago the State Sabbath-school Convention met in Detroit, Mich. One of the great audiences was tested. It was found that more than two thousand were converted under twenty years of age; 103 were converted between twenty and twenty-five; forty-one between twenty-five and thirty; twenty-three between thirty and forty; two between forty and fifty, and over fifty only two. Only 171 were over twenty years of age at conversion out of at least twenty-two hundred Christians.

For more than three years I have kept a record of the age of those professing conversion in my meetings. Of 3,108 converts, only 412 were over twenty; a larger proportion than is usual, but still how small! Such facts teach their own solemn lesson to all pastors, parents and Christian workers. The great harvest is to be gained among the young; and with multitudes it is, be converted early or never. Says Rev. Newell: " The incredulity and lethargy of some parents upon the subject of their children's conversion is most appalling. It is the ruin of thousands." Facts that are continually brought to my notice prove the truth of his words. Let me cite a few. A pastor holding a series of meetings turned to a mother and said: "Will you not bring Henry to the meeting?" He was then twelve years old. "No," said the mother; "he is too young." Only five years afterwards he was six feet high and weighed 190 pounds, and a man said of him: "Henry can stand before the bar and drink the biggest drink of raw whisky of any man I ever saw." Five years later this only son died a most horrible death, eaten up by his vices. The same pastor turned to another mother that same night and said: "Will you not let Tom come to the meetings?" He was ten years old. She replied: "Husband and I think we know a thing or two; we don't want Torn to come to the meetings." Six years later that " husband " was dead, and that mother, who thought she knew so much, confided to the pastor that Tom was so ugly she could hardly live with him. Soon after she, too, died, and that boy was left, an "ugly," Christless, ruined son.

Last week a woman and a church-member in the city where I am writing sneered at a child ten years of age who had that day given herself to Christ: "Ridiculous that a girl as young as that knows what she is about!" That very woman, I am told, has three sons who are impure and drunken sots, for whom the father has paid large sums of money repeatedly to keep them out of jail. When they were boys the mother had no faith that they could he converted.

This morning at the breakfast table I was told of a worldly professor of religion who some years ago did not want her son and daughter converted because she wanted them to "have a good time " while they were little. The daughter had it, and soon covered her family with ineffaceable shame. I say it in all solemnity, measuring my words: Such parents are the most efficient agents the devil has in securing the damnation of their children.

Are converted children of an early age fit subjects for church membership? Most certainly. Rev. J. O. Peck, one of the most efficient pastors of Methodism, says that more and more his ministry became pervaded with confidence in and earnest work for the conversion of children. He testifies that the best Christians he has ever seen were converted in early childhood. "One boy of six years was converted, and his Christian life for nearly twenty years since has been as steady as the march of a planet." "Mr. Spurgeon," he says, "was a careful shepherd of children, and toiled to bring them early to Christ. Before his death he made the statement that he had excluded from his church forty-two members, but that he had never expelled one converted in childhood. This is remarkable evidence of the genuineness of the conversion of children.

At four years of age Count Zinzendorf made this covenant with Christ. "Be thou mine, dear Savior, and I will be thine." His famous saving, that which Tholuck adopted as his motto, "I have one passion, and that is He -- He alone," was the keynote of his whole life, he fathered the Moravian Church, which the British Encyclop'dia pronounces "the missionary church par excellence."

Adam Clark, one of the great scholars and commentators of Methodism, was converted at four years age, and the world has never had any occasion to doubt the genuineness of his piety. It is said that Bishop Simpson was converted at four years of age. I write these lines in the study of a noble Congregational pastor, born and educated in New England. His oldest daughter has just graduated from Wellesley, and has consecrated her life to missionary work in Africa. Her father tells me that she had a clear, definite conversion at four years of age; that she began to lead others to Christ at six years of age; that at eight years of age she came before the committee of a New England church to pass examination for church membership. She stated her experience, was questioned, and left the room. An old deacon wiped the tears from his eves, and said: "That is the most remarkable statement of religious experience ever made by any person of any age before the committee of this church," All her life has proved that her experience was genuine.

This book is given to the public because the writer is firmly convinced that the hope of the kingdom of Christ lies in the conversion of the young; that the pastor who most faithfully leads the lambs to Christ is the greatest and most successful, and that the church that gives the best and most faithful religious training to the children holds in its hands the destiny of the future.

Chapter I.

WHY GOD CALLS LITTLE CHILDREN EARLY

TEXT: Eccl. xii. 1. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth."

Dear Children:-- If the President of the United States should address you today, or write you a letter giving you some good advice, you would all assume that there must be some good reason for the counsel that so wise and great a man gave to you. Well, somebody much greater than the President of our country, even the infinitely wise and holy God, tells us to remember him and seek him early in life. It is safe to say that there are very good reasons for such advice. It is our purpose to give the first reason in this chapter. That reason we believe is this: God knows that even very young children are sinful, not a few of them, but all of them. Little children know it, too. They can not forget that sometimes they are very selfish and want everybody to please them. They sometimes get angry because their mother wishes them to have their faces washed, or asks them to leave their play and stay their books, or go on some errand for her. The little girls quarrel with each other for the possession of the nicest doll, and the little boys quarrel to have the prettiest marbles or the best toy-gun or the finest knife. I have known a little boy to get angry and strike his little sister and make her turn pale with pain and fear. It was very wicked and he knew it, for his father and mother had prayed with him daily and taught him better, but still he did it. I have known children to disobey a good mother and fill her heart with grief over their sin. I heard of a little girl the other day who was told not to touch a beautiful vase on the mantel in the parlor. One day when her mother was away from home she took the vase and looked at it; but in putting it back she let it fall and broke it. She then shut her pet kitty in the parlor to make her mother think that the cat had broken the vase. That night the little girl could not sleep, arose from her bed and confessed her sins to her mother. You see she had committed two very grave sins: she had disobeyed her parent, whom God had commanded her to obey, and she had also acted a lie when God commanded her to be truthful.

Other boys and girls commit other sins; they say bad words, and take God's holy name in vain and think evil thoughts and plan evil deeds and act wickedly at home and in the street, and in the school, and sometimes even in Sabbath-school and church. You may ask: Why do all unsaved boys and girls sin? I am sorry to say it is because our race is a wicked race and tendency to sin is born in every little child's heart. Every little boy or girl is sure to sin if they live long enough, unless God changes the heart and takes the love of sill out of it. This tendency to sin makes boys and girls a great deal of trouble and leads them to do a great many wrong things. It is, I may say, not unlike a very bad disease that is born in one and keeps getting worse and worse until it proves fatal.

The Bible is the book God gave us. It tells of a disease called leprosy. When a person became sick with it he grew worse and worse. No doctors and no medicine could cure him. The disease went on and on until it brought the poor victim down to death. The child does not outgrow it or get over it. It gets worse and worse as the years go by until the life is ruined. The heart gets hard and sinful and very wicked. God's blessed book says: "The wages of sin is death." Sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death. In other words, the heart in time gets to be so very wicked that God can not bear its presence, and it is shut out from God and heaven because everything good in the soul has died.

Now when Jesus was upon earth many poor lepers came to him to be healed of the awful disease of leprosy. All the doctors and all the medicine had failed to heal them. As the last hope they came to Jesus, and he healed them all. The same blessed Savior can heal the disease of sin in every child's heart Nobody else but Jesus has ever been able to cure it. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. This is why God calls on the young to remember him in early life. He sees the children's hearts afflicted with sin, and he knows what trouble it will bring them, He begs them to come to Jesus, just as the lepers came in the olden time, and cry: "O Jesus have mercy on us and cast the sin out of our hearts." He wishes them to do it in early life to save themselves from all the sad consequences of sin.

Think how hateful sin is, and how evil are its effects in human lives. It was sin in Cain's heart that caused him to kill his beautiful brother Abel, and made himself a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. It was sin in the hearts of men and women and children that caused their wickedness to be so great that God was compelled to destroy the ancient world with a flood. It w as sin in the hearts of the people of Sodom that made them so awfully wicked that God destroyed them all with fire. It was sin that led Jacob to. deceive his blind old father Isaac, and cheat his brother Esau, so that he had to flee from home for his life. It was sin in the hearts of Jacob's boys that led them to envy and hate their lovely young brother Joseph, till they talked of killing him, and finally sold him to be a poor slave in Egypt. It was sin that caused the untimely death of Hophni and Phinehas, the two wicked sons of Eli. It was sin that brought sorrow to the old age of David, and led his boys to kill each other and fill their kind father's heart with grief. It was sin that covered the glorious Solomon with shame and divided and ruined his kingdom. Sin led King Jehoram to kill his six brothers, and led his wicked wife to kill her children and grandchildren that she herself might rule. Finally sin destroyed the whole nation, and God had to let enemies come up and punish it and carry off the people into captivity.

In the fullness of time Jesus came to the world on an errand of love to save it. He was pure and holy and gentle and kind. His heart was full of love for every poor sinner; his only purpose was to bless and help men. Yet so wicked were the people that nobody seemed to have any place for Jesus. When he was a lovely little babe the king tried to kill him. When he was grown to be a man his own neighbors tried to cast him over a precipice. Sin in their hearts led men to hate him and plot against him and lie about him. Finally wicked rulers hired false witnesses to testify against the dear Savior. He was arrested and cruelly whipped until he was almost dead. Then they also wove a crown of thorns and pressed it down upon his beautiful brow, and smote him, and spit in his face with malignant contempt. At last, though they could find no fault with Jesus, men were so wicked that they stood around the blessed Savior and yelled: "Crucify him, crucify him," until he was led out of the city followed by a cursing rabble, who looked on with glee while he was nailed to the cross and hung up to die in most awful agony.

That was the darkest crime of all the ages. But there is no depth of infamy to which any one may not descend who allows sin to remain in his heart. Every boy that takes God's name in vain has the beginning of the same spirit that crucified the Son of God. Every little girl that deceives or lies has the same evil spirit that bore false witness against Christ. Every little child that performs a cruel, wanton deed has in him the germ of that same wickedness that clamored for the crucifixion of Jesus, and at last drove the nails into his hands and feet.

Nobody can tell to what a terrible degree of sinfulness any boy or girl may come who allows sin to stay in the heart. History tells us of a Roman emperor named Nero. When he was a little child he was surpassingly beautiful, and so tender-hearted that he could not bear to see anybody or any creature suffer. But, like all other little boys, he had sin in his heart, which he did not ask Jesus to take away; and it kept increasing until he became a very monster of iniquity, one of the wickedest men of all the ages. Cruelty became his joy and murder his pastime. He covered holy men and women with pitch and set fire to them, and by the light of those living, burning torches practiced archery at night in his gardens. He set fire to Rome, then the greatest city in the world, and amused himself by the sight of the rolling, devouring flames, unmindful of all the suffering and loss of property and life he had occasioned. At his command very many thousands of noble Christians were put to death, eaten alive by the wild beasts in the amphitheater or dying by every kind of torture. As a crowning act of wickedness he had the beloved apostle Paul, who wrote so much of the Bible, beheaded. Now this monster of sin was once as gentle and innocent a child as any boy who reads these lines; but the sin in his heart made him all that he became. The writer once saw a woman on trial for murder. She was found guilty. She then confessed that she had at different times poisoned to death seven persons, several of them being innocent little children. She was a nice-looking woman, and it was hard to believe she could have been so wicked. No doubt she was once a beautiful little girl, and as pure and innocent as any little girl who hears this story. But she had the moral disease of sin in her heart, and it kept getting worse and worse until it made her very, very bad. The fact is, nobody can tell how very wicked any boy

or girl may yet become unless God takes out of them the love of sin.

I once addressed an audience of four hundred boys in Ohio, and all of them had committed crimes for which they had been taken from homes and shut up in confinement: and yet their average age was only eleven years. I once went through a prison where there were eleven hundred prisoners who had committed awful deeds -- thefts and murders and other crimes. It was a solemn thing to look at them and think what they had done, and then reflect that once they were no worse than the boys in our Sabbath schools and Christian homes.

Oh, sin is an awful thing in human hearts! It makes all the wasted, blighted lives, and all the darkened, ruined homes in the world. It fills all the saloons with drunkards. It fills all the prisons and jails with criminals. It makes all that vast army of blasphemers, liars, thieves, idolaters, adulterers and covetous people of whom God says in infinite sorrow -- they shall not enter heaven. Is it any wonder that he is concerned about it, and asks all boys and girls to remember him in early life, and seek his help who alone can pardon and cleanse from sin?

Rev. C. L. Goodell was a famous pastor of St. Louis. He loved the children of his flock. One New Year's Day he sent each of them a prayer for them to commit to memory, and repeat each morning on rising from their sleep. You can repeat it as a prayer to Jesus to save you from sin:

CHILD'S MORNING PRAYER

The morning bright with rosy light

Has waked me from my sleep.

Father, I own, thy love alone

Thy little one doth keep.

All through the day, I humbly pray,

Be thou my guard and guide:

My sins forgive, and let me live,

Dear Jesus, near thy side.

" Help me today, in work or play

To do thy blessed will;

In holy ways, with prayer and praise,

My duties to fulfill.

Oh, make thy rest within my breast,

Great Spirit of all grace:

Make me like thee, then shall I be

Prepared to see thy face." Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. Why does God tell young children to remember him?

2. In what ways do children sin?

3. What disease that was incurable is sin like?

4. Who alone can save from sin?

5. Did sin make Cain trouble. And the sons of Jacob and Eli?

6. What did it do in David's family, and Jehoram's family?

7. What did sin prompt men to do to Jesus?

8. What did the beautiful boy Nero become and finally do?

9. What did it cause a woman to do?

10. What is it doing in general in human hearts?

11. Is it not plain why God wishes children to seek his help in early life?

Sing the Morning Prayer Song.

Other songs for Chapter 1, "Christ Has for Sin Atonement Made," and "Rock of Ages."

Chapter II.

WHY GOD CALLS CHILDREN EARLY -- CONTINUED

The second reason we will give why God calls children to remember him in early life is this: God knows that if children should grow up and live some years in sin, even though they should be converted and forgiven later in life, they still will suffer an irreparable loss. Though they be forgiven and saved, still, in some respects, they will never get over the evil effects of those early sins. This seems very hard to say, hut it is none the less true. There are things that we can never get over; things that all the cleansing blood of Christ can not undo. God says to the sinner: "Be sure your sin will find you out." -- that there is a natural retribution which will surely come upon the sinner, which even the grace of God can not prevent, even though the sins are forgiven and the sinner is saved.

I wonder if, by many illustrations, I can make this solemn truth plain even to a child. You have all noticed that when people set out shade trees in the street, in front of their homes, they put a little wire or board fence around them. The reason is that they wish to keep the trees from being gnawed by horses, or bruised by passing wagons. We all know that if the tree is seriously bruised, though the bark may grow over the wound and try to repair the damage, yet the tree has suffered an injury which it will never get over. I said this to a Sabbath-school class, last May, in Alpena, Mich. That afternoon a shade tree broke off in a wind storm within a few rods of the church, proving the truth of my words. There was a bruise on the tree where a horse had injured it; the bark had grown over it as best it could; the tree had leaved out and was green and beautiful. But the weak spot from the injury was there, and in a wind storm the tree went down.

When a student at Yale I heard John B. Gough say in an address that he would give his right arm to be able to forget some of the scenes and experiences of his early life. At the time he made that remark, he was one of the most earnest temperance workers and most honored Christian men in the world. But once it was otherwise. When he was a generous-hearted, noble youth he lost his loved mother, and then was left in a strange land among strangers. Saloons opened their doors to him when kind homes ought to have done it, but didn't, and he took to drink and became a drunkard, he married; but the poor sot was ill prepared to be a husband and father. He lost his wife and child, but drank still. He lost his position where he earned his living because of his drinking, and on a cold Sabbath evening the young, despised drunkard, who had thrown away his manhood and ruined his home and was bound by the chains of the evil habit, walked through a city street in Massachusetts, hungry and homeless and penniless and friendless, thinking he would end his wretched life, It was then that Jesus sent a friend to him to save him. But he never could forget the horrible years of revelry and debauchery. The thought of the home he had ruined, and the wife whose heart he had broken. and the child who had died for the lack of a father's loving care, haunted his memory and troubled his soul. He could not forget. Like the tree, his whole being had received a bruise he could not get over.

I walked through a mill in Michigan last summer with a minister, and he introduced me to the men. I noticed that many of them had mangled hands. Sometimes a thumb and sometimes one or two fingers had been taken off. Their hands had got caught in the machinery, and had been so torn and mangled that they would never again have such hands as God meant they should have. It is just so with the soul, If it gets injured by sin, it will never again be just what God intended it should be. Sin inflicts a natural penalty -- a moral loss from which the heart does not wholly recover. Dr. Talmage says he once heard one of the godliest men he ever knew, an old man of over seventy years, say before a great company of people: I know I am a child of God, and my sins have been forgiven; but I committed a sin when I was twenty years old for which I can not forgive myself, and sometimes the very thought of it almost blots out my hope of heaven." You see, children, there was the awful memory, like a great scar or injury, from which he could never recover. His enjoyment of heaven will be less for ever and ever because of the memory of that sin,

Two young men left the city of London to better their condition in Canada. While crossing the ocean one of them became anxious about his soul's salvation. He unbosomed himself to his brother; but instead of receiving the sympathy and encouragement he expected, he was laughed at for his fears. This was too much for him; he could not stand his brother's jeers, and soon the convictions were stifled and the impressions effaced. Not long after their arrival in Canada the other brother was led to accept Christ. Filled with a new-found joy he told his brother of the mighty change that had taken place, and pleaded with him to become a Christian. "Arthur," was the reply, "you laughed at me when I was anxious about my soul, and now I have no desire to be saved."

How the words cut Arthur to the heart! He could not deny it; it was too true that he had been used by Satan to persuade his brother to reject Christ. Sometime after the unconverted lad returned to England, and, while working on a new building, a heavy stone fell upon his head and crushed him to death. When the sad news reached poor Arthur's ears, he was greatly distressed. He would have given anything to have been able to recall those sneering words, But they could never be recalled. He had found Jesus himself, and his sins were forgiven, but he had driven his brother from Christ and caused him to miss heaven, and the sad thought of it would cast a dark shadow upon his heart for evermore. It was one of the things he could not get over.

We spoke in the last chapter about David's sin. David repented sincerely, and cried: "I have sinned against the Lord." And God heard his prayer and s and to him by the mouth of the prophet: " The Lord also hath put away thy sin: thou shalt not die, howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me." David was forgiven and saved, but the sword of punishment, as the consequence of his sin, fell upon h is family, blow after blow, and darkened with sorrow all his later life, and no doubt will diminish the blessedness of heaven, as he forever remembers the ruin of his sons.

The Apostle Paul when he was a young man did not love Jesus, and did not love his followers, and did not love his cause. On the other hand, he hated the Savior, and persecuted and put to death those that loved him. He was afterward converted and became the grandest man of the Christian ages. But he never could forgive himself for his early sin. The agony of the saints of God whom he dragged to prison and to death would come to his memory. The cries of the little children whose parents he had caused to be killed rang in his ears. The heaven-lit face and dying prayer of Deacon Stephen, whom he had helped stone to death, he could never forget. These were things he never got over. Though God had forgiven him, he could not forgive himself,

In one of my meetings not long ago an old man stood up to accept Christ. He was seventy-eight years old, so deaf that he had to sit within two or three feet of me that I might preach right into his ear; so lame that he could not kneel down. They told me that he had been a very wicked man. Let us suppose that Jesus gave him a new heart and forgave all his sins. Even then notice how many sad things there were that he could never get over. He ought to have come to Christ at least seventy years before, There were the threescore years and ten that might have been spent in the service of Jesus, all worse than wasted in sin and gone forever. He had brought up a large family of children, and by his example had taught them all to be Godless. They were all grown up and gone from home to lead Christless lives, and their children after them following their example. He could never undo the wrong he had done them all. The influence of his life in the community had also been bad. How many, many boys and men he had taught to swear and lie and break the Sabbath and forget God! He never could undo the harm he had done them, How many evil propensities he had indulged, and how many bad habits he had cultivated that now he must spend his time and strength in fighting during his remaining days: On the other hand, how many loving words he might have spoken in the name of Jesus to the sorrowing, and how many loving deeds he might have performed for the needy that now must be forever unspoken and undone! A life had been spent in sin that might have been spent in blessing men and glorifying God. Could he ever forgive himself? Will the time ever come in eternity when he will cease to regret that he did not give his heart to God in early life?

Now, God knows all these things better than we possibly can, he knows the pain and loss and bitter regrets and undying memories that will be occasioned by Sin committed during the early years, from all of which he would lovingly save us by having us Conic to him in early life, before we have walked in the paths of wickedness and sown broadcast the seeds of

evil, whose awful harvest we must reap with aching hearts in after years.

God loves us all with an infinite tenderness, and wishes to spare us all possible pain that would come to us in hater years as the result of early sin. He also wishes us to become all that it is possible for us to be. So he tells us to remember Jesus our Savior in early life, and have our hearts cleansed from all sin, that we may rise to goodness and usefulness, like a bird soaring in the sky with an unbroken wing.

QUESTIONS FOR REEVIEW

1. What is the second reason why God wishes children to conic to Christ in early life?

2. Why do we put a fence around a young tree?

3, What did John B. Gough wish to forget?

4. What happened to men's hands in a mill?

5. What was it that the 01(1 marl could not forgive?

6. What did Arthur do that gave him a lifelong sorrow?

7. What can you say about David's punishment?

8. What about Paul's?

9. What can you tell about the old man seventy-eight years old?

10. What does God desire concerning us?

Other songs: "My Faith Looks Up to Thee."

Chapter III.

WHY GOD CALLS CHILDREN EARLY -- CONTINUED

A third reason why God calls upon children, to seek him for salvation in early life is, people can come to him more easily in early life than in later years. The time to do anything in this world is when it can be done most easily and with the greatest advantage to the doer. There is a time in the year to plow the garden when it can be done the most easily and with the greatest profit. Every boy and girl knows that people do not wait until the ground is hard and dry in mid-summer, or until autumn when all chance to get a crop is gone. The garden is plowed and planted in the spring of the year, because it is the most favorable time; for precisely the same reason God wishes to begin his work in the heart of a child in the springtime of life, and make it a beautiful garden of the Lord.

1. In early life the feelings respond the most easily and naturally to the touch of divine truth, just as the strings of the harp respond to the touch of the harpist. These responsive feelings help the child to do right, help him to form the holy purpose to love and obey God. By and by, under the influence of sin, the feelings become cold and dead, and help the heart no more.

2. In childhood, also, the habits are not fully formed, and have only the strength of threads; years later they have the strength of ropes and chains that can not be broken. They bind the aged sinner to a course of confirmed sinfulness. Well do I remember a brilliant young man who had kind and good parents. He was a nice, beautiful boy when he was young. But when he was a young man in college he formed some bad habits which he could not break. He would come to me and weep over his sins, and promise to break off; but the very next day he would be a poor, helpless slave to his appetites and habits. I stood by his bedside when he was dying at twenty-six years of age, a victim of his evil habits, moaning out his tale of sorrow and shame over a wasted life. He was slain by the habits which he had deliberately formed, but afterward could not break.

3. Furthermore, in childhood the unfavorable influence of evil companions is not nearly so strong as it will be in later years. It seems incredible that it should be so, but a boy ten years old is twice as independent and brave and fearless in his moral action as the boy of fifteen. Until grace changes the heart, people become more and more cowardly and afraid to take a stand for Christ and duty in the face of the opinions or customs of their companions. Probably moral cowardice is ruining more people and causing the loss of more souls than any popular vice that can be named.

4. Still further, it is easier for a person to exercise faith in God and Christ when young than it can be again until God cleanses the soul. Faith is natural to the child; its whole life is a life of faith. You children trust your parents for food and drink and clothes and shelter without the least fear or doubt. It is but a little step further to trust the heavenly Father for pardoning grace. As a matter of fact, a child accepts Jesus as a personal Savior more readily, more naturally, more easily than the man of mature years, not because it is unreasonable or unmanly to believe in Jesus; but for the simple reason that a life of sin in time destroys the very power to believe.

Well does the writer remember two dear boys, seven and nine years of age, sons of a beloved friend. They had been trained in the home and in the Sabbath-school, and had learned to love Jesus. They were taken sick with malignant diphtheria, and died and were buried in the same coffin. When they were dying, and their father and other doctors were trying to save them, they said: "O papa, don't try to save us; let us die. It is so much better to die, and go home and live with Jesus, than to live in this world of sickness and pain and sin. Don't try to save us. Let us die." Thus the dear little fellows died in the sweetest peace and faith in the Lord. A few days afterward the writer went to comfort the father, Never will it be forgotten how the stricken father walked back and forth in the loom, wringing his hands and saying: "Oh, I would give anything if I had the faith of my little boys and could believe as they did! " He might have done it once when he, too, was young. But the faith faculty, partially unused for many years, had at last become partially lost, and it made it hard for him to believe, When he needed and wanted the comfort and strength of a blessed faith in God and heaven, he felt to his sorrow that he could not believe.

"Do you know," said a poor boy in a hospital to a lady who daily visited him, "what I've been thinking of all the morning?" "Of how soon you will see Jesus? "replied the lady. " Yes," he answered; "I've been thinking that I began this Sunday a poor sick boy in the hospital, surrounded with wicked men and sinful talk, and I think I shall be at home before night. I think I have begun a Sabbath that will never end. I don't think I shall ever have another week-day." In the evening she visited him again and found him with his eyes closed, sinking rapidly, but calmly. Stooping over him, she whispered: '"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.' Willie, is Jesus With you? Have you any fear?" "No, none, and I've been wondering why they call it a dark valley. I have found the light growing brighter and brighter ever since I first believed, and now it is so bright I must shut my eves." After praying, he said: '"That is my last prayer; now it will be praise for ever and ever." And he was soon at home, Wonderful faith!

A pastor writes this beautiful little story about a little girl, which I will give to you: "A girl in my Sunday-school gave her heart to Jesus, and was saved by him. One day by an accident she was dreadfully burned, and was taken to the hospital for better care. Amidst all her pains she was very happy and had no fear of death. One night, as she lay in the ward of the hospital in her bed, the rest all quiet, she was heard singing:

"'Jesus the name to sinners dear,

The name to sinners given,

it scatters all their guilty fears,

And turns their hell to heaven.

And then, after a pause and nothing was heard but the ticking of the great clock in the hail, she again sang:

"'Happy if with my latest breath

I may but speak His name,

Preach Him to all, and cry in death,

Behold, behold the Lamb!'"

The singing ceased. The nurse returned, and, stepping to the bedside of the little sufferer, looked at the child, but she was gone. On the wings of song her pure soul had gone to her Savior."

A young minister who had recently labored in a mission in New York City, told me last week of a little eight-year-old Catholic girl who came to his mission and was converted. She then began to pray that her mother might be led to give up her sins and give her heart to Jesus. The mother was soon converted. Then the two went to the mission and the mother arose and asked prayers for her wicked husband, but added: "I know it will do no good to pray for him." "Yes, it will," said the little girl. "My papa will learn to love Jesus and be a good man," That very night he came into the meeting and was moved by the Holy Spirit to forsake his sins and become a true child of God, The little girl had far more faith in prayer and God than her mother had.

The writer heard a gentleman tell of a little boy in Chicago who was very, very sick. The doctor came and told the mother that her little boy could not live the day out. The poor mother felt so broken-hearted that she could not tell her boy that he must die, She told her husband when he came home what the doctor had said, and told him that he must tell his little son, And so the stricken father with great anguish broke the news to the little boy that he must die that day. The child looked up without the slightest feat and said: "Dear papa, you need not feel so bad; you know I will go to heaven; and, papa, I will go straight to Jesus and tell him that ever since I was old enough to know anything you have taught me to love him." Such perfect faith in prayer and in Jesus and heaven is very common and very natural in children. But after years have been spent in neglect of prayer and God, the very power to believe dies out of the soul, and in time may be wholly lost.

The writer will never forget how he sat day after day in a sick-room by a dying old man, a dear friend, who sat propped up in his chair and held the Bible in his lap. He was trying to make his peace with God and get a hope of heaven. But the great beads of sweat, caused by the anguish of his soul, stood out on his brow, as he exclaimed again and again: "Oh, if I could only believe!" He prayed with great earnestness, but the time had passed when it was easy to find God.

The ease with which one can believe for salvation does not depend upon many years and much knowledge and learning. A child can love its mother just as truly as a man fifty years old, even though it can not explain what love is, So every child may have faith in its father, even though it can not explain what faith is.

A little child once got lost in the woods, and night came on, and it grew dark and they could not find him for a long time. At last he lay down under a log, cold and afraid, and cried as loud as he dared. At' length he heard some one calling. He was afraid at first that it was a wild beast. Then he plainly heard his own name. He stopped crying, and jumped tip and went toward the voice. He could not see anything, but he heard his father's voice and ran to him. Thus he could have faith, though he could not tell what faith was. The child Samuel could say in faith, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," though he could not know the voice of the Lord from the voice of Eli. So the little child can believe in Christ and know Christ, though he can not know and explain all the deep things in religion.

There is no time in life when it is so easy to forsake sin and give up wicked habits and wicked companions, and believe in Jesus and love him, as in early life. That is the reason why God calls upon all boys and girls to seek him in early life. The all-important task is so much more easily performed than it can be afterward that youth 'is the time to seek the salvation of the soul. The child may well sing:

"Lead me to Jesus, lead me to Jesus,

Help me to love him, help me to pray;

He is my Savior, I would believe him,

I would be like him to show me the way.

"Lead me to Jesus, he will protect me,

He is so loving, gentle and mild;

Calling the children, bidding them welcome;

Surely he calls me -- I am his child.

"Tell me of Jesus, tell of his mercy;

Is there a fountain, flowing so free?

All who are willing drink of its waters;

Say, is that fountain flowing for me?

"Lord, I am coming! Jesus, my Savior,

Pity my weakness, make me thy child;

I would receive thee, trust and believe thee,

I would be like thee, holy and mild."

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. What is the third reason for seeking God in early

2. Do the feelings respond more easily to truth in childhood?

3. Are evil habits so strong in childhood?

4. What about evil companions in childhood?

5. When is it. the easiest to exercise faith?

6. Give sonic of the instances of faith in childhood?

7. Is it difficult for the old to believe?

Song: What a Friend We Have in Jesus."

Chapter IV.

TWO OTHER REASONS WHY GOD CALLS CHILDREN TO REMEMBER HIM AND SEEK HIM EARLY

First, there is an awful probability that if people do not come to Jesus for salvation in early life they will never come at all. This fact is pressed upon our attention, and comes from so many different sources, that it fills us with a longing that is almost painful to save the children. God says: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near." God is never so near an unconverted life as in childhood. Wordsworth says: "Heaven lies about us in our infancy." Tom Hood sings most pathetically:

"I remember, I remember,

The fir trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops

Were close against the sky.

It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To think I 'm not so near to heaven

As when I was a boy.'

Multitudes can give the same sad testimony that they are consciously farther from heaven and God than they were in childhood. They know they are drifting out into a wide sea of sin; and God teaches that there is a limit beyond which if they go they will never get back. They become hopelessly deaf to all God's pleadings, hopelessly blind to self-interest. They have less and less love for heaven, and less and less relish for holiness, until all desire to be saved is gone, and they are finally abandoned to a life of sin.

It is a mournful fact that most of the people who are drunkards today are going to Eve drunkards and die drunkards, and go to a drunkard's hell in spite of us. We build and open churches, but most of these people will not come to the churches; they prefer to go to the saloons. We hold meetings for their salvation; but they will not conic to the meetings. With here and there an exception they prefer to meet their fellow-revelers in the saloon, and they will meet them in spite of pleadings and entreaties and prayers until they die in the gutter as the fool dieth.

Occasionally we see a gambler turn from his sin and give his heart to Jesus; but it is very seldom. Most of those who are gamblers today are wedded to their sin, and will not forsake it. In vain do parents entreat and wives plead and brothers warn. In vain are all the alarms and threatened judgments of God sounded in their ears. In vain do comrades sink in irretrievable ruin before their eyes. They are snared in the meshes of a fatal vice. They love the chains that bind them. They fairly run with infatuated zeal unto their eternal doom.

And so it is with other sins. Most of those who are blasphemers today are going to live so and die so in spite of the warnings of Almighty God. And the liars and the knaves and the impure are following hard after them, deaf to every voice of mercy and love that would win them from their sins unto a better life. A few of these sinners now and then are saved, enough to inspire hope and keep us at work for their rescue. But the majority of them, in spite of the Bible and churches and sermons and prayers and every conceivable means of grace, are sweeping on, a laughing, mocking, jeering throng, to a lost eternity. We wish from the depths of our hearts that it were not so; but we can not blind our eyes to the sad, awful fact that it is so. That proves to us that if children would make sure of heaven they must seek God in early life. -- "Call upon him while he may be found."

The writer came to Jesus when a child eleven years old, and to that fact is due everything of worth in his after life. He sat down some years ago in Michigan and thought over some of his boyhood companions, and their end. What a record of ruined life it was, -- all because they had not committed themselves to the loving watch-care of Jesus. F. M____ was shot dead in a saloon. F. B____ became a drunkard and committed suicide. Another F. M_____ went to a State's prison for stealing. G. S____ in my Sabbath-school class died a drunkard, frozen to death in a snow-bank. C. D_____ was shot for deserting from the army. A. J_____ became demented because of vice. N. W____ fled from the State a fugitive because of sin. J. S____ became a gambler. N. C____ became a drunkard, ruined his home, deserted his wife, and was found dead in his hotel room. It was supposed he died a suicide, and his mother died of a broken heart. How different would their lives have been had they all given themselves to Jesus when they were boys! The lesson for the boys and girls from all these sad instances is this, -- seek Jesus and give your hearts to him and become sincere Christians while you are young, before the sad days come when the probability is that you will never come at all.

The fifth and last reason I will mention why you should come to Christ in early life is that by doing so you will have so much more usefulness. I presume if ten old men and women sixty years of age should come to Christ in a religious service people would weep for joy, and think that the cause of Christ had gained a great deal. But if ten boys and girls ten years old should come to Christ in a meeting many would think that it amounted to very little. But it is my opinion that if heaven is ever especially jubilant it is when the children come to Christ. I will make it plain why it is so. Suppose the ten old men and women should all live to be seventy years old. Then they would have ten years apiece for the service of Christ. But they are so old now, and have wasted so much of life, and formed so many bad habits, that they could render only feeble service for the Master. But the ten boys and girls, now only ten years old, if they lived to be seventy, would have sixty years apiece for the service of Jesus -- in all, six hundred years. And they are beginning so young that Jesus would get the strength of their whole life. They could get a Christian education and become authors, editors, teachers, leaders in business, ministers, missionaries. Only Cod can tell how great their influence might be. It might circle the world and bless all mankind.

A minister once related to me the following: "I was brought up in Toronto, Canada. When a boy, I attended revival meetings. One night ten of us boys sat in a row. The preacher asked all of us who would accept Christ to arise. Nine of us arose and accepted Christ. Five of the nine are now ministers; three others are noble Christian workers and Sabbath-school teachers, and the ninth is an honorable and useful Christian man. We all grew to manhood. That tenth one who did not accept Christ was taken fatally sick. I went to see him. He looked at me with sad, dying eyes and said: ' 'O Harry, I ought to have come to Christ when you and the other boys did, but I didn't, and now I 'ye got to die and I 'm lost, I 'm lost.' It was so awful that I couldn't endure it, and I put on my hat and coat and left the house; but fainter and fainter, as I went down the street, I could hear the poor fellow's dying wail: 'I'm lost, I'm lost.'" Now, wouldn't it have been better if he had come to Christ with the other boys?

In the early part of this century a faithful Scotch minister, coming early to the kirk (church), met one of his deacons, whose face wore a resolute but distressed look. "I have come early to meet you," said the deacon, "and say to you, pastor, that there must be something radically wrong in your preaching and work. There has been only one person added to the church in a whole year, and he is only a boy." (Just as if it did not amount to anything to have a boy join the church!) The old minister listened. His eyes moistened with tears and his thin hand trembled. "I feel it all," he said, "I feel it all; but God knows that I have tried to do my best, and I can trust him for results."

The old minister stood up to preach that day with a grieved and heavy heart. He closed his discourse with dim and tearful eyes He wished that his work was done forever, and that he was at rest among the graves in the old kirk-yard. He lingered after service to shed his tears of sorrow alone before the altar where he had prayed over the dead of a by-gone generation. No one noticed the pastor's grief hut the boy, Robert. He watched the old man trembling in his sorrow, and then went up to him and said, as he laid his hand on the old man's gown: "Do you think if I were willing to work hard for an education I could ever become a preacher?" "A preacher?" "Yes," said the boy, "and perhaps a missionary." There was a long pause. Tears again filled the eyes of the aged man of God. At length he said: "This heals the ache in my heart, Robert. I see the Divine hand now. May God bless you, my boy. Yes, I think you will become a preacher."

More than half a century afterward there returned to London from Africa an aged missionary. His name was spoken with reverence. When he went into an assembly the audience rose to their feet to greet him, and stood till he was seated; when he spoke in public there was deep silence. Princes stood with uncovered heads before him; nobles invited him to their homes. He had added a new province to the church of Christ, and to Christian civilization. He had brought' under gospel influences the most savage of African chiefs; had given the translated Bible to strange tribes; had enriched with valuable knowledge the Royal Geographical Society, and had honored the country of his birth, and the universal missionary cause. The old pastor had not labored in vain. The conversion of a thousand old men would not have been such a gain to the kingdom of Christ as the conversion of that boy. His name was Robert Moffat -- a name now immortal among men,

Bishop McCabe came to Christ when he was eight years old, as we have already said. Suppose. he had waited until he was sixty before giving his heart to God! The M. E. Church would have lost one of its great men. Dwight L. Moody gave himself to Christ when he was a raw, untutored boy. At the time it probably did not seem much to many people that such a convert was made; but, no doubt, in the eyes of God it was one of the grandest trophies of grace, and meant more to the world than the conversion of a king. Had he waited until fifty or sixty years of age, he would never have been heard of. As it was, he has become one of the grandest Christian men of the century.

O, boys and girls, God wants you to come to him in early life, because he wants you to become grandly useful. Seek him now, and fill your life with a usefulness that will be your joy and glory in eternity.

QUESTIONS

1. Are people likely to come to Jesus at all if they do not come in early life?

2. When does the poet say heaven is near us?

3. When does another poet say it is far off?

4. Are many drunkards saved?

5. Are gamblers often converted?

6. Are other sinners usually saved in old age?

7. Did the early friends of the writer who rejected Christ have an honorable end?

8. What is the last reason given why we should come to Christ in early life?

9. Which would have the greater usefulness, ten persons converted in childhood or ten converted in old age?

10. What about the nine boys who gave their hearts to Christ one night in Toronto?

11. What was the end of the one who didn't?

12. What can you say of Robert?

13. What can you say of Bishop McCabe?

14. What can you say about D. L. Moody?

Song: "Whiter than Snow."

Chapter V.

FIRST CONDITION OF SALVATION -- REPENTANCE

The children have been shown why Jesus wants them to seek salvation in early life. It is necessary for them to learn how to get it. The coming of Christ into the heart in saving power, like every other blessing of man, is received on certain conditions. God is willing, and even glad, to give farmers a crop of corn; but they Can get it only on the condition that they plow the ground and plant the corn and hoe it and kill the weeds, and then God uses the air and the sunshine and the dew and rain and the ground to make the corn. So God wants boys and girls to have an education and gain useful knowledge. He gave them their minds for that purpose. But they can learn only on the condition that they go to school and study and apply themselves. God wants men to learn trades; but they can do it only on the condition that they go into the shops and factories and take the tools in their hands and work. So God wants boys and girls to accept Christ and become pure and holy in heart. But they can do it only on certain conditions. The first one I shall name is REPENTANCE. That will be the subject of this chapter.

What is repentance? There is one verse in the Bible that describes it exactly. Is. 55:7, reads, "Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts." To repent is more than to feel sorry or to regret that you have sinned. It means forsake sin and abhor it, and even to hate the thought of all evil ways. God can not save a person as long as he loves sin and clings to it. God hates sin with an awful hatred, and nobody is saved, or can be, until he feels toward sin as God does.

Now God tells us that this is very important. John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness and saying "REPENT." Jesus came saying "REPENT." Peter told the people in Jerusalem to "repent." Paul said: "God now commandeth all men everywhere to 'repent.'" Jesus once said: "Except ye repent ye shall all perish." In other words, the blessed Savior teaches that all have sinned, even boys and girls, and that unless we forsake our sins in sincere repentance, he can not save any of us.

I repeat that repentance is very much more than sorrow for sin. A person can be sorry that he has an evil habit which makes him trouble, and yet he may love the evil and continue to practice it. He only repents who gives up a wicked way because it is wicked and grieves God, and injures others and his own soul. The boy or girl who has been in the habit of disobeying parents does not repent unless he stops disobeying them, and grieves over past disobedience, and hates it as a great sin against the parents, and also against God.

I want to give you a story about a child's sin and repentance, which I find in one of my books that was written fifty years ago. Twenty-five years ago I met and learned to love the author as a great and good man. A minister told to him the following story: "I had one of the kindest and best of fathers, and when I was a little white-headed boy about six years old he used to carry me to school before him on his horse, to help me in my little plans, and always seemed trying to make me happy. He came home one day very sick. My mother was sick, too; and thus nobody but my two sisters could take care of my father. In a few days he was worse, very sick, and all the physicians in the region were called to see him. The next Sabbath morning he was evidently much worse. As I went into the room he stretched out his hand to me and said: 'My little boy, I am very sick. I wish you to take this paper on the stand and run down to Mr. C.'s and get me the medicine written on that paper.' I took the paper and went to the drugstore as I had often done before. But when I got there I found it shut; and as Mr. C. lived a quarter of a mile further off, I concluded not to go and find him. I then set off for home. On my way back I contrived what to say. I knew how wicked it was to tell a lie, but one sin always leads to another. On going in to my father I saw that he was in great pain, and though pale and weak I could see great drops of sweat standing on his forehead, forced out by the pain. Oh, then I was sorry I had not gone and found the druggist. At length he said to me: 'My son has got the medicine, I hope, for I am in great pain.' I hung my head and muttered, for my conscience smote me: 'No, sir, Mr. Carter says he has got none!' 'Has got none! Is this possible?' He then cast a keen eye upon me, and seeing my head hang, and probably suspecting my falsehood, said in the mildest, kindest tone: 'My little boy will see his father suffer great pain for the want of that medicine.' I went out of the room and

cried alone. I was soon called back. My brothers had come and were standing, -- all the children were standing, -- around his bed, and he was committing my poor mother to their care and giving them his last advice. I was the youngest, and when he laid his hand on my head and told me that in a few hours I should have no father, that in a day or two he would be buried up, that I must now make God my Father, love him, obey him, and always do right and speak the truth, because the eye of God is always upon me, it seemed as if I must sink. And when he laid his hand on my head again, and prayed for the blessing of God, the Redeemer, to rest upon me, soon to be a fatherless orphan, I dared not look at him, I felt so guilty. Sobbing I rushed from his bedside and thought I wished I could die. They soon told me he could not speak. Oh, how much would I have given to go in and tell him I had told a lie, and ask him once more to lay his hand on my head and forgive me! I crept in once more and heard the minister pray for the dying man. Oh, how my heart ached! I snatched my hat and ran to the druggist's house and got the medicine. I ran home with all my might and ran up to my father's bedside to confess my sin, crying out, 'O, here father!' -- but I was hushed; and I then saw that he was pale and still, and that all in the room were weeping. My dear father was dead! And the last thing I ever spoke to him was to tell him a lie. I sobbed as if my heart would break; for his kindness, his tender looks, and my own sin all rushed upon my mind. And as I gazed upon his cold, pale face, and saw his eves shut and his lips closed, could I help thinking of his last words: 'My little boy will see his father suffer great pain for the want of that medicine?' I could not know but he died for the want of it. In a day or two he was put in the ground and buried up. There were several ministers at the funeral, and each spoke kindly to me, but could not comfort me. Alas! they knew not what a load of sorrow lay on my young heart. They could not comfort me. My father was buried and the children all scattered abroad. for my mother was too feeble to take care of them.

"It was twelve years after this, while in college, that I went alone to the grave of my father. As I stood over it I seemed to be back at his bedside, to see his pale face, and hear his voice. Oh! the thought of that sin and wickedness cut me to the heart. It seemed as if worlds would not be too much to give could I then only have called loud enough to have him hear me ask for forgiveness. But it was too late. He had been in the grave twelve years; and I must live and die weeping over that ungrateful falsehood. May God forgive me."

Now I want to make a few comments on this sad story.

1. It shows that children may commit very wicked sins that end in very serious results at a very early age. This boy was but six years old when he thus sinned, lying to his earthly father and disobeying his Heavenly Father. Possibly it caused the death of his father, and it certainly filled his own heart with a lifelong sorrow.

2. You see that a young child may repent of sin. Young as this boy was, he felt a deep abhorrence of his sin, and the thought of it in after years almost broke his heart. Any child may thus feel the wickedness of sin and abandon it forever.

3. You can see from this story what repentance is. "Repentance begins in the humiliation of the heart and ends in the reformation of the life."

"Real repentance consists in the heart being broken for sin and from sin." You see he turned away not only from this sin of disobedience and lying, but from all sin, and became a good Christian man and a minister of the gospel. To repent of one sin like lying or swearing or disobedience or drunkenness, and cling to other sins, is like stopping one hole in the bottom of a ship when there are two other holes through which the water will pour in and sink the ship. It is like healing one wound in a soldiers body, and leaving two other grievous wounds unhealed which will cause his death. He who truly repents will hate and try to give up all sin.

4. You notice this boy asked God to forgive him. This is what any one who truly repents of sin does, for the reason that all sin is a sin against the holy God. When King David had committed an awful sin against a man that caused his death, and afterward repented, he cried out: " Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, O God." Let every boy and girl remember that when you quarrel or lie or swear or disobey, you have not truly repented until you both turn away from your sins and cry out to God for pardon.

In a certain town in Iowa, a liquor dealer, whose name we will not give, was converted during a revival. He made up his mind to lead a new life at the time that he had a large lot of costly liquors on hand. His first act was to cart his whole stock of liquors down the street to a place in front of the church and there make a bonfire of it all. While the people within the church were praising God, and asking him to help sinners to repent, this wicked saloon-keeper was repenting by giving up his sin and asking the pardon of God. The glare of the burning liquors gave evidence to God and man that a prodigal was repenting of his many sins.

5. You notice that this boy repented the very day he committed the sin. He did not wait until he was grown to manhood or until he was gray with years. While he was yet a boy of six years old, and before the sun of that day which witnessed his dark sin had set he turned from it with a broken and contrite heart to God. "A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." "If we put off repentance another day, we have a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in." "You can not repent too soon, because you know not how soon it may be too late." Therefore, dear readers, repent now. Turn from every form of sin, and run for forgiveness to a gentle Savior's arms. Confess your sins to the Savior, and ask for his grace and mercy. A sinner's cry for pardon always gains the listening ear of God.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the first condition of salvation?

2. Are not God's most precious gifts usually given on some conditions?

3. What is repentance?

4. Is repentance important?

5. Is it more than sorrow or regret for sin?

6. What sins did the little boy commit?

7. How early in life did he commit the great sins?

8. Did he repent?

9. How did he show his repentance?

10. Did he ask God to forgive him?

11. Did he wait until he was old before he repented?

12. How did the saloon-keeper repent?

13. Is not NOW the very best time to turn from sin and seek God's pardon?

Song: "Turn to the Lord and Seek Salvation. Another title to the hymn is "Come, Ye Sinners."

Chapter VI.

THE SECOND CONDITION OF SALVATION -- FAITH

If I should ask the children to tell me their favorite verse in the Bible, probably more would repeat John 3:16 than any other verse: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, hut have everlasting life." The last verse of the same wonderful chapter reads: "He that believeth on the Son bath everlasting life: and he that believeth not on the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." To these verses we will add Rom. 5:1: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

I want to talk to you today about "believing in Jesus" or having "faith in Jesus." You see God tells us very plainly in these and a multitude of other Bible verses, that FAITH in Jesus is a condition without which we can not be saved. You all no doubt wish me to make it very plain what it is to believe on Jesus with a faith that will save the soul and bring you everlasting life and a home in heaven. But remember when I speak of faith as saving us, I mean that faith unites us to Jesus, and it is Jesus that saves.

Two other words, "confidence" and "trust," help to make plain what faith is. You put confidence in your mother when you believe what she tells you; and you trust her when you depend upon her for food and clothes and all needed things without anxiety or care. That restful confidence and trust is faith in your mother. A similar state of mind toward God would be faith in God.

A few simple stories will make plain what faith is. A house was one day on fire, and all the inmates but one boy had escaped from it. He was in a chamber and the flames cut off all escape by the stairs. He ran to the window and cried out, "O father! how shall I get out?" He could be seen by the fire in the room, but the thick smoke kept him from seeing the people below. He heard their voices, and he cried, "O save me!" "Here I am, my son!" said the father, and he held out his arms for Charles to jump into them. "Here I am; don't fear. Drop down and I will be sure to catch you." Charles crept out of the window, but held fast by it. He knew it was very high from the ground, and he was afraid to let go. "Drop down, my boy," cried the father. "O, I can't see you, dear father." "But I am here. You can trust me. I will save you." " I am afraid, father. 1 shall fall." "Let go, and don't fear," cried the people; "your father will be sure to catch you." And now Charles felt the flames. He was sure that if he hung there he would be burned. He knew that his father was strong, that he loved him, and was waiting to save him. At last he let go, and fell safely into his father's arms.

Now you see how faith works. Charles was in great peril. He knew his father's love and strength. He knew his own danger and that if he staid he would perish in the flames. So he yielded to his father's persuasion, and in faith dropped into his father's arms. Now each dear boy and girl is surrounded by the flaming, consuming perils of sin -- sin around you and sin within you. You know your peril: "The wages of sin is death." You can not see the face of Jesus; but you hear his words, saying through his Holy Book: "Whosoever believeth in me shall not perish, but have everlasting life." "Come unto me, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). Now in faith put confidence in these invitations, believe these promises and cast yourself upon Jesus for salvation. Take your Savior at his word, just as Charles believed his father, and you will be saved. Jesus will not disappoint you.

I will now give you a story that will illustrate faith in the CARE of God. "A lady and her husband were on the deck of a ship during an awful storm. The winds howled, and the ship was tossed like a feather over the great waves. The lady had to hold on with both hands to keep from falling. She was very much frightened and asked her husband if he was not afraid. He said nothing, but in a moment after he held a naked sword with its point close to her breast, and asked her: 'Are not you afraid?' 'No.' 'Why not! Do you not see the sword within an inch of your heart?' 'Yes, but I am not afraid, for it is my husband who holds it!' 'Yes,' said he, 'and it is my Heavenly Father who holds this storm in his hand, the winds and the waves, and why should I be afraid?'" This was faith in the care of God.

Now, just as the husband was pleased by the wife's confidence or faith in him, so God was pleased by the husband's confidence or faith in His care when the storm was raging and the ship seemed likely to be destroyed. And just so will you please Jesus when, troubled by sin, you go to him and commit yourself to his care and love. You are in a world full of stormy temptations that beat upon your souls as the waves dashed upon that ship. Jesus promises that if you trust him he will forgive your past sins, and "keep you from falling" or "stumbling" in the future. Will you believe on him and live?

Another story will illustrate to you faith in the love and goodness of God. A famous man once lived by the name of Richard Cecil. He was trying to teach his little girl how to believe in God. He came into the room one day and found her playing with a few beads which somebody had given her, and with which she was very much delighted. After a time he said to her: "My dear, you have some pretty beads there." "Yes, papa." "And you seem to be vastly pleased with them." "Yes, papa." "Well, now, throw them behind the fire!" The tears started into her eyes. She looked earnestly at him, as though she ought to have a reason for such a cruel sacrifice. "Well, my dear, do as you please, but you know I never told you to do anything which I did not think would be for your good." She looked at him a few moments, and then summoning all her resolution -- her breast heaving with the effort -- she dashed them into the fire.

The father smiled approvingly and said: "Let them lie there, and say no more about them now. You will hear about them some other time."

Some days after he brought her a box full of far more beautiful beads and toys, and said to her: "These, my child, are all yours because you believed me when I told you to cast the other beads into the fire. But, my child, remember as long as you live what faith is. I did this to lead you to trust your Heavenly Father. You threw your beads away when I bade you, because you had faith in my goodness and love. Put the same confidence in God. Many a time in life He will require you to give up and to avoid what you can not see the reason of; but if you trust the Heavenly Father as you have trusted me, you will find it best. Whether you understand or not, believe God's Word, and have faith in his goodness and love."

Now all you children who hear or read this beautiful story, have a kind Heavenly Father and a blessed Savior. "God so loved the world, that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." How our Heavenly Father must have loved us! How patient and loving and good Jesus must have been to leave his beautiful home in heaven, and come to earth and die for us! Can you not believe in the goodness and love of such a God and Savior, and put your faith in him just as the little girl trusted her loving father about the beads, only very much more so? God is so much more loving and good than any earthly father can be, that we ought to love him and believe in him. When he offers to forgive us our sins and save us from death, let us believe and trust him with all our hearts.

Perhaps not long ago sickness came to your home, to yourself or your brother or sister, or to father or mother. For some time you did not send for a physician. You neglected the sickness for days, or gave some little remedies yourselves -- pills or poultices or hot applications. But the loved one kept continually getting worse until, in alarm, you sent for a physician and told him what you had done, and you threw away your own medicines and put your case in the doctor's hands for a cure. That was faith in the doctor.

Dear boys and girls, our souls are all sick with the fearful malady of sin. The mistake we are all inclined to make is that we try to doctor ourselves. We take a little pill of shame over our bad behavior, and vainly think that will answer; but we soon learn that shame can not save us. At another time we apply the poultice of a good resolution, and vainly imagine for a time that we feel better; but we soon find that the old sin breaks out as bad as ever. Then we try the plaster of a written pledge to do better, or we put on the hot application of a very solemn confession and promise, and then, in spite of the resolutions and confessions and promises -- we sin worse than ever before. If we keep on in this way our souls will certainly be lost forever, for "The wages of sin is death."

But here stands Jesus the loving Physician of souls, who died "that we might not perish" (John 3:16). He says: "Come unto me" (Matt. 11:28). "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Rom. 10:13). Now if we treat Jesus as you treated the doctor, and call upon him in the prayer of faith: "O Lord Jesus, Savior of sinners, heal my soul, for I am sick; have mercy on me and forgive my many sins," he will not disappoint us. The blessed Savior will say to your heart: "Thy sins are forgiven. Thy faith hath saved thee. Go in peace" Luke 7:48, 50).

Suppose you had fallen into a river, with dark, deep, swift and turbulent waters. You have gone down and have come up again, and are almost drowned. A strong man runs to the bank and calls to you and throws you a rope. How quickly you would seize it in the faith that he would pull you out and save your life. Well, that is just like Jesus. We are perishing in the "deep waters of sin." All other hopes and helps are utterly worthless. But Jesus rushes to the rescue, and cries: "Look unto me and be ye saved" (Is. 45:22). Just as in faith you would seize the rope if drowning, so look in faith to Jesus: call upon him with all the earnestness of your heart; pray to him, asking him to pardon and cleanse your soul, and believing that lie will do it. He will not be untrue to his promise. He will pull you out of your guilt and sin to the rock of eternal safety.

Now you will notice about such a faith that:

1. It is natural and very easy for a child. The exercise of faith is not something very difficult and unnatural, which only mature people of many years can perform. Very little children exhibit the most wonderful faith that is ever seen in this world. Nothing seems to frighten them or give them any concern if they are in their mother's arms. The roar of the waves or waterfall, the rushing, puffing locomotive, the approach of fierce animals, the crash of the thunder only makes the babe nestle a little closer to the mother's bosom, as if there was absolute safety. Faith in a superior being is natural; for it smiles from the infant's cradle, and lives on through all the

rudest storms of life. We can believe in the care and saving love of Jesus, if we will. Even young children can do that.

2. I call you to notice that each of us who would be saved must have a faith of his own. It will not do for one of you boys or girls to think that you can get to heaven on the religion of your father, or the faith and prayers of your mother. In Gideon's camp every soldier had his own pitcher; among Solomon's men of valor every one wore his own sword; the five wise virgins had every one oil in their vessel with their lamp, and only those entered with the bridegroom. You might as well think to have your hunger appeased by the food which your father eats, or your thirst quenched by the water which our mother drinks as to expect to be saved by their religion and their faith in God. No, you children must all have your own personal faith in Jesus. That unites your life to him and brings his salvation into your heart.

Take this child's prayer upon your lips, and offer it with all your heart, and God will hear and answer you: "O God, be merciful to me for Jesus' sake. I have often sinned by disobedience, and unkind acts, and wicked words. I have not loved thy Word, and I have not loved thee, O Heavenly Father, as I should, and I have not loved thy dear Son who suffered for my sins as I ought. O Lord, blot out all my sins and give me a new heart, and help me to love thee and serve thee, for Jesus' sake. Amen!"

QUESTIONS

1. What is the favorite verse in the Bible?

2. What is the second condition of salvation?

3. What other two words explain faith?

4. How did Charles exercise faith when the house was on fire?

5. How did the lady exercise faith in her husband?

6. How did he exercise faith in God during the ocean storm?

7. How did the little girl show faith in her father?

8. Can we put a similar faith in the love and goodness of God?

9. How do you show faith in a doctor?

10. How do we show similar faith in Jesus?

11. How does one drowning in a river show faith?

12. Is faith natural to young children?

13. Must each child believe for himself?

Sing: "Only Trust Him." Also "My Faith Looks Up to Thee."

Chapter VII.

THE THIRD CONDITION OF SALVATION -- SURRENDER OF SELF TO GOD'S SERVICE

I will now tell the children about one more condition which must be complied with if they wish to be fully saved. We will call it surrender of self for service. Probably Moses was the greatest man that ever walked the earth and lived the nearest to God. He once said to Israel: "SERVE the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. . . Him shalt thou serve and to him shalt thou cleave" (Deut. 10:12, 20). Again he said: "Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall SERVE him, and cleave unto him." In the same spirit Joshua said: "Take diligent heed . . . to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul " (Dent. 22:5). Again he said: "Choose ye this day whom ye will SERVE" (Deut. 24:15). Samuel said: "Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart" (1 Sam. 12:24). David said: "Who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the Lord?" (1 Chron. 29:5).

All these passages show that God expects us to enter his service, if we choose to be his saved children.

Abraham devoted himself to serve the Lord when he heard God's call to leave his country and kindred, and the service of the idol gods of his fathers, and go out into a strange country wherever God might send him, there to live for God and to serve only Him. Abraham obeyed and went, and that submissive, willing devotion of himself to God was Abraham's service.

Sometimes, before Christ came to the world, people would want to do something for the service of God, and they brought a lamb or a heifer, or an ox to the temple, and gave them to the priests for their support. Thus they helped to keep up the temple service. They sometimes brought their rings and jewels and precious stones to help build or enrich the tabernacle or temples. Sometimes they had nothing to give but their labor. They then came and worked on the buildings that were being erected for the worship of God. In this way people were said to consecrate lambs and oxen and silver and precious stones and their time and toil to the Lord.

After Christ came, people began to know that God wanted them to bring not merely a sheep or an ox to the Lord's temple, but he wanted them to bring their own selves to the Lord himself So St. Paul wrote to the Romans: "I beseech you therefore by the mercies of the Lord that ye present your bodies [selves] to thee Lord, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

I want now to relate to you some stories which will make plain what it is to devote one's self to God's service.

A woman died in this town a few days ago, leaving four children, the oldest twelve years old, and the youngest, a baby boy, two years old. The woman's husband was a low drunkard who cared nothing about his wife and children. He took the money his poor sick wife had earned by washing, and had saved to buy medicine for herself, and spent it for drink. When she knew she was dying, the poor mother left her little baby boy to the care of his sister. The dear young girl accepted the precious trust. After the mother was buried. some kind-hearted people offered to take the oldest child and bring her up as their own. Others offered a home to the baby brother. But to every such offer the brave little girl returned one and the same answer: "Nobody shall ever take my baby brother from me; whoever gets one of us must take both of us; we shall not be separated." At last a lady was found in a far-distant state who takes both. And yesterday that noble young girl went off alone with the baby, to go to the far-distant home a thousand miles from here. What a wonderful example of devotion! The dear girl, with a depth of sister love unmeasured, has given her very life to the care of her little brother. Now if she has done all that for Jesus' sake, and out of love to Him, it will show that she is not only devoted to her brother but to Jesus also.

Dr. Hillis, of Chicago, tells us of a poor apple woman whose funeral the famous Dr. George MacDonald attended when he was working among the poor in London. "Her history makes the story of kings and queens contemptible. Events had appointed her to poverty, hunger, cold, and two rooms in a tenement. But there were three orphan boys sleeping in an ash box, whose lot was harder than hers. She dedicated her heart and life to the little waifs for Jesus' sake. During forty-two years she mothered and reared some twenty orphans; gave them home,

and bed, and food; taught them all she knew; helped some to obtain a scant knowledge of the trades; helped others off to Canada and America. She had misshapen features, but an exquisite smile was on hem dead face, for she had a beautiful soul. Poverty disfigured her garret and want made it wretched; nevertheless God's beautiful angels hovered over it. Like a broken vase the perfume of her being will sweeten literature and society a thousand years after we are gone." Now every child can understand what her consecration was. She first gave herself to Jesus. And then, because Jesus loved poor starving little orphans, she loved them, too, and sold apples and saved her pennies, and spent them, not on herself, but to buy food for the poor, hungry, starving boys and girls around her for whom Jesus died.

Another beautiful story will show what a life devoted to serving Jesus means. A God-fearing Scotch couple had a son, their only child living. From early childhood they devoted him to the Lord, seeking to impress his heart with the hove of Jesus. To their great delight he yielded in early youth to the call of the Gospel, and at length he offered himself for mission work among the natives of the west coast of Africa. While studying for this purpose his parents labored hard and denied themselves many comforts in order to support him at college, and when he left for the foreign field among savage heathen, his old mother spun harder than ever, so that by the sale of her thread she might help her son in this noble work for Jesus.

By and by her husband was taken home to the Father's house above, and though she well knew where he had gone she shed many tears. But a few weeks passed when another heavy grief had to be endured. Tidings came that her son had been drowned when he was crossing an African river while going to one of his preaching stations. Soon, however, she dried her weeping eves, and with humble cheerfulness remarked: "My son is nearer to me now in heaven than he was in Africa." For a considerable period she had managed to send him S50 a year to aid him in his work, and when he died she did not cease her labor for Jesus. "Now my son is gone," said the noble old woman, "my $50 shall go to some other servant of Jesus." What a beautiful example of consecration! The woman had given herself to Jesus, and then gave her boy to be a missionary, and then gave her earnings -- $50 a year. And when both her husband and son had been taken home to God, she still toiled and saved for Jesus' dear sake, and for the salvation of those for whom He died.

All these stories I have related about the consecration of people who were humble and poor. Many ears ago a lad of sixteen left home to seek his fortune. As he trudged along toward New York he met an old neighbor, the captain of a canal boat, and the following conversation took place, which changed the current of the boy's life: "Well, William, where are you going?" "I don't know," he answered; "father is too poor to keep me at home any longer, and says I must now make a living for myself." "There is no trouble about that," said the captain. "Be sure that you start right, and you will get along finely." William told his friend that the only trade he knew anything about was soap and candle making, at which he had helped his father at home. "Well," said the old man, "let me pray with you once more and give you a little advice, and then I will let you go." They both kneeled down upon the towpath; the dear old man prayed earnestly for William, and then gave this advice: "Some one will soon be the leading soap-maker in New York. It may as well be you as anybody. I hope it may. Be a good man; give your heart to Christ; give the Lord all that belongs to him of every dollar you earn; make an honest soap; give a full pound, and I am certain you will yet be a prosperous and rich man."

When the boy arrived in the city he found it hard to get work. Lonesome and far from home, he remembered his mother's words, and the prayer and charge of tine canal-boat captain. He gave his heart to God, and thins "sought first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and then he joined the church. The first dollar he earned brought up the question of he Lord's part. In the Bible he found that the Jew gave one-tenth, and he gave ten cents of his first dollar, and of every dollar, as sacred to the Lord.

He was industrious, and soon became partner, and then sole proprietor, and instructed his book-keeper to open an account with the Lord, and carry one-tenth of all his income to that account. He prospered; his business grew; his family was blessed; his soap sold, and he grew rich -- faster than he had ever hoped. He then gave the Lord two-tenths, an-id prospered more than ever. Then he gave three-tenths, then four-tenths, then five-tenths, He educated his family, settled all his plans for life, and then gave all his income to God, and prospered more than ever."

This is the story of William Colgate, who founded Colgate University, gave millions of dollars to the Lord's cause, and left a name that will never die. I never see a piece of Colgate soap but I think of that poor boy praying on the tow-path of the canal, and afterward in his lonely room in the city giving his heart to God, and consecrating his life to the Master's service. What a consecrated and holy life he lived, and how endless will be his influence for good! He lived to serve Christ and bless others for Jesus' sake. That is serving Jesus.

The great Earl of Shaftsbury was another man who served Jesus. When a little child he was cruelly neglected by his parents and deserted to the care of servants. But during the first seven years of his life one of the servants was a kind-hearted woman, and a devout Christian. She taught the child to love Jesus, and developed in him a desire to serve his Savior by being helpful to his fellow creatures. She taught him a prayer which the great Earl never forgot to repeat daily throughout his long and busy life. He was accustomed to say that that prayer had been of much more value to him than all the religious teaching of later years. When this good woman died she left him her little watch, and to his dying day the Earl would wear no other, saying: "It was left to me by the best friend Lever had." When this nobleman became a man, the blessedness of an unselfish life entranced him. He entered Parliament at twenty-five years of age, and devoted his life to the service of the poor, oppressed, abandoned and degraded. He was filled with Christ-like pity for the toiling, cruelly-treated masses, -- children walking twenty-five miles a day in attending the machinery in the factories, and women condemned to fifteen hours of slavish toil daily with no hope for the future. He exposed himself to obloquy and hatred to secure laws for their protection. He organized ragged schools, wept over the hunger and want of the pupils, then fed them from his own house. They were dying of cold and hunger and the imperial waste of London, and he blessed them with his personal help. He organized and cared for the boot-blacks who were called "Shaftsbury's Brigades." All the thieves and fallen and friendless in London loved him and stood ready to protect him. His plans were jeered at as " hobbies" by the selfish. aristocrats. Sensitive to ridicule, he once wrote in his diary: "The Lord can not keel) people from calling me a fool; but he can keep me from being a fool." Shaftsbury was one of the saints of the Most High -- a man of faith and prayer and battles. Wherever there was a wrong to be righted, or suffering to be relieved, he was at the front -- a brave, consecrated, Christ-like soul. When he died, Farrar wrote: "For departed kings there are appointed honors, and the wealthy have their gorgeous obsequies. It was Shaftsbury's noble fortune to clothe a nation with spontaneous mourning, and to go down .to the grave followed by the benedictions of the poor. Probably Westminster Abbey never presented an aspect so dear to the angels, and the King of angels, as when the representatives of the sick, the suffering and the destitute, -- the alleviators of every kind of misery, were gathered under its high embowed roof to witness the funeral in Lord Shaftbury's honor."

We have now seen what serving Jesus means. But some one will ask:

II. Why must one be thus devoted to God in order to be saved? The answer is very plain and simple. When a boy is saved, he is not only saved from something, but he is also saved to something and for something. He is saved from a life of sin and its consequences to a life of holiness. He is saved from the service of Satan to the service of Jesus for the good of humanity. A king could not forgive and pardon a rebel, who was still in rebellion, and determined to continue fighting against his government and throne. .

Now our God is king of the universe, and he can not pardon and save us while we are still hating him and his cause and industriously serving Satan by wicked lives. So every boy or girl or man or woman who wishes to be saved must offer himself to the service of God.

III. You will notice that God has a right to you. He first created you, and gave you all your faculties and powers, everything that makes you what you are. He made you for his glory, and your own highest good; that gives him a right to your service.

But further; he has preserved your life from a thousand ills, and ten thousand perils, given you every breath you ever breathed, and every mouthful you ever ate, and your parents and home and every blessing you ever enjoyed. That gives him a second claim to your service. And then he loved you enough to die for you that he might save your poor soul from sin and death. So you see God has three claims upon you for love and obedience and service. And it becomes utterly impossible for him to save your soul if you continue to wickedly disregard these claims and refuse to devote your hives to his service.

IV. You will see that to be saved and become genuine Christians you must surrender your all. In ancient history we are told that the people of Collatia surrendered to the authority and protection of Rome. The question was asked them: "Do you deliver up yourselves, the Collatin people, your city, your fields, your water, your bonds, your temples, your homes, all things that are yours into the hands of the people of Rome?" And on their replying, "We deliver up all," they were received. This is a beautiful illustration of the consecration every child should make who would be saved. If you feel the wickedness of your sin, and your guilt and danger; if your soul is burdened, and you want rest, and the loving smile of Jesus, then by repentance turn away from sin, and go in faith to the Savior, and say from the heart:--

"Lord, I make a full surrender,

Every power and thought be thine;

Thine entirely, through eternal ages thine."

Let Frances Ridley's Havergal's hymn be your prayer:

"Take my life and let it be,

Consecrated, Lord, to thee;

Take my hands, and let them move,

At the impulse of thy love.

"Take my feet, and let them be

Swift and beautiful for thee;

Take my voice, and let me sing

Always, only, for my King.

"Take my silver and my gold,

Not a mite would I withhold;

Take my moments and my days,

Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

"Take my will and make it thine,

It shall be no longer mine;

Take my heart, it is thine own,

It shall be thy royal throne.

"Take my love; my Lord, I pour

At thy feet its treasure-store;

Take myself, and I will be

Ever, only, all for thee."

QUESTIONS

1. What is the third condition of salvation?

2. What is devoting one's self to God's service?

3. What did people bring God in olden times?

4. What does God want now?

5. What kind of a consecration did the girl make?

6. What did the apple-woman in London do?

7. What did the Scotch couple give to God?

8. What did William Colgate do?

9. And the Earl of Shaftsbury?

10. Why must one be thus devoted to God?

11. Why has God a right to us?

12. Must you give everything to God's service?

Sing: "Come, Sinners, Come." Also, "Take My Life and Let It Be."

Chapter VIII.

COMING TO CHRIST

The children have now been told why God wants them to come to him and be saved; They -- no, you -- have also been shown the way, how to come to Christ. The last three chapters have made it plain to you that you must (1) Repent of sin; (2) Take Jesus by faith as your Savior; (3) Surrender yourself to his service.

In thus chapter God lovingly invites you to come. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely" Rev. 22:17). The Holy Spirit of God, and the church on earth and in heaven invite you to come to Jesus and be saved. They want you to come now, today, this very hour, and have your sins pardoned, and your heart renewed. "Behold now is the acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2). "Today if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts" (Heb. 3:7-8). Jesus wants every boy and girl this very day to forsake every evil way and come to him and be saved. Why should you not love and trust such a Savior? Think what he has done for you and me! Jesus left all the glory of an eternal heaven, and the companionship of the Father and the holy angels, and came down to this world to be a child of suffering and want, to be persecuted and hated and despised, and at last to be arrested, and whipped till his back was gashed and bleeding. They pressed a crown of thorns down upon his beautiful head, and struck him and spit in his face, and mocked him, and at last led him out of the city and nailed him to a cross, and hung him up to die in awful agony. Jesus endured it all for you and me, that he might redeem us from sin and save our poor souls. After all that shall we not love him? Shall we not cease to grieve him by our wicked sins?

One night a father and his little son were being pulled out of a deep coal mine, and, when near the top, the rope began slowly to untwist, and one after another of the strands broke. The father saw that if they both staid in the bucket they would be killed, and so he quickly turned to his little son, and hurriedly said: "I am not afraid to die, for I have Jesus and he will not let me be lost. To save you I will jump out. I may not be killed; but if I am Jesus will take me to heaven; but you, I fear, would be lost, for you have not given your heart to Jesus. Jesus has given himself a ransom to save me from a more dreadful pit than this. Trust in Jesus and he will save you, too. Meet me in heaven." With these words upon his lips he sprang out of the bucket and was dashed in pieces. His boy was soon safely landed above. How do you think he felt? Could he soon forget and cease to love a father who had died for him? And if he had been ashamed of that father, and had ceased to love him and be grateful, would you not all say that he was a very wicked and mean boy? That is the way we all ought to feel if we do not love and trust and obey Jesus. A boy was listening to a minister as he told what